Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Der Schauspieldirektor (1786) and Bastien und Bastienne (1768)

One of these is Mozart's third-ever opera, and the other was written much later, just months before Le Nozze di Figaro. So what do they have in common? Well, they're both rarely-performed Singspiel, is about it. But more to the point, Der Schauspieldirektor is about an impresario auditioning two sopranos for a new opera. So if you rewrite the spoken dialogue, the opera in question can be Bastien und Bastienne! Great idea? Well...maybe. Sort of. I'll concede that it's clever at least in theory, though given how rarely these are performed, one might want to see more "normal" versions. Still, that's what we get here.

So as for the operas themselves: you might wonder, dude, if Der Schauspieldirektor is late Mozart, why isn't it more performed?!? Well, it's highly self-referential, is clearly part of it; it's commenting on an opera world that doesn't exist anymore, making it not super-accessible. Also, there's only something like twenty minutes of music, and while it's fine--how could it not be?--it's not his all-time greatest work. It's fairly easy to understand the situation. Meanwhile, Bastien und Bastienne; to my mind, the real question is why this--and early Mozart in general--isn't more-performed (questions I pondered re his first two operas). It's a very simple pastoral thing, with shepherds in love trying to make each other jealous, and a magician who helps them out. It's pretty great, and you can feel how Mozart's character work is improving.

So that's that, but the presentation itself, HMM. So first, it must be noted, the producers apparently thought they needed a gimmick beyond just putting the two unrelated operas together, and that gimmick is the use of marionettes. The Schauspieldirektor (and the male singer who's helping him out) are just regular people, but the sopranos are...well, puppets. The actual singers are just women standing in the background in unobtrusive dark clothing. The puppeteers are clearly very talented, giving their charges very life-like movements, but...it remains what it is. Which is not so great, frankly.

I think even under the best of circumstances I wouldn't have been very fond of this concept, but I am SUPER not fond of the way it's executed here. So of course, as noted, the dialogue of Der Schauspieldirektor had to be adapted, but it was clearly adapted more than would have been necessary to make it about Bastien und Bastienne. I don't know what the original was like, but I don't think it was much like this. A lot of the dialogue is clearly meant to allow the puppets to do zany things, and there are cameos by marionettes of Papageno and other Mozart characters. Some may find all this business whimsical and delightful. I found it intolerably labored and heavy-handed. And how about this: the resolution of Der Schauspieldirektor is that both sopranos are cast. Everyone wins. But Bastien und Bastienne only has one female role. So how to square this circle? By nonsensically deciding that they'll both play Bastienne, with a time-out midway through for the one to replace the other. I found this so annoying, I can't even tell you.

Dammit, I was glad to be able to see these, and the singing is fine, but this...thing serves neither opera well, and I would much rather have seen straight productions.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: these were my three-hundredth and three-hundred-first operas.  I sort of watched them without realizing that I was making history (?), so I didn't choose anything super-notable.  But here they are!