Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — Mozart and the Critics. [ARTICLE]

Mozart and the Critics.

Three years before Mozart’s death, when his “Don Juan” was produced in Berlin, the critic in the leading local newspaper wrote: “It is the product of a freak, a caprie*, and not inspired by the heart. Besides, we have never heard that Mo. art is a composer of note." The fir-it performance of Mozart’s “Magic Flute" was given in Vienna, Sept. 30, 1791, but Berlin did not hear it till three years later, thanks to the stunidity of the director of tfle National Theater, J. J. Engel, a worthy predecessor of Baron Hulsen, who kept"Lohengrin*and subsequently ‘Nibelungen Ring”) in quarantine for nine years. But if the Berliners are conservative and slow, they make up for their torpidity when they do wake up. The “Magic Flute” has now been sung about 460 times in their city, and on May iz, its 100th Berlin birthday was celebrated with great jubilation. From a playbill of the premiere, which the Boersen Courier prints, it at)pears that a hundred years ago operatic performances began in Berlin at 5:30, and the price of tickets ranged from 12c to 50c.