Performing Operas for Mozart

The Italian opera company in Prague managed by Pasquale Bondini and Domenico Guardasoni played a central role in promoting Mozart's operas during the final years of his life. Using a wide range of primary sources which include the superb collections of eighteenth-century opera posters and concert programmes in Leipzig and the Indice de' teatrali spettacoli, an almanac of Italian singers and dancers, this study examines the annual schedules, recruitment networks, casting policies and repertoire selections of this important company. Ian Woodfield shows how Italian-language performances of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito flourished along the well-known cultural axis linking Prague in Bohemia to Dresden and Leipzig in Saxony. The important part played by concert performances of operatic arias in the early reception of Mozart's works is also discussed and new information is presented about the reception of Josepha Duschek and Mozart in Leipzig.

• Presents an account of the organisational structures and artistic policies of the Prague opera company in the late eighteenth century, enriching our understanding of the context in which Mozart's operas were performed in Bohemia and Saxony
• Provides documentary evidence on the reception of Mozart's music in Leipzig, contributing to a new interpretation of one of the most puzzling episodes in the composer's biography - his tour of 1789
• Gives details of the personnel of the Prague company which gave the first performances of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito