[Mozart And The Enlightenment] [Author: Nicholas, Till] [February, 1996]

by Nicholas Till

“An erudite mix of music, history, philosophy, biography, sociology and even depth psychology―adding up to a triumphant study of Mozart’s supreme masterworks. . . . Few books provide such a satisfying exploration of the thoughts and feelings from which great art is born. . . . A feast for the intellectually adventurous.” ― Kirkus Reviews In this fascinating study of Mozart's operas, Nicholas Till shows that the composer was not a "divine idiot" but an artist whose work was informed by the ideas and discoveries of the Enlightenment. Examining the dramatic emergence of a modern society in eighteenth-century Austria, the author draws on such famous writers and thinkers of the time as Richardson, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, and Blake to reappraise the history and meaning of the Enlightenment and of Mozart's role within it. He evokes for us the Vienna of the 1780s, a world of intense intellectual argument, political debate, and religious inquiry, which deeply influenced the philosophical content of Mozart's operas. From the early La Finta Giardiniera, based on Richardson's Pamela, to Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, designed to support the political aims of Emperor Joseph II; from Le nozze di Figaro, a profound exploration of marriage as a human and social institution, to the post-Enlightenment Zauberflote, the operas bear witness to the era's changing views and to Mozart's own quest for personal and artistic identity.

Genres: Music, History, Biography, Nonfiction, Philosophy

Paperback

First published March 9, 1992

About the author

I am a historian, theorist and practitioner working in opera, music theatre and related cross-disciplinary arts.

I studied History and Art History at Cambridge (BA/MA), and then worked professionally in theatre for fifteen years. I was awarded a doctorate in music by the University of Surrey in 1999 for my book Mozart and the Enlightenment (1992). In 2004 I joined the Music Department at Sussex from Wimbledon School of Art in London, where I was Course Leader for the MA in Scenography, and also taught history, theory and practice in theatre, visual art, film and video, also having taught theatre studies at Queen Mary, University of London.

During my career as a theatre and opera director I worked for most of the main UK opera companies, and was also responsible for a number of independent premieres, including the first UK productions of Viktor Ullmann's Terezin opera The Emperor of Atlantis (Imperial War Museum, 1985) and Cavalieri's sacred drama La rappresentatione di anima e di corpo of 1600 (London International Opera Festival, St Martin in the Fields, 1989). I have worked as a writer and director of new works for the English National Opera Studio, Royal Opera Garden Venture, Stuttgart Opera, Festival Rhizome Rennes, DMCE Paris, etc. I have also worked as a director of community and education projects in music, opera and theatre for Glyndebourne Opera, National Theatre, Barbican Centre, Royal Opera, English National Opera, etc. In 1984 I mounted what is now recognised to have been the first large-scale devised community opera project in the UK, commissioned by two London boroughs and presented in Covent Garden Piazza with 200 performers. I have also published widely about the theory and practice of education and community arts.

I have worked extensively as a broadcaster for radio and TV, contributing to review programmes such as Front Row and Nightwaves, writing and presenting talks, features and documentaries for Radios 3 and 4, and acting as consultant and presenter for the TV documentary 'The Great Composers: Mozart" (Omnibus, BBC 2, 1997).

Since 1998 my artistic activities have included work as co-artistic director of the experimental music theatre company Post-Operative Productions, working in both performance and audio-visual installation. The work of Post-Operative Productions was discussed on the BBC Radio 3 arts programme Nightwaves in 2003, and in 2004 the company was shortlisted for the Samuel Beckett Award for experimental theatre. Our 2007 installation 'The National Taste' was commissioned by English Heritage for Picture House atBelsay Hall in Northumberland, along with works by the Brothers Quay, Mike Figgis, and John Byrne and Tilda Swinton.

My theatre work is discussed in two chapters entitled ‘Per un teatro post-operistico. Adorno, Badiou, Till’' and 'Nicholas Till e l'(anti)manifesto' in a new book by Francesco Ceraolo Registi All’Opera: Note sull’etstetica della regia operistica, published by Bulzoni (Rome) in 2011, which includes a complete translation into Italian of my 2004 manifesto for a post-operatic music theatre entitled "I don't mind if something's operatic, just as long as it's not opera".

I have taught at institutions such as the Royal College of Music, Britten-Pears School Aldeburgh, Cal Arts (Los Angeles) and Stanford University. In 2001 I was Visiting Professor in Opera at UCLA (Los Angeles), and in January 2006 I gave the Neumann Lectures at the University of Richmond in Virginia.

I am editor of The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies, published in October 2012. 'In both the clarity of its organization and the uniformly high standard of the individual essays, this is an outstanding collection.' Times Literary Supplement

I am Director of the Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre, and I hold the first Chair in Opera and Music Theatre in the UK.

I currently hold a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to undertake research into early opera and e

Reviews

[Magid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It is endlessly fascinating, and eminently readable. Suitable for non-opera people.

[Bill Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transporting. A great discussion of Enlightenment ideas and Mozart's place in them.

[Konrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does what the title promises, it describes each of Mozart's operas (including the lesser known ones) and connects them to the philosophical questions that were important in his lifetime.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly book. I found it very interesting, but a times tedious.


N.

[Uchenk Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

half hearted isn't good, no?

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly overbearing and wordy, but great on the analysis of the Enlightenment and the Opera.

[Bjorn Arvidsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone with more than a fleeting interest in opera in general, and Mozart's operas in particular, this will shed new light on his sometimes frustrating pieces.