Talk:Die Entführung aus dem Serail

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According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) this is where the article must be, and not at Die Entführung aus dem Serail. -- Paddu 06:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

According to Naming conventions on classical music - this should not be the case. I, an English speaker, more often hear the German form of the name anyway. I am moving it to it's correct place. --Oldak Quill 15:23, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (operas) is should be in German! Paul B 14:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's also known as Il Seraglio. Paul B 00:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unverifiable Point

A well-known tale concerning the musical difficulty of the work is often told: After hearing a performance, the Emperor said to 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.)

I have removed this from the article as it is unsourced, anecdotal, as well as adding nothing to the article. It also appears to be taken verbatim from Amadeus, an admittedly fictionalised account of the Mozart/Salieri rivalry. --Alexs letterbox 06:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello -

Consulting Google Books, I quickly found two references sources, one for the tale itself, the other with skeptical commentary. I'm pretty sure that his tale is part of the academic folklore about Mozart; it was prevalent long before Amadeus was made.

The reference sources I found are not perfect, since they are tertiary. When I get a chance I will go to the library and see what source the Bartlett book was using, and thus obtain the original version.

As far as whether the tale useful - well, the fact is, it's there, permanently part of the lore of the opera. Our readers deserve to know what evidence there is to support tales like this.

Opus33 16:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Konstanze?

Should it be mentioned in the page that the character may have been named for Mozart's wife?

Certainly not if there is no published reference source that says so; see Wikipedia:Verifiability. I've never seen this myself, and it seems unlikely, given that the original author of the libretto did not collaborate with Mozart. Opus33 17:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay :) I thought I had read this somewhere, but I just checked the mozartproject.org and the libretto was originally named Belmonte und Constanze.

[edit] Libretto link

The text of the article correctly notes that the action in a singspiel mostly happens in the dialogue sections between the set pieces. Unfortunately the libretto link contains only the set pieces and none of the dialogue, so not much help for someone wanting to follow the action.... I wonder if we can find a better libretto on the web somewhere? 206.174.64.52 07:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)