Opera Scotland

Bastien und Bastienne Bastien and Bastienne

Tours by decade

Tours by location

Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born Salzburg, 27 January 1756; died Vienna, 5 December 1791)

Text

Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern and Johann Heinrich Muller, rev. by Johann Andreas Schachtner.

Source

Translation of libretto Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne (1753) by Harny de Guerville, Charles Simon Favart and Marie Justine Benoite Favart.

 

Premières

First performance: Vienna (Dr Anton Mesmer's garden), October 1768.

First Performance in UK: London (Daly's Theatre), 26 December 1894.

First Performance in Scotland: Glasgow (Royalty Theatre), 26 April 1895.

Scottish Opera première: N/A.

 

Background

Bastien is a charming little singspiel by a thirteen year-old, composed several years before Mozart's mature attempts to launch a specifically German form of opera. The French source work was in effect a parody of the successful chamber opera that Rousseau had created the year before.

 

Characters

Bastien, a youth (tenor)

Bastienne, a shepherdess (soprano)

Colas, a quack magician (bass)

 

Plot Summary

Bastienne still loves Bastien in spite of evidence suggesting he has a wandering eye. Colas persuades her to let him use his powers to effect a reconcilation, which is successful.