Doktor und Apotheker

In the organizer's words:

Doctor Krautmann and pharmacist Stößel are sworn enemies. The fact that the son of one is in love with the daughter of the other doesn't make things any better.

The two fathers are the German equivalent of Cimarosa's and Rossini's comic old men, who score above all with their wit and situation comedy. Even more successful than Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , Dittersdorf's Doktor und Apotheker marked a decisive turning point: this work created the type of German play opera with its own mixture of light-hearted and emotional elements, which became a model for a new genre for decades to come. The work brought three further commissions to its creator Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, who is largely forgotten today. As a composer and violin virtuoso, Mozart's contemporary was highly regarded not only in Viennese cultural circles, but also internationally. In Doktor und Apotheker , he combines elements of the North German Singspiel with the tradition, wit and vocal virtuosity of Italian opera seria and buffa. Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf composed above all light-hearted social music, whose thoroughly hearty humor made it popular with his audience. His best-known Singspiel Doktor und Apotheker was written on imperial instructions together with the director of the Vienna Burgtheater, the librettist Johann Gottlieb Stephanie. In addition to the large-scale finales and arias, the protagonists' duet is one of the musical highlights of the number opera with dialogues.