Apollo et Hyacinthus

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Work data
Title: Apollo and Hyacinth
Original language: Latin
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto : Rufinus Widl
Premiere: May 13, 1767
Place of premiere: Auditorium of the University of Salzburg
Playing time: approx. 1 ½ hours
people
  • Apollo, a young god ( boyhood )
  • Oebalus (Oebal), King of Lacedämonia ( tenor )
  • Melia, his daughter ( boy soprano )
  • Hyacinthus (Hyacinth), his son ( boy soprano )
  • Zephyrus, friend of Hyacinthus (boyhood)
  • Two priests ( bass )

Apollo and Hyacinth ( KV 38), also Apollo et Hyacinthus seu Hyacinthi Metamorphosis in Latinized form, is the posthumous title of the second stage work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . The libretto (in Latin ) comes from Rufinus Widl . The first performance took place on May 13, 1767 in the auditorium of the University of Salzburg .

The work has a performance time of approx. 90 minutes, consists of three acts and consists of the overture , nine musical numbers (a choir , five arias , two duets and a trio ) and recitatives .

The orchestra consists of two oboes , two horns , strings and a basso continuo group.

action

During a sacrifice in the Temple of Apollo, lightning suddenly destroys the altar. Apollo himself appears and asks King Oebalus to join his kingdom. When he meets Melia, the king's daughter, they both fall in love. But since Apollo also seeks friendship with Hyacinthus , the king's son, he quickly attracts the jealousy of his friend Zephyrus , who is also in love with Melia.

Finally, during a discussion game, Hyacinthus is deliberately seriously injured by Zephyrus. The jealous Zephyrus, however, claims to Oebalus and Melia that Apollo gave Hyacinthus the deadly litter. So he hopes Melia will lose her love for Apollo and find her way back to him.

But Apollo is a god after all and can therefore, when he confronts Zephyrus, turn him into a wind and let him blow away. Melia is understandably deeply shaken by the murder of her brother and brusquely rejects Apollo, whom she believes to be her brother's murderer.

The dying Hyacinthus finally reveals to his father that it was not Apollo but Zephyrus who hit him with the discus. Apollo transforms the dead Hyacinthus into a sea of ​​flowers of hyacinths and can finally win back Melia's love. At the end of the day, both receive their father's blessing that they will soon be married.

Emergence

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was commissioned to write this composition, he was eleven years old. The University of Salzburg , had at the end of the school year, the show set a school play, as every year. The author of the work was the Benedictine priest and professor Rufinus Widl, who wrote Apollo and Hyacinthus for his verse drama Clementia Croesi , also in Latin, for his verse drama Clementia Croesi , which was written in Latin. In accordance with the practice of the Salzburg Latin university drama, the drama deals with material with a related content, which also deals with the problem of someone who has become “innocently guilty” and the question of guilt, vengeance and forgiveness. Widl used the histories of Herodotus (1.34–45) as a template for the drama . The full text of the Latin drama and the libretto plus an English translation was published in 2009.

Differences in content to the Hyakinthos legend

The love between Apollo and the beautiful Hyakinthos is changed into a friendship in Widl's libretto. In the saga, Zephyrus embodies the west wind as the wind deity, and the accident when throwing a disc is based in the original Hyakinthos saga on his jealousy of Apollo, since Zephyrus is also in love with Hyakinthos. Furthermore, the blood that flows from Hyakinthos' wound, soaks the ground and causes hyacinths to sprout, is passed down as the origin of the flowers.

Title and generic name

Apollo and Hyacinth does not have a title either in the autograph or in Leopold Mozart's 1768 "Directory". It was only Mozart's sister who added it to Leopold Mozart's “Directory” in 1799, where the piece was actually only labeled “A music for a Latin comedy […]. From 5 singing person. ”[Sic] is listed. From the form of the first performance, the work is usually referred to as an intermedium rather than an opera. This designation is also posthumous. In stage practice, however, the work is perceived as an opera, since it is almost always performed alone, without the text for Clementia Croesi .

literature

  • Arnold Werner-Jensen: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Music Guide Volume 2: Vocal Music. Reclam, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-379-20023-9 .
  • Thomas Lederer: The clemency of Rufinus Widl: Text and context of WA Mozart's first opera. In: Humanistica Lovaniensia . No. 58, 2009, pp. 217–373 (text edition and English translation).

Web links