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The opera was first produced at the command of the Austrian emperor Joseph II on July 16, 1782 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The premiere was a success and established the reputation in Vienna of Mozart, who had moved there from his native city of Salzburg the previous year. The opera fulfilled a longtime wish of the emperor, namely to bring to the Burgtheater a successful German opera; previous performances there had been successful only when they were imitations or translations of foreign works.
The opera is in the genre of Singspiel, meaning that much of the action is carried forward by spoken dialogue, thus the music lacks recitatives and consists entirely of set numbers.
The work is lighthearted and meant for fun, without the deeper character exploration or darker feelings found in Mozart's later operas. It played off a contemporary enthusiasm for the "exotic" culture of Turkey, a nation which had only recently ceased to be a military threat to Austria and thus held a piquant interest for the Viennese. Mozart's opera includes a Westernized version of Turkish music, based very loosely on the Turkish Janissary bands, that he had employed in earlier work; see Turkish music (style).
The characters of the opera also play off Turkish stereotypes, notably Osmin, the Pasha's comically sinister overseer, who expresses his many threats in coloratura bass singing. However, the opera cannot be entirely considered as stereotyping of the Turks, since the climax of the plot depends on a rather selfless act on the part of the Pasha.
Although the plot and characterization are naive in comparison to Mozart's later operas, the music was composed at full stretch and includes some of the composer's most spectacular and complex arias. Of these, probably the most famous is Konstanze's "Martern aller Arten" ("Tortures of all kinds") in which she informs the Pasha that she will not submit to him even under torture.
Concerning the musical difficulty of the work, a story is told: after hearing a performance, the Emperor is said to have told the composer "Too many notes, dear Mozart," to which Mozart is said to have replied "Exactly the right number, Your Majesty." (The authenticity of this tale is doubted, however, by some contemporary musicologists.)
The singers perform with a Classical-era orchestra, augmented with the instruments needed for "Turkish" music: bass drumdrum kit A bass drum is a large, heavy drum that produces a "thump" of low but indefinite pitch. It is used in orchestral music, marching music, and throughout 20th century popular music as a component of the drum set. In popular music, the bass drum is u, cymbalIt is also possible that you want to know about the Cymbalum instrument. Cymbals (Fr. cymbales; Ger. Becken; Ital. piatti or cinelli), are a modern percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various cymbal alloys, see cymbals, triangleThe triangle is an idiophonic musical instrument of the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, most usually steel in modern instruments, bent into a triangle shape. One of the angles is left open, with the ends of the bar not quite touching this causes, and piccoloThis article is about the instrument. For the Dragon Ball character, see Piccolo (Dragon Ball A piccolo is a small flute. Its name in Italian means "tiny". Like the flute, the piccolo is normally pitched in the key of C, but written music for the piccolo. Aside from these, the orchestra consists of pairs of fluteThis article pertains to the musical instrument. For the sailing ship class that has a variant spelling using this word, see Fluyt. The flute (technically transverse flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. A musician who plays the flute is ss, oboeThe Oboe is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. It is a descendant of the shawm. The word "oboe" is derived from the French word hautbois meaning "high woods". It so-named because of the instrument's rather high and reedy sound. A musician who pls, clarinetThe clarinet (sometimes historically spelled clarionet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. A person who plays the clarinet is called a clarinettist. Professional clarinets are made from African hardwood, often grenadilla or (rarely) Honduran rs, bassoonThe bassoon is the tenor member of the woodwind family. Like the oboe it has a double reed and overblows an octave higher. It is considered to have a tone color similar to that of the human voice, particularly in the central and upper register. The bassoos, French horns, trumpets, a set of two timpani, and the usual string section consisting of first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.