Within the Great Hall of the Salzburg Mozarteum is an opera with childlike, almost grotesque tunes and divine musicality. For the 2006 Salzburg Festival, a myriad of allegorical figures come to life in John Dew's colourful costumes and comic staging. The play calls up images of a children's puppet show—a welcome nod to Mozart's youth, as he was barely eleven years old when he composed his very first opera.
From its unveiling in March 1767, Die Schuldigkeit made an appearance in the university’s newspaper chronicle: the quality of its writing received lavish praise. Undoubtedly aided by his father, Mozart composed only the first part, which he described as a ‘spiritual singspiel’ - Michael Haydn and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser composed the next two parts, now lost to us. Mozart’s work is closer to an oratorio than an opera, sharing many of its features with Singspiel - a half-sung, half-spoken opera - which became a characteristic form of German opera in the 19th century.
In the same city where Mozart's talent was born, centuries later the allegorical Christian figures of ‘Divine Justice’, ‘Divine Mercy’ and the ‘Spirit of Christianity’ are once again taking turns waking up sleeping Christians to remove them from the influence of the ‘Spirit of the World’. This is quite a quirky composition, wouldn’t you say?
