FULL Prima la musica e poi le parole (Salieri) & Der Schauspieldirektor (Mozart) Annandale-on-Hudson NY 2026

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Prima la musica e poi le parole, Der Schauspieldirektor  
• Composer: Salieri Antonio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concept and English dialogue by Dorian Bandy  
• Libretto: Giovanni Battista Casti, Gottlieb Stephanie  
• Venue & Opera Company: Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York  
• Recorded: August 9, 2026
• Type: Concert Semi-staged

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

The Habsburg Emperor Joseph II pitted Mozart against his Italian peers in two historic contests, both brought back to life in Program Five, “Rivalries and Conspiracies.” On the first such occasion, the emperor invited Mozart and pianist-composer Muzio Clementi, then newly arrived from Italy, to compete at the piano. Clementi played his own virtuosic B-flat-major Sonata, and Mozart responded by improvising a set of variations on a theme from André Grétry’s Les mariages samnites. Both pianists were then challenged to sightread music by Giovanni Paisiello, another Italian rival, after which — despite privately collecting on a bet in Mozart’s favor — Joseph II officially declared the duel a draw. Five years later, he commissioned Mozart and the Imperial Court Composer Antonio Salieri to write one-act operas on the same subject for a contest at Vienna’s vast Schönbrunn Palace, where Salieri’s Prima la musica, poi le parole (“First the Music, then the Words”) and Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (“The Impresario”) premiered back-to-back before a court audience, tasked to choose between them. Keen to promote a German-language Singspiel tradition, Joseph II hoped that Mozart’s offering would prevail, but it was Salieri’s fashionable Italian opera buffa that won the day.
Quoted from fishercenter.bard.edu

Program

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–91)

From Der Schauspieldirektor, K486 (1786)
Overture

Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, and Cornetti

Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia, K477a (1785) (Da Ponte)
Katrina Galka, soprano
Dorian Bandy, harpsichord

Muzio Clementi (1752–1832)

Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 24, No. 2 (ca. 1780)
Allegro con brio
Andante
Rondo: Allegro assai
Danny Driver, piano

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

Eight Variations in F Major on Grétry’s “Dieu d’amour,” K352 (1786)
Piers Lane, piano

INTERMISSION

Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

From Prima la musica e poi le parole (1786) (Casti)
Der Schauspieldirektor, K486 (1786) (Stephanie)
Sinfonia (Salieri)
Da schlägt die Abschiedsstunde (Mozart)
Pensieri funesti (Salieri)
Non dubitar, verrò (Salieri)
Là tu vedrai chi sono (Salieri)
Cari oggetti del mio core (Salieri)
Se questo mio pianto (Salieri)
Per pietà, padrona mia (Salieri)
Via, largo, ragazzi (Salieri)
Cucuzze! che concorso! (Salieri)
Bester Jüngling! Mit Entzücken (Mozart)
Ich bin die erste Sängerin (Mozart)
From Finale: Se questo mio pianto—Per pietà, padrona mia (Salieri)
Schlussgesang: Jeder Künstler strebt nach Ehre (Mozart)

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