Word: salieri
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...this exquisite setting, the company's excellent veteran musical director Julius Rudel last week introduced an offbeat operatic double bill consisting of Antonio Salieri's Prima la Musica e Poi le Parole (First the Music and Then the Words) and Mozart's The Impresario. Since both works deal with backstage intrigue, and both had their premieres together in 1786 on commission from Austria's enlightened Emperor Joseph II, the two one-acters would seem made for each other...
There is a legend, fostered notably by a Pushkin poem and later by Rimski-Korsakov in an opera (Mozart and Sa-lieri), that Salieri poisoned Mozart. Scholars discount the thesis, but there is no doubt that Salieri hindered the career of his younger colleague. Small wonder. Salieri was a hack who saw Mozart as a threat to his own reputation. Is such historical byplay justification enough for combining the two works at this late date? Alas, no. Prima la Musica has about 15 minutes of passable music; at a length of 70 minutes, it is maddeningly vapid...