JOHANN SIMON MAYR

The comic opera takes up elements of the intermezzo and the opera buffa. Mostly a one-act play, divided into different scenes, the comic opera lives on the easiness of its plot and the spontaneity of its language. Mayr’s and Rossi’s Che Originali! is a satire on the culturally narrow-minded bourgeois who is prominently impersonated by Don Febeo. He replaces his wanting artistic standards by a manic enthusiasm for art. In Don Febeo’s great "self-composed" bravura aria, a polynomial, intentionally short-winded rondo, Mayr brilliantly draws the contrast between the protagonist’s dramatic emotions and the musical expression that turns out worse and worse despite the expenditure of both music and time. This disproportion mounts up to the cheerful cabaletta with the tragic words: "O heavens, open your floodgates, for love has been conquered".