The music between the courses

A programme of familiar names

The restaurant and the organiser name the same four works: three operas and one serenade. They are among Mozart's most performed pieces, which is why the programme suits a dinner. You do not need to know them. The organiser does not publish a running order, so book for the shape of the evening: dinner and music in turn, with Mozart's best-known numbers as the material.

The Marriage of Figaro

An Italian comic opera in four acts, first performed on 1 May 1786 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the libretto from Beaumarchais's 1784 stage comedy. It is a comedy of servants and their employers, and its arias and duets are short enough to fit between courses. Wikipedia's article says the play was the basis of the libretto and that the opera is an opera buffa, a comic form.

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni had its first performance on 29 October 1787 in Prague, at the theatre that is now the Estates Theatre, with another libretto by Da Ponte, in Italian. Wikipedia calls it a dramma giocoso, a mix of comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements, though Mozart himself catalogued it as an opera buffa. At a dinner concert you hear single arias and duets from it rather than the plot, so a one-line summary of the story is all the preparation you need.

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is a Singspiel in German, with spoken dialogue between its songs, to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. Schikaneder's Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna staged the first performance on 30 September 1791, with Mozart conducting. It is the one opera on the programme sung in German, which is the language of the town where the dinner is held. Wikipedia's article describes the Singspiel as a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

The serenade, catalogued as K. 525, was completed in Vienna on 10 August 1787. It is written for two violins, viola, cello and double bass. Wikipedia notes that nobody knows why he composed it or whether it was performed in his lifetime. Four movements survive, though Mozart's own catalogue lists five, and the missing one is believed lost.

Italian, German and strings

The three works use two languages and one instrumental format. Figaro and Don Giovanni are in Italian, The Magic Flute is in German, and the serenade has no words at all. The singers at the dinner concert are opera singers and the players are an instrumental ensemble in costume. If you read a short plot summary of each opera on the evening before, the arias will make sense at once, whatever language they are sung in.

How to listen at the table

Read a one-line summary of each opera before you go and you will follow the arias at once. The singers and the Amadeus Consort Salzburg perform in period costume between the courses, so there is no pause to read a programme. If you want the dates behind the music, the guide to Mozart and Salzburg sets them out in order.

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