In Time of War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Attendance Rates ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Late Arrival ◽  
Don Giovanni ◽  
National Theater ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
Declining Attendance ◽  
Joseph Ii ◽  
Seriously Ill

The year 1788 was a difficult one for the Austrian Monarchy, as the first campaign of the war against the Ottoman Empire ended inconclusively. Joseph II and Archduke Franz were away from Vienna, serving with the army. With persistent rumors that the opera buffa troupe was to be disbanded, the Vienna stage was affected by declining attendance rates. Against this background, Don Giovanni faced additional obstacles: the very late arrival of the new prima donna; the pregnancies of two leading singers; the poor reception accorded to newly recruited tenor and bass performers. In August, Joseph II finally announced that Italian opera would be discontinued at the National Theater at the end of the season. He returned to Vienna at the end of the year, a seriously ill man.

Da Ponte as Impresario

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Recent Experience ◽  
National Theater ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
Nozze Di Figaro ◽  
Cosi Fan Tutte ◽  
Joseph Ii

The last-minute decision to reprieve the opera buffa left Da Ponte needing to recruit singers as a matter of urgency. In doing so, he made use of Ferrarese del Bene’s recent experience of performing in Florence. The new season got off to a poor start, as the National Theater was facing increasingly stiff competition from the commercial stage. A new run of Le nozze di Figaro was scheduled, although by the summer of 1789 Joseph II was too ill to attend. The capture of Belgrade transformed the rather dark public mood in Vienna, and Così fan tutte was staged until the death of Joseph II led to the closure of the theaters.

Questioning Role of Hypochloremia in Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 1172-1172
Author(s):  
ALAN BRINSON
Keyword(s):  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia ◽  
Deleterious Effect ◽  
Poor Outcome ◽  
Chloride Depletion ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Seriously Ill

To the Editor.— The title of the recent report by Perlman et al asks an important question for those of us who frequently treat infants who have bronchopulmonary dysplasia ("Is Chloride Depletion an Important Contributing Cause of Death in Infants With Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia?" Pediatrics l986;77:2l2-2l6). They suggest that chloride deficiency may be an important factor in the poor outcome of patients with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. While I am sure no one will seriously suggest that severe hypochloremia will not have a deleterious effect on an already seriously ill infant, I do have questions regarding how they arrived at their conclusion.

Building the Frontier of the Habsburg Empire:

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragan Damjanović
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
Administrative Organization ◽  
New Public ◽  
Administrative Unit ◽  
Joseph Ii ◽  
The Military

The Military Frontier, an administrative unit within the Habsburg Empire, was established during the sixteenth century to consolidate the border with the Ottoman Empire. In Building the Frontier of the Habsburg Empire: Viennese Authorities and the Architecture of Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier Towns, 1780–1881, Dragan Damjanović considers architecture and urban planning there from the time Emperor Joseph II assumed the throne until the Frontier was abolished in 1881. Beginning with an overview of the region's architecture, urban design, and administrative organization, Damjanović proceeds to an examination of how modernization processes and the gradual demilitarization of the Frontier affected architecture and planning there. As they did for other provinces, Viennese authorities commissioned numerous new public and church buildings for the region—part of a larger effort toward modernization. Showing the influence of a variety of styles then fashionable elsewhere in Central Europe, these buildings were nonetheless well adapted to their local circumstances.

Dynastic Alliances

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Don Giovanni ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
Joseph Ii

The onset of the Austro-Turkish War had a major impact on opera in Vienna, as Joseph II decided on economic grounds to close one of his two companies, bringing to an end two years of intertroupe rivalry. His choice fell on the Singspiel ensemble which was instructed to disband. On the political front, two dynastic Habsburg marriages had to be scheduled in haste: between Archduke Franz, nephew of Joseph II, and Elisabeth von Württemberg, who was sponsored by Catherine the Great of Russia, and between Maria Theresia, the emperor’s niece, and Prince Anton of Saxony. Three festive operas were commissioned: Martín y Soler’s L’arbore di Diana, Salieri’s Axur, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In the growing political turmoil, Mozart’s commission was not ready in time, and Joseph II ordered that Figaro be given instead.

