Osmin's rage: philosophical reflections on opera, drama, and text

Abstract

While at work on The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart posed for himself the great aesthetic conundrum of opera: how does drama become music? Reflecting, in a letter to his father, on the angry outburst of his operatic villain Osmin, he wrote, Just as a man in such a towering rage oversteps all the bounds of order, moderation and propriety and completely forgets himself, so the too forget itself. And yet, as Mozart went on to say, unpleasant emotions not be expressed in unpleasant Even in depicting anger, must never offend the ear, but please the hearer, or in other words never cease to be music. In Peter Kivy's view, Mozart has here summarized the problem of opera: the transmutation of into drama while remaining within the bounds of pure musical form. For to transgress these bounds would be to give up the game--to represent, perhaps, but not to represent in In pursuit of an understanding of such limits, Professor Kivy focuses on three crucial stages in operatic history--the invention of opera, Handelian opera seria, and the comic operas of Mozart. From the confrontation of philosophical theory and musical practice, he extracts an operatic essence that is characterized as drama-made-music, as contrasted with drama. In conclusion, he compares the concept of drama-made music with other concepts of opera, especially Joseph Kerman's, and provides a philosophical rationale for its unique character.

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