Der Schauspieldirektor

• 1. Introduction

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  Der Schauspieldirektor opened not in a public opera house but in a private room at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, on the 7th of February 1786, performed at the command of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II for eighty invited guests. Mozart called it "comedy with music". It was his entry in a live musical competition staged in the same hall against a rival Italian opera by Antonio Salieri. Two ensembles performed, one at each end of the room, and the Emperor decided who had won. What draws listeners back to this slender, half-spoken work is the question at its heart: what happens when two sopranos fight over who is the greatest, and both refuse to lose?

• 2. A Competition at the Palace

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  Joseph II set the terms of the contest himself, placing Mozart's German singspiel against Salieri's opera buffa, Prima la musica e poi le parole, meaning First the Music, then the Words. The two works performed simultaneously in the same palace gallery, each occupying one end of the room. The libretto for Mozart's entry was written by Gottlieb Stephanie, himself an Austrian theatre director, whose name appears in a curious footnote: Stephanie also played the speaking role of Frank, the impresario, at the premiere. Four days after the palace performance, on the 11th of February, the piece transferred to the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna for the first of three public performances.

• 3. A Parody on Vanity

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  The plot is a thinly veiled joke about the opera world itself. Frank the impresario auditions two sopranos for his new theatrical company and hires both of them. The trouble begins immediately: each woman demands the prime role and the larger salary. Madame Herz sings her aria "Da schlägt die Abschiedsstunde" to prove her worth, while Mademoiselle Silberklang counters with the elegant rondo "Bester Jüngling". The deadlock breaks only when the tenor Vogelsang steps in, and the three of them share a trio that Julian Rushton describes as hilarious. Its title, "Ich bin die erste Sängerin", translates as I am the prima donna, and the compromise reached leaves each singer with large salaries and star billing. The quartet that closes the work carries the title "Jeder Kunstler strebt nach Ehre" - Every artist strives for glory.

• 4. Music Inside the Farce

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  Despite the comic frame, Mozart did not coast on easy jokes. The score contains only four vocal numbers, with roughly thirty minutes of music surrounded by spoken dialogue, which was typical for singspiel of the era. Erik Smith noted that one highlight is where each soprano attempts to outdo her rival using ever higher notes, a rising vocal duel that doubles as satire. Yet Mozart embedded within that comic setup a genuinely serious aria for Madame Herz and an elegant rondo for Silberklang. The work was written during the same creative surge that produced Le nozze di Figaro, three piano concertos, and what Mozart described as another dozen major works, all within a single period of his career.

• 5. A Traveling Stage History

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  The opera took decades to travel beyond Austria. Its first United Kingdom performance came on the 30th of May 1857, at the St James's Theatre in London. The United States premiere followed on the 9th of November 1870, at the Stadt Theatre in New York. By the twentieth century, companies began rewriting the spoken text entirely to suit contemporary audiences. The Bronx Opera staged the work in 1972, returned to it in 2008, and presented a video version via Zoom in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2014 Santa Fe Opera production placed the action in 1920s Paris, with English dialogue by the British dramatist Ranjit Bolt, and wove additional Mozart concert arias into the score. That production cast Anthony Michaels-Moore, Brenda Rae, Meredith Arwady, and Erin Morley.

• 6. On Record

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  The 1966 recording by the English Chamber Orchestra under Andre Previn came with an English libretto written by Previn's then wife Dory Previn, who moved the story to the twentieth century. Leo McKern played the impresario on that release. A 1968 Berlin Classics recording by the Kammerorchester Berlin under Helmut Koch is notable for capturing all ten scenes, including the spoken passages, and later appeared in Brilliant Classics' complete Mozart edition. Subsequent recordings brought together casts including Edita Gruberova and Kiri Te Kanawa under John Pritchard with the Vienna Philharmonic, and Peter Schreier appearing in two separate recordings years apart. The autograph manuscript itself sits in the Morgan Library and Museum, a physical trace of the commission that began with an imperial lunch.