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“Words for Mozart: A Comedy about Art and Sex” is a staged reading of the story of Mozart’s collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte, librettist for Mozart’s three greatest operas, with a supporting cast including the notorious Giacomo Casanova, a teenaged Beethoven, and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. A pianist will perform live the incidental music by W.A. Mozart. Touching on the serious themes of the place of women in the 1700s, the disappearance of royal patronage, and the international nature of the art scene when Vienna was the music capital of Europe, the play undercuts, with comic irreverence, the romantic and destructive notion that Mozart was a “born genius” who composed effortlessly through pure, divine inspiration, and was an as angelic as his music. Both Da Ponte and Casanova were exiled from Venice, and had they not been refugees in Vienna, Mozart’s greatest works would never have been written, so the effect of immigration on the arts is very much in the play.

Date:
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City: San Jose
Price Range:
7.50

Program Items

Scott Winfield Sublett

Hammer Theatre Center

Hammer Theatre Center

101 Paseo De San Antonio
San Jose, CA 95112
United States