Goethe's lost favorite opera buffa "The Theatrical Adventures" is being brought back to life by us after three years of research! A biting, yet lifelike satire on the opera business itself, including the intrigues, love affairs, successes and failures associated with it. After the brilliant success of the first joint production, the Haydn opera "Der Apotheker" (Lo speziale), this is the second opera co-production of the Schloss Kochberg amateur theater - Theater an der Klassik Stiftung Weimar and the lautten compagney BERLIN . The performances correspond to the historical stage art and equipment of the early 1790s.
In 1787 Goethe had been enthusiastic about Cimarosa's opera "L'impresario in angustie" in Rome and packed the score in his luggage on his return journey to Germany. Back in Weimar, he personally translated the libretto of Giuseppe Maria Diodati's "L'impresario" and, as a new theater director, created his own German version entitled "Die Theatralischen Abentheuer", to which he added further arias by various composers. With the premiere on October 24, 1791 at the Weimar Court Theater, which had opened a few months earlier, the triumphal march of this opera through the German stages began. Later, Goethe's dramaturge, Christian August Vulpius, created a second Weimar version, adding Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor, which premiered on October 14, 1797. However, none of the Weimar versions of this opera have survived in their entirety. The recitatives are entirely absent.
In several years of research, we found references from the literature and parts - especially arias - of the German versions of "L'impresario" in the most diverse libraries and archives. As a basis for our opera we took Cimarosa's first version from 1786, which Goethe loved so much in Rome. It is dramaturgically stringent, concise and funny. Babette Hesse, a specialist in this type of 18th-century opera, has retranslated Giuseppe Diodati's libretto for us from Italian. Here we inserted Goethe's interlude arias from the 1791 version, set to music by various composers, at appropriate points and, where necessary, added short introductory recitatives.
The plot of "Theatrical Adventures" brings an opera production and the appropriate cast to the stage and introduces us to a director, a poet, a conductor and three prima donnas fighting over love, fame and career. While everyone is striving to get as much benefit as possible from the company, rehearsals are held at the opera, alliances are forged and intrigues are vigorous. Things come to a head until in the end the director, who is being pressured by everyone, also runs away with the cash register. The message of the opera is timeless: where many egotisms come together, a project is prevented instead of promoted. And of course there was already “Me too” in the 18th century, even if not with the current name.
