Bastien and Bastienne

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Work data
Title: Bastien and Bastienne
Original language: German
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto : Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern ,
Johann Heinrich Müller ,
Johann Andreas Schachtner
Premiere: 1768 (probably)
Place of premiere: Rothmühle Castle in Schwechat near Vienna or Palais Mesmer in Wien-Landstrasse (presumably)
Playing time: Around 1 hour
Place and time of the action: A village for an indefinite period
people

Bastien and Bastienne , KV 50 (46 b), is one of the earliest Singspiele by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . The work was supposedly commissioned by the Viennese doctor Franz Anton Mesmer and was written in 1767/68 when Mozart was 12 years old. There is no scientifically reliable evidence for a world premiere in Palais Mesmer in Vienna or in Mesmer's Rothmühle Castle in Schwechat near Vienna. The first demonstrable performance is the one on October 2, 1890 in the architect's house in Berlin. Leopold Mozart called the work Operetta , for the librettist, the Viennese actor Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern , it was “a French opera comique ”. This genre as well as the shepherd theme were in fashion at the time.

Shape and origin

The Singspiel in one act in German uses two-part arias that dispense with virtuoso coloratura , such as the Italian opera with its da capo arias at that time, and contains many spoken dialogues in the style of the French opéra comique . The names in the title "Bastien" and "Bastienne" point to the French origins of the Mozart libretto, with the French version having the third protagonist Colas in the center at its premiere (Paris 1752) : Le devin du village (German: The village fortune teller ) , written and composed by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Rousseau had written the piece on the current occasion in the Paris Buffonist dispute between French and Italian opera styles.

Libretto and two different French originals

The text set to music by Mozart and composed by himself comes mainly from the Viennese theater man Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern as well as passages by Johann Heinrich Müller and the friend of the Mozart family Johann Andreas Schachtner. The text is mainly based on the translation of the popular adaptation of Marie Justine Benoîte Favart's Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne , which is a parody of Rousseau's one-act intermède Le devin du village , which was successful in European opera houses until the 19th century in Vienna.

The parody of Rousseau's naive opera, which was also released with lasting success in the Paris Comédie-Italienne in 1753, carried its sentimental tone into the popular genre of opera parody (also through the fair theaters ). Justine Favart succeeded in increasing the expressive content through a skilful choice of melodies and a realistic, rural text design in a stage dialect modeled on the northern French patois, for example when Bastienne makes fun of the advice of the fortune teller that she, as an abandoned lover, gives her repentant admirer the cold shoulder should show. Such comedy is less noticeable in Mozart's German version. The harmless, touching plot in his composition corresponded to the rococo zeitgeist , the need for simplicity and naturalness.

Autograph score

Mozart's original score in the former Prussian State Library in Berlin was lost after the Second World War , until it was found in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow . She could not use the New Mozart Edition in the 1970s, but used the copy based on Mozart's handwriting by the Mozart researcher Otto Jahn .

Orchestral line-up

According to the New Mozart Edition , the orchestra provides the following instruments:

action

The shepherdess Bastienne from the village is heartbroken because she fears that her beloved Bastien has left her because of a lady from the castle. In the pasture she meets the village fortune teller Colas, whom she asks for advice in her grief. The sly Colas advises her to behave "like the ladies in the city", namely, to behave indifferently towards Bastien and, moreover, to adopt a "cheerful nature".

A short time later, Bastien also runs into the magician, whom he admires for his “wise teaching”, in which he removes (“divides”) the “shadow of doubt”. He informs him that he would like to marry his lover Bastienne soon. The clever village fortune teller tells him, however, that she has already fallen in love with someone else and that the "grape harvest" is over for him. Bastien can’t believe it and finally asks Colas for advice on how to get his Bastienne back. Colas questions his magic book, singing a dramatic aria in C minor with a mixture of senseless Italian and Latin word syllables, which makes a great impression on the gullible Bastien. He believes in witchcraft and is afraid. Colas gives him hope, but advises him to be more careful about his luck in the future. With the stanza aria of my dearest beautiful cheeks in “Tempo di Menetto” (fifth appearance), a point of calm emerges in the piece.

The following scenes (6th and 7th appearance) with duets and the three-part final passages form the second main part of the story in terms of length, in which Mozart compositionally with formal variants e.g. B. Change of tempo (Adagio maestoso / Allegro / Grazioso un poco allegretto) creates tension. When Bastien met Bastienne, she gave him the cold shoulder and bragged about admirers from the city. He gets beside himself with jealousy, conjures “knife, dagger and rope” and threatens to “run into the stream to drown himself”, wishing him “good luck with the cold bath”. Ultimately, however, Bastien says he is “not a good swimmer” and gives up this idea. The gradual confusion and reconciliation takes place on the basis of dramatic, musical and spoken dialogues and has its climax in the recitativo accompagnato "Your defiance increases through my suffering?" Bastiens. They brag about their love affairs from the city. When Bastien reminds Bastienne of the wonderful time they had together and confesses his love to her, he can finally touch her. The two hug and thank Colas for helping them reunite through his "magical power". The finale unites the three protagonists in a three-part song of joy.

literature

  • Bastien and Bastienne, Singspiel in one act. Libretto: Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern, Johann HF Müller and Johann Andreas Schachtner. KV 50 (46 b). Piano reduction based on the Urtext of the New Mozart Edition, Bärenreiter Kassel etc. 2013. Foreword by Rudolph Angermüller 2001 ISMN 979-0-006-50490-9.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The ten-volume edition of the work by the Favart couple appeared in the years 1763–1772 by the Paris publishing house Duchesne, in it is the complete volume 5, in which Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne is - as parodie du Devin de village (1753) - expressly the work Dedicated to Justine Favarts.
  2. ↑ See text of the score in: Hugo Blank: Rousseau - Favart - Mozart. Six variations on a libretto in: (Hans-Joachim Lope (Hrsg.): Studies and documents for the history of Romanic literatures , vol. 38. Peter Lang, European publishing house of the sciences, Frankfurt a. M. etc. 1999, ISBN 3- 631-35308-1 ), p. 231 ff.
  3. ↑ See Hugo Blank 1999.
  4. ↑ See the critical report of the New Mozart Edition (web links).
  5. ^ NMA II / 5/3: Bastien and Bastienne. Sheet music edition. Angermüller, 1974, p. 2.
  6. ↑ Mozart. Bärenreiter Urtext. Bastien and Bastienne . Piano reduction p. 40, in No. 8 (aria).