ABSTRACT
Mozart left Salzburg for Munich in early November, 1780, in order to finish the composition of Idomeneo on the spot, in collaboration with the singers, players, dancers, and scenic artists. His first letter back to his father brings up the old problem anew: "Raaff is like a statue." Raaff had compared himself with a deal of natural phenomena during his forty years of singing simile arias in opera seria. The reason can only be that he wanted to display RaafFs voice under the most favorable conditions of all, with the "ah" of "pace" rather than the "oh" of "ardore." Holzbauer's Gunther preceded Mozart's Idomeneo by a scant, albeit the composers were separated by two generations in age. If Philipart's portrait was done later than 1780, a possibility that cannot be dismissed, RaafFs choice of music reveals in telling fashion where his sympathies lay: with the generation of Holzbauer and Hasse.
