Did an emperor really tell Mozart his opera had too many notes?
The famous story says Joseph II heard Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio and complained of too many notes, and Mozart shot back that there were exactly as many as needed. Not every scholar believes it happened, and the emperor's German words are closer to an enormous number of notes, said alongside praise for its beauty.
Mozart arrived in Vienna in 1781, aged 25 and hunting for work. He courted Gottlieb Stephanie, inspector of Joseph II's company for German-language opera, showing him his unfinished Zaide, and impressed the theatre manager by playing excerpts from Idomeneo. Stephanie produced a libretto by reworking Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's play without credit or permission, and Bretzner later protested the theft loudly.
Mozart got the text on 29 July 1781 and wrote three major numbers in two days, expecting a September premiere for a visiting Russian grand duke. When Gluck's operas were chosen instead, he gained time and began demanding rewrites, even asking for a new plot so a quintet could close act two. In a letter to his father he declared that poetry in opera must be the obedient daughter of the music, and praised Stephanie for writing exactly what he wanted.
The work is a Singspiel, with spoken dialogue instead of recitative, and a light comedy about the hero Belmonte trying to rescue his beloved Konstanze from a pasha's palace. It plays on Viennese fascination with the Ottoman world, adding cymbals, triangle and bass drum to imitate Janissary bands, yet ends with the pasha's generous act of forgiveness. Mozart tailored arias to his singers: the bass Ludwig Fischer's part twice drops to a low D, and Konstanze's showpiece was shaped to Caterina Cavalieri's flexible voice.
The premiere, which Mozart conducted at Vienna's Burgtheater on 16 July 1782, was a triumph, and the first two nights brought in 1200 florins. Mozart, paid a flat fee of about 450 florins, saw none of it. Goethe grumbled that the piece swept everything else aside.
Source: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
