Beethoven’s WoO 91 consists of two replacement arias for a 1795 Vienna revival of a Singspiel by composer Ignaz Umlauf originally staged in 1779 entitled Die schöne Schusterin oder Die pücefarbenen Schuhe — “The Beautiful Shoemaker’s Wife or The Puce-Colored Shoes.”
A Singspiel (“song play”) is a form of German comic opera in which the songs and arias are linked by spoken dialogue rather than the sung recitatives found in Italian opera. Today, the most famous Singspiele are Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute.
The first of Beethoven’s two WoO 91 replacement arias is sung by the Baron von Pikourt, a tenor. This aria had to be replaced because the original text was considered morally inappropriate in its celebration of hedonism and rejection of moral constraints.
Beethoven’s first WoO 91 aria continues to celebrate the pleasures of life — particularly those involving the love of young women — but in a more socially responsible manner: “What sparkles more than a girl’s glance? Can anything on earth match happiness in love?”
#Beethoven250 Day 56
“O welch’ ein Leben!” (WoO 91, No. 1), c. 1795
“Oh! What a life! A whole ocean / Of pleasure and rapture swirls about me … Good men and true have plenty of fun. / So be happy too and rejoice!”
The second of Beethoven’s WoO 91 arias is sung by soprano Lene using the original text. The aria is about the difficulty of getting a cobbler to make shoes that fit snugly yet do not pinch, shoes that are comfortable but not too loose. (Could the shoes be a metaphor for love?)
#Beethoven250 Day 56
“Soll ein Schuh nicht drücken” (WoO 91, No. 2), c. 1795
“For shoes not to pinch, / You must be prepared / To take some trouble with them yourself… By filing away the feet — And that is an art”