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It has not been easy for him to this day.

Antonio Salieri (1750 to 1825), as the legendary murderer of Mozart, must continue to be the bogeyman in music history.

Nothing has been proven of his alleged misdeeds.

But even in Miloš Forman's “Amadeus” film, which globally continued the long unfounded myth of Salieri's guilt for Mozart's death, only a scrap of music can be heard from the Italian, who outlived his rival by 34 years.

And it didn't even make it onto the soundtrack bestseller, which has sold millions of times.

In a sense, Salieri remains mute.

Til today.

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Even those few seconds should have made one sit up and take notice as early as 1984.

Because the excerpt from the exotic Turkish opera “Axur” revealed far more originality and finesse than is usually granted to the opportunistic, ingenious epigone of the musical zeitgeist, as the Salieri is still considered to be.

Apart from the miracle man Mozart, there would still be plenty of room for extraordinary compositionalism.

You look and still hear away.

Not so the French harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset.

The now graying former Golden Boy on the chirping keys has long since blossomed into a consistent explorer.

And so the 59-year-old with Mozarter experience has been campaigning for Antonio Salieri's operatic oeuvre for years, which includes (with all fragments) fifty works.

In 2006 Rousset recorded the witty comic opera “La grotta di Trofonio”, which premiered in Vienna in 1786.

This was followed by the three music dramas “Les Danaïdes”, “Les Horaces” and “Tarare”, composed in France and reformist in the spirit of Gluck, on the Aparté label between 2015 and 2019.

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The latter was written on a libretto by the “The Marriage of Figaro” poet Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and is the original of the “Axur”, Italianized and musically adapted for Vienna: a rousing, powerful whirlwind of emotions sung, dramatic choirs, sharply cut sequences of scenes and arias flaring up.

But as Rousset says very correctly and realistically: “Salieri was a great inventor among composers.

However, the greatest innovators are not always the greatest composers.

Mozart didn't invent anything, but he brought what he found to an undreamt-of perfection. "

Only the “Magic Flute” was more successful

Nonetheless, Antonio Salieri was the most performed opera composer of his time.

“Axur” alone was on the repertoire more than a hundred times in Vienna until 1805, only Mozart's posthumous success with the “Magic Flute” was greater.

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In his variegated musical theater work there are German singing games such as the early "Rauchfangkehrer", written by a Viennese doctor, or the late "Die Neger" by the "Fidelio" librettist Treitschke, which is problematic not only because of the title.

Salieri had the honor of being able to produce the allegorical opera “The Recognized Europe” for the inauguration of La Scala in Milan in 1778.

Riccardo Muti performed the coloratura opus again in 2004 after many years of renovation of the famous opera stage;

a DVD has been released by Erato.

The one-act divertimento teatrale “Prima la musica e poi le parole” never disappeared.

In it the music triumphs over the text.

Salieri triumphed with his one-act play in 1786 in a famous opera battle with Mozart in the Schönbrunn Orangery over his "theater director".

Salieri's tragicomic “Falstaff” (1799) and the musical comedy “La fiera di Venezia” are also interesting.

As can be seen in their 2018 recording of L'Arte del mondo under Werner Ehrhardt for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, some of Mozart's 18 years younger “Così fan tutte” - whose libretto was originally reserved for Salieri.

Antonio Salieri's "Armida"

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How much he learned from his patron Gluck is now revealed by Christophe Rousset's first, enthusiastic recording of a Salieri opera seria, the early Viennese “Armida” from 1771 (at Aparté).

Once again the enamored, then vengeful enchantress from Tasso's verse epic “The Liberated Jerusalem” rages over the opera stage, singing and spraying high notes.

Seldom, of course, did she do it with such concentration and so psychologically sophisticated.

Especially Lenneke Ruiten in the title role makes it sparkle and rage magically.

The chamber choir from Namur and the tried and tested baroque ensemble Les Talens lyriques produce a great sound.

And hopefully the name Antonio Salieri will finally stick for musical reasons.

This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG.

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Source: Welt am Sonntag