Much of ‘Die Entfuehrung’ is so thoroughly and characteristically German, that at first sight it may be thought surprising that it should have succeeded so well in a city like Vienna, which was inclined to look upon the Singspiel as a barbarian product of Northern Germany.  But there is a reason for this, and it is one which goes to the root of the whole question of comic opera.  Mozart saw that Italian comic operas often succeeded in spite of miserable libretti, because the entire interest was concentrated upon the music, and all the rest was forgotten.  The German Singspiel writers made the mistake of letting their music be, for the most part, purely incidental, and conducting all the dramatic part of their plots by dialogue.  Mozart borrowed the underlying idea of the opera buffa, applied it to the form of the Singspiel, which he kept intact, and produced a work which succeeded in revolutionising the history of German opera.  But, apart from the question of form, the music of ‘Die Entfuehrung’ is in itself fine enough to be the foundation even of so imposing a structure as modern German music.  The orchestral forces at Mozart’s disposal were on a smaller scale than at Munich; but though less elaborate than that of ‘Idomeneo,’ the score of ‘Die Entfuehrung’ is full of the tenderest and purest imagination.  But the real importance of the work lies in the vivid power of characterisation, which Mozart here reveals for the first time in full maturity.  It is by the extraordinary development of this quality that he transcends all other writers for the stage before or since.  It is no exaggeration to say that Mozart’s music reveals the inmost soul of the characters of his opera as plainly as if they were discussed upon a printed page.  In his later works the opportunities given him of proving this magical power were more frequent and better.  The libretto of ‘Die Entfuehrung’ is a poor affair at best, but, considering the materials with which he had to work, Mozart never accomplished truer or more delicate work than in the music of Belmont and Constanze, of Pedrillo, and greatest of all, of Osmin.

In 1786 Mozart wrote the music to a foolish little one-act comedy entitled ‘Der Schauspieldirektor,’ describing the struggles of two rival singers for an engagement.  A sparkling overture and a genuinely comic trio are the best numbers of the score; but the libretto gave Mozart little opportunity of exercising his peculiar talents.  Since his original production various attempts have been made to fit ’Der Schauspieldirektor’ with new and more effective libretti, but in no case has its performance attained any real success.

For the sake of completeness it may be well to mention the existence of a comic opera entitled ‘L’Oie du Caire,’ which is an exceedingly clever combination of the fragments left by Mozart of two unfinished operas, ‘L’Oca del Cairo’ and ‘Lo Sposo Deluso,’ fitted to a new and original libretto by the late M. Victor Wilder.  In its modern form, this little opera, in which a lover is introduced into his mistress’s garden inside an enormous goose, has been successfully performed both in France and England.