Search - Florian Boesch, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Nikolaus Harnoncourt :: Mozart: Zaide

Of all Mozart's unfinished works, Zaide is perhaps the most frustrating. Begun in Salzburg in 1779 without commission or prospects for performance, laid aside without an overture or a finale while Mozart completed Idomeneo, it was superseded by Die Entführung aus dem Serail, based on the same fanciful, exotic subject: European captives in a Turkish harem. The libretto by Mozart's friend Schachtner, on a Voltaire play and a German "Operetta" by one Sebastiani with music by Michael Haydn, followed the Singspiel tradition with spoken dialogue that carried the action; Mozart found this too long, although he liked the libretto. Schachtner's text has been lost, so the story must be surmised from the verses Mozart composed, leaving adapters and directors free to devise their own interpretations. Some claim that for Mozart, the last complete scene was indeed the end, though this seems untenable, being musically inconclusive and dramatically blood-thirsty, the exact opposite of the magnanimous consummation of Entführung. Some, drawing on Sebastiani, propose a surprise "happy end," improbable but closer to Mozart's predilection for ultimate forgiveness. This recording adds an interminable "up-dated" text with a pretentious epilogue by the narrator, Tobias Moretti; you wonder what Mozart would have said. However, the music is so masterfully composed and orchestrated, so beautiful and moving that the heart aches at what has been lost. There are tantalizing echoes and intimations of other works, past and future (name that tune!), and also two unique scenes called "Melologos": spoken words punctuated and underlined by the orchestra with riveting emotional affect. The second one melts into an aria, much like the accompanied recitatives in Idomeneo. The singers understandably show some strain in handling their extraordinarily difficult parts; soprano Diana Damrau stands out. The orchestra is good, but the (unidentified) Prelude is fast and aggressive. --Edith Eisler