Abstract

In February, 1786, the Emperor Joseph II gave a feast at Schšnbrunn Palace. On this occasion, Der Schauspieldirektor, a comedy with music by Mozart, was given its first performance, together with Salieri's opera buffa Prima la musica e poi le parole. So it has long been widely accepted that the two composers' music competed with each other in the feast. But, in fact, Der Schauspieldirektor is a unique stage work, of which the first half is formed as a German Play and the latter as a Singspiel. This fact necessitates reconsideration of the "competition". From October, 1785, three genres of stage work, German Play, Singspiel and Italian Opera, were performed at Viennese court theatres, so the feast can be regarded as an epitome of this system of performance in operation. This system marks an epoch in the Viennese performance history of opera, because, till then, it had never occurred that both the Italian Opera and the Singspiel were performed at court theatres in the same period. The two works performed in the feast share the same subject, that is the rivalry and the harmony between the different genres, and through it, the Emperor demonstrated his new idea to treat both German and Italian theatrical genres equally