Artikel

"Patron-Client"-verhoudingen in het oeuvre van Da Ponte-Mozart: een concreet onderzoek

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Abstract

Patron-client relations” in the operatic oeuvre of Da Ponte-Mozart. A content analysis — In a former contribution (Van Parys, 1982, 103-127) the author explored the subject in his content analysis of the librettos of Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cost fan tutte, which are the products of the artistic collaboration between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1776-1791) and Lorenzo DaPonte (1749- 1838). Chapter I is devoted to an explication of the concept ,,patron-client” relations in the sociological and anthropological literature. A „patron-client relationship” may be characterised by saying that clients „are first to be exploited and second to be hoarded” (Amsbury, 1975, 516)- This type of relationship is typical of most societies which have had colonial, semi- or neo-colonial status. Furthermore, at the time of the foundation of each of the European based colonial empires, the prevailing social relationships in the metropolitan countries were largely of this type. In the next pages of this chapter, the Austrian society at the time of emperor Joseph II (1741-1790) is characterised as a patron-client structured society, composed of several „powerpyramids”, each pyramid culminating in a „patron”. Power was progressively concentrated in the overall pyramid of imperial power. As a very important representative of „Enlightened Absolutism” (Gay, 1970, 483-493),Joseph II considered himself as „the People’s Emperor” and his most significant and dramatic piece of legislation was the abolition of personal serfdom (Link, 1949, 105-114). Finally the author explains the system of categorisation. Five concepts are introduced for the explanation of the notion „patron-client” relation: exploitation, complicity and search for profit, evaluation of the mutual images of patron and client, submission and the use of violence, and apathy. In chapter II, attention is paid to the first opera by Mozart and Da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro (1786, K.V. 492). The libretto is an adaptation of the famous French comedy by Beaumarchais: Le marriage de Figaro. The performance of this play was forbidden in France and also in Austria because of the violent attacks against the ruling classes. Da Ponte and Mozart have often been blamed for depriving one of the greatest of French comedies of all its savour and for turning a prophecy of revolution into sordid intrigue (Dent, 1962, 94-95). The analysis, however, shows clearly that the protest against the legitimacy of the rights and privileges of the ruling classes in society (symbolised by the struggle of Figaro for the abolition of the notorious ,,Ius primae noctis” or „Droit du seigneur”) is the leading idea of the libretto. For the Viennese public of 1886, the resemblance between the conduct of Count Almaviva 222 and the ambiguous policies of Joseph II must have been clearly in evidence. Finally, Da Ponte and Mozart have, for the first time, given a new dimension to the „master-servant” relation. In the face of the sentimental precariousnesses of the story, master and servant, mistress and maid are on absolutely equal terms(Dent, i962, 140, 165). Chapter III discusses Don Giovanni (1787, K.V. 527). For their second opera the authors chose the well-known legend of Don Juan, which has been treated for the stage several times by Tirso de Molina, Moliere, Goldoni, Bertati, and others. In the 19th century, critics stressed above all the pathetic and romantic aspects of the libretto. However, Dent, (1962, 161-162) remarks that Don Giovanni has no less „social significance” than Le Nozze : the hero is simultaneously involved in two types of conflict, a symmetric conflict with his „peers” (the commander, Don Ottavio, and others) and an asymmetric one with the lower people, symbolised by the country girl Zerlina, who marries the young peasant Masetto. The latter becomes in the libretto the voice of the people, who will no longer accept and tolerate the arbitrary conduct and the arrogance of their masters. At the same time Da Ponte and Mozart have created, in describing the relation between Don Giovanni and Leporello, his servant, accomplice and „alter ego”, two immortal types of the same dimension as Don Quichote-Sancho Panzo (Cervantes) or Faust-Mephistopheles (Goethe). Chapter IV is devoted to Cost fan tutte (1790, K.V. 588), the last opera created by DaPonte and Mozart. Although the libretto was denounced throughout the 19th century as being intolerably stupid, if not positively disgusting, because of the erotic and immoral atmosphere and the misogynous tendency („Cost fan tutte” means „all women behave like that ”), it is actually considered as the best of all DaPonte’s librettos and the most exquisite work of art among Mozart’s operas(Dent, 1962, 190, I9b 193)- The master-servant relations are represented by Don Alfonso, an old cynical „philosophe” and his maid Despina. The social distance between master and maid is completely eclipsed by some kind of secret complicity and a feeling of solidarity and cooperation in carrying out their machiavellian plan. In this opera, there is no place for social criticism. The author thinks there are two reasons for this absence of social commitment: in the highly sophisticated story, all DaPonte’s attention was concentrated on the inner conflicts and the psychology of the „dramatics personae”. Mozart, on the other hand, seemed no longer interessed in class antagonisms, since he was accepted as a member and later as master of the masonic lodge and because of his deep involvement in the masonic ideas of fraternity and equality among all men. In a last chapter, the author triesto complete the evolution in the ideas of Mozart about social inequality. The collaboration with Da Ponte ended in the spring of 1791. Mozart’s last opera Die Zauberflöte („The magic flute”), 1791, K.V. 620, libretto by Johann Emmanuel Schikaneder) may be considered as the accomplishment of his thinking about social antagonism. Manifestly inspired by masonic ideas, Die Zauberflöte conducts us into a world where there is no longer room for social inequality, exploitation or class struggle. So, at the end of his life (he died in the same year 1791) Mozart's mind was very close to the ideology of the revolution in France, which had begun two years before and was to change the face of Europe entirely.

How to Cite:

Van Parys, G., (1982) “"Patron-Client"-verhoudingen in het oeuvre van Da Ponte-Mozart: een concreet onderzoek”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 27(3), 222–262. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.94824