This recording comprises a supplement to Nikolaus Harnoncourt`s Idomeneo (TELDEC 2292-42600-2), which presents the opera in the version followed at the Munich première in 1781, as contained in Daniel Heartz's edition in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. The latter recording, therefore, does not include the numbers in Idomeneo that Mozart deleted in the course of the preparations for the première of the work in Munich, nor of course those passages that Mozart subsequently rewrote for the Vienna performance in 1786. As Harnoncourt wrote 1980 concerning the total recording. “Since all the pieces omitted in Munich. as well as the passages rewritten for Vienna, are wonderful music. we intend to record them too and to publish them on a supplementary disc, so that all the music Mozart composed for Idomeneo is accessible in one interpretation."
We are well acquainted with the circumstances surrounding the creation of Idomeneo, thanks not only to the surviving textual and musical sources, but also to the particular constellation of personalities involved, directly or indirectly, with the opera First of all the librettist Giambattista Varesco, a chaplain at the Salzburg court, who has commissioned to work the ldomeneo matertal into an operatic libretto according to a "plan" evolved by the directors of the Munich Hoftheater; then the composer's father Leopold Mozart, who was also in Salzburg during the decisive phase of Idomeneo's composition; finally Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself, who had certainly already composed some parts of the work in Salzburg, but then travelled to Munich on 5th November 1780 to write most of the opera “on the spot", and constantly corresponded with his father in Salzburg from his arrival in Munich.
A first batch of revisions, which Mozart had Varesco make to his libretto, using his father as ‘middle-man’, is not musically acccssible, since the alterations were made before Mozart set the libretto to music. Mozart was then obliged to make cuts in those passages he had already composed during the rehearsals and last-minute preparations for the première. These cuts affected recitative parts in all three acts, which, as they do not constitute independent items, are not included on this record. Likewise. we have omited from this supplement the three rejected versions of the oracle's decree and the passepied from the ballet music - the gavotte, however which Mozart wrote down along with the ballet music. has been included, although we do not know at what point in the opera it was supposed to be played.
Mozart took the most drastic steps to tighten up the work in the third act: here no less than three complete numbers fell victim to his red pencil. This applies to Idamante's aria "No, la morte io non pavento", which was originally sung in scene 10, at the point when Idamante, alreadv prepared to sacrifice his life, urges his father Idomeneo to accept his beloved Ilia as his daughter-in-law: "s’ella sposa non m’è, deh siati figlia". Idomeneo's aria "Torna la pace", which occurred immediately before Idamante's coronation in the final scene, was also cut, Mozart justified both omissions on dramaturgical grounds: “The rehearsal of Act Three went splendidly. It was established that it is still much longer than the first and second acts - there is too much text, and accordingly too much music... so Idamante’s aria "No, la morte io non pavento" is to be left out. It’s clumsy in that position anyway - but the people who have heard the music sighed over its omission; I’m also cutting Raaff's last aria, which caused even more sighs - but one has to make a virtue out of necessity."
Mozart made another cut in Elettra's last scene, whose original dramatic concept had troubled him for a long time. He replaced the aria "D`Oreste, d’Aiace" with a new obbligato recitative, "0h smanial oh furie!!" Elettra's aria seems dispensable in terms of content, since it only conveys information already known. "Mozart made the requisite out in a congenial fashion and composed a short but incomparably fiery recitative with the exit of Elettra, which must be one of the most dramatic in the whole opera” (Daniel Heartz).
After several attempts to produce Idomeneo in Vienna during Mozarts period in the Austrian capital had miscarried, he managed to arrange a performance at Prince Auersperg's in 1786. However, as the date fixed fell during Lent, only a concert performance could be given, and Mozart thus had to make a numher of changes, since the pan of Idamante, conceived in Munich for the castrato Vencenzo dal Prato, was sung in Vienna hy a tenor. Mozart made further major alterations to the munich score in two places, not only out of consideration for the east but also for dramaturgical reasons. He substituted for the first scene of Act 2 with Arbace's aria “Se il tno vuol", a weak point of the Munich score from a theatrical point of view the Scena con Rondo Ilia/Idamante, K. 490, which he completed on 10th March 1786, three days before the performance. By replacing the first scene with Arbace’s aria - superfluous to the plot - by the recitativo accompagnato Ilia/Idamante, with Idamante's aria "Non temer; amato bene" following. Mozart lends Idamante, one of the operas main characters, greater significance. Mozart wrote the violin solo in K. 490 for his friend Graf Hatzfeld, who was involved in the performance. and was an excellent violinist. The second major encroachment on the Munich score affected Ilia and Idamante's love duet in Act 3, soene 2. Mozart replaced the original hundred-bar composition with a duet only 39 bars in length, "Spiegarti non poss'io". The duet in the Munich version had, as a result of the text, become too light, dance-like and frivolous. "The two lovers change into Papageno and Papagena", writes Daniel Heartz, "a a point where. in view of their impending ordeal, they should show more gravity than even and the strength of Tamino and Pamina." Mozart corrected the deficiency with a duet which had il new text and mostly new music, writing at seamless piece that acts as a "drawn-out emotional crescendo" (Heartz), preparing the two lovers and the audience alike for the violent emotions to come.