Griffiths, realising that arias composed by Mozart for insertion in other composers' operas are seldom performed nowadays, worked up what he called "a jeu d'esprit" which also contained music from the composer's unfinished operas Lo sposo deluso and L'oca del Cairo and some of the arias which he had written for concert performances. This came to the attention of Nicholas Payne, General Director of Opera North, who scheduled its première for 1991, the year of the bicentenary of Mozart's death.[3]
The Editor of Opera magazine Rodney Milnes was enthusiastic about The Jewel Box; "If anything more ingenious and original happens by way of a special event in Mozart year than Opera North's and Paul Griffiths's The Jewel Box, then I'll eat my hat". He went on - "his greatest triumph has been to string his pearls together into an entirely logical musical order, 'a Mozartian key sequence,' as he wrote, 'through thirds and fifths, and simultaneously distributing the numbers helpfully among the singers". He found that the opera was "a convincing musical entity in its own right, [which] rescues from the library shelf a substantial body of top-drawer Mozart written mostly for the theatre, and indeed returns it to the theatre where it belongs. It's crammed full of great music almost to the point of indigestion".[5]
Four characters from the commedia dell'arte (Dottore, Pantalone, Colombina and Pedrolino) open the opera with a quartet. There is no more music, so the Dottore summons the Composer, who, with the aid of a singer of tragic music and his own father, gradually works out how the opera should go. The opera ends with an epilogue sung by the Composer.[7]
^ abMilnes, Rodney. Jewels in a setting. Opera, April 1991, Vol.42 No.4, p.382-384.
^On the opening night Banks was indisposed and acted the part on stage while his music was sung by Philip Sheffield from the pit.
^This synopsis and the following list of musical numbers are based on information in the programme for two preview performances which took place on 7 and 11 January 1991, at the Grand Theatre, Leeds.
