Joseph Kerman
MOZART AS DRAMATIST
(On the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth)
The dramatic potential and accomplishment of opera are
hardly appreciated today. While the traditional ideal of
dramma per
musica
continues to animate many good composers and many intel·
lectuals, it does not much interest the intelligent theater-going public.
Mainly, I believe, because so many worthless, undramatic works are
presented on exactly the same plane as the greatest masterpieces, to
the same applause by the connoisseurs, and with the same critical
sanction. Nine-tenths of the current repertory may be
Kitsch;
but
this should not be allowed to mask the genuine art. Or as H. D.
~.
Kitto has put it, "It would be possible to exhume hundreds of operas
quite devoid of drama, but though they may be easily in the majority,
they do not prove that Opera is undramatic. The best operas
are
dramatic; the failures are no evidence at all." Further misunderstand–
ing comes from the parochialism inherent in many people's opinion
of what constitutes the dramatic. A broad imaginative view (such as
may be natural to the student of Aeschylus) is necessary to compre–
hend opera, or for that matter any other highly conventionalized
dramatic form. Musical drama will not indeed submit to the principles
of the modern naturalistic theater.
But for all the confusion, there is one reassurance: Mozartian
comedy. Mozart, we feel, is a genuine dramatist, even if the other
great opera composers seem to fall short. To an extent, perhaps, this
feeling
is
only an extension of our general devotion to Mozart–
a strong, rather remarkable feature of contemporary taste, uniting
musicians and amateurs of the most diverse tendencies.
It
is
now two
hundred years since he was born; one wonders whether any striking
new evaluation will emerge from the mass of festivals, appreciations,
