Infallible(?)

Some months ago, I for the first time sat down to listen to Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (the Böhm DG recording), an opera (Singspiel) I'd decided I'd put off listening to for far too long. I'd expected to merely tolerate it as an entire work as I had several of Mozart's other earlier operas, but found myself thoroughly enchanted by it — or rather by Mozart's music as Die Entführung's story and plot are quite silly, and the whole thing ridiculous as drama; more so than even your typical Italian opera, which is the principal reason I'd put off listening to the work for so long.

What stuck me most as I was listening through the work for the first time was how dramatically right and character-forming was Mozart's music; so much so that it almost made Die Entführung seem, at least for the nonce, not all that silly or ridiculous after all. That dramatic rightness, and the character-forming capacity, of Mozart's music are, of course, hallmarks of the opera music of the mature Mozart, but I didn't expect to encounter them so well developed in such an early work.

And then, as I was silently remarking all this to myself, began the instrumental introduction to the aria, "Martern aller Arten," which introduction I knew would have to be extremely brief because of what had provoked the aria dramatically; viz., the heroine, Konstanze, has just been informed by Selim the Pasha (who has the hots for Konstanze who is his prisoner) that unless she forsakes her love for Belmonte her lover, and yields to Selim's intimate demands, not death, but torture of every kind will be her fate, and "Martern aller Arten" is to be Konstanze's defiant answer to that threat.

Well, the introduction, lovely in itself, was not only not extremely brief, but went on ... and on, and on. Two whole minutes worth of on, as a matter of fact — a completely self-contained concertante sinfonia — before Konstanze gets to utter her first note. And as if that weren't bad enough from a dramatic standpoint, for two whole minutes (which must seem like an eternity in the theater) Konstanze and the Pasha have to stand there doing...What?

Impossible.

I, for a moment, was certain that somehow the audio engineers had really screwed the pooch, and had by weird accident cut in something from the tape of another work. But, no; no accident. That concertante sinfonia really is Mozart's introduction to this bravura aria. Had it been written by any other composer of the time I wouldn't have hesitated to declare it a colossal blunder. But even dead drunk and high on coke, Mozart, in my view, would simply have been incapable of such a blunder. What could he have been thinking?

After a week of researching and arguing the question — by and with myself, and with others who knew this work — I could only conclude that (to quote myself from a lengthy and often heated on-line exchange)

the source of that [blunder] was simply Mozart carrying to an extreme with this aria his confessed (in a letter to his father) tactic of "sacrific[ing] Konstanze's [first act] aria ... to the flexible throat of Mlle. Cavalieri [Caterina Cavalieri, at the time the most gifted coloratura in Vienna]" by composing Act II's "Martern aller Arten" as a grand, opera seria "heroic aria" (aria bravura) the only purpose of the introduction to which was to provide a formally correct and weighty opening for the aria proper, whose principal purpose was to put on display and demonstrate Mlle. Cavalieri's virtuosic capabilities, and everything else take the hindmost, the dramatic integrity and appropriateness of the piece to its dramatic context being the first thing disregarded. With its two-minute introduction, "Martern aller Arten" is the only aria in the whole of Die Entführung to disregard that dramatic context.

IOW, Mozart was aware he was sacrificing the aria. He simply got carried away with it in the process and went overboard, but knew the audience would eat it up, and that was always a big consideration with Mozart, and especially so in this case. Mozart was only 25 at the time, and Die Entführung was his first major commission after moving to Vienna as well as his first-ever opera there, and the very best singers of the time, with whom he was mightily impressed, were made available to him for the project. All of which, I suppose, was reason sufficient to get carried away — even for a Mozart.

The only problem, of course, was (and remains today) that I could find no corroborating evidence for my conjecture, which was pooh-poohed by my opposition on this question, all of whom felt the aria with its introduction was just dandy as is, the problem being not a blunder by Mozart, but our modern expectations of opera; ones which were not the expectations of Mozart's contemporary audience. I acknowledged the truth of that last, and had said as much myself concerning Mozart's audience, but at the same time I insisted (and continue to insist) that even though Mozart's audience wouldn't have thought anything amiss with that sinfonia introduction, Mozart surely would have, even as he was writing it.

Or was (am) I merely flailingly attempting to preserve for myself my self-drawn notion of Mozart's infallibility in such matters?

Only one person knows for certain, and he died 213 years ago.