Not the Mozart Festival

With emphasis switching to Mozart for his centenary this year, I thought it might be fun to organise a Not Mozart festival. You could include such work's as Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Gluck's La Clemenza di Tito and Rossini's Barber of Seville.

The Gazzaniga is a short 2 act opera, with a libretto by Da Ponte, which preceeded Mozart and Da Ponte's version. I saw it many years ago at Wexford in a double bill with Busoni's Turandot.

Gluck's opera is one of a few to set the same Metastasio libretto. Mozart's opera sets the same libretto, but it was extensively revised for Mozart. The revisions brought it closer to contemporary sensibilities about opera, but it is still recognisably an opera seria. Rossini's opera, of course, came after Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, a sort of later prequel, both being based on Beaumarchais plays.