A Report on Working in the Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossii

Slavic Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-271
Author(s):  
Hugh Ragsdale
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Relative Rarity ◽  
State Archives ◽  
Joseph Ii ◽  
Old Greek

In the summer of 1986, I spent a month working very successfully in the archives of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Istoriko-diplomaticheskoe upravlenie, Ministerstvo inostrannykh del), and both the relative rarity of the experience and the significance of the materials preserved there warrant a brief report. Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossii (AVPR) is administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, unlike the records of all other prcrevolutionary ministries, which are held by state archives under Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie pri Sovctc ministrov SSSR.I was doing research on the Greek project of Catherine II, the notorious scheme whereby she planned to share with Joseph II the partition of the Ottoman Empire and perhaps to reestablish the old Greek or East Roman Empire under her grandson Constantine. The materials I read consisted primarily of St. Petersburg's diplomatic correspondence with Paris, Vienna, and Constantinople during the 1780s. I had prepared for the research in Moscow by working in the analogous correspondence of the Archives du Ministére des Affaires étrangéres (Quai d'Orsay) in Paris and the Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv in Vienna during preceding summers. In Moscow, I was given a generous abundance of material to read, including twenty-nine volumes of the correspondence with Paris, thirty-three volumes of correspondence with Vienna, and eight volumes of correspondence with Constantinople. Much of the material was invaluable, and some of it was entirely new to historical research. The quality of the information, however, was far from uniformly distributed.

Cabals and Satires

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Don Giovanni ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
Cosi Fan Tutte

This is a study of the political context in which Mozart wrote his three Italian comedies, Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. Joseph II’s decision to place his opera buffa troupe in competition with the re-formed Singspiel provoked a struggle between supporters of the rival national genres. Cabals soon became active, organizing claques to cheer or hiss as required, and encouraging press correspondents to circulate slanted notices. In the spring of 1786, Mozart was caught up in the infighting. Figaro, the flagship work for the Italian troupe, received a mixed reception, whereas Dittersdorf’s Der Apotheker for the German party scored a triumph. In this fraught atmosphere, satire flourished. A rival setting of Die Hochzeit des Figaro by Dittersdorf, the music for which is lost, lampooned Mozart in the guise of Cherubino, focusing on his obsession with dancing. The intertroupe contest came to an abrupt end at the start of 1788, when the deteriorating international situation for the Austrian Monarchy necessitated cutbacks in expenditure, including the closure of the Singspiel. During the ensuing years of the Austro-Turkish War, Mozart successfully negotiated the unpredictable twists and turns of theater politics. The revival of Figaro in 1789, now as a Habsburg festive work following its gala performance in Prague, sealed his reputation. He was ideally placed to accept a commission from the commercial stage, the revitalization of which was the most lasting musical consequence of the war years.

Operatic Satire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Positions ◽  
National Theater ◽  
Opera Buffa

Following a highly successful year in Vienna, during which he composed three operas for the German troupe at the National Theater, Dittersdorf returned to take up his administrative positions in Silesia. Evidently hoping for a return engagement, he set to work on several new Singspiels. A setting of Die Hochzeit des Figaro (now lost) renewed his personal competition with Mozart. Probably because he blamed members of the opera buffa company in Vienna for the conspicuous failure of his opera Democritto corretto, he cast the Beaumarchais play as a satire, in which Joseph’s well-known Italian stars were lampooned. Mozart himself was cast as Cherubino, slight in stature, with a pale visage, and wholly obsessed with dancing.

Italian Opera Reprieved

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
Collective Benefit ◽  
Joseph Ii

In the light of the imminent closure of the opera buffa troupe, Da Ponte arranged a collective benefit for the performers: a lighthearted satirical piece entitled L’ape musicale, which featured the most popular music of recent seasons. His campaign to persuade Joseph II to change his mind over the decision to discontinue Italian opera bore fruit in January 1789, following the Russian victory at Ochakiv, following which a lighter public mood was briefly evident in Vienna. Da Ponte could now offer his pasticcio on behalf of the whole troupe as an expression of gratitude for the reprieve they had been granted.

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