Soprano and sister of Mozart’s wife, Constanze.
Lange made her debut in Munich in Anton Schweitzer’s Alceste; shortly afterwards she was engaged at the Nationaltheater in Vienna. From 1782, when German opera was removed to the Kärntnertortheater and Italian comic opera was reinstated at the Burgtheater, she was a leading singer of the Italian troupe. From 1790 she was engaged by emperor Leopold II as seconda donna for opera seria. Leopold Mozart described her voice in a letter of 25 March 1785:
- It can scarcely be denied that she sings with the greatest expression: only now I understand why some persons I frequently asked would say that she has a very weak voice, while others said she has a very loud voice. Both are true. The held notes and all expressive notes are astonishingly loud; the tender moments, the passage work and embellishments, and high notes are very delicate, so that for my taste the one contrasts too strongly with the other. In an ordinary room the loud notes assault the ear, while in the theatre the delicate passages demand a great attentiveness and stillness on the part of the audience.
On 31 October 1780, she married Joseph Lange, an actor at the court theatre. When Mozart married her sister Constanze in 1782, she became his sister-in-law.
Johann Baptist Lampi d.Ä., Aloysia Weber as Zemire in Ernst-Modest Grétry’s opera Zémire et Azor, c1784
- Mozart Relevance
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Mozart first met Aloysia Weber during his stay in Mannheim in 1777–8, when he gave her musical instruction and composed for her the concert arias K294, K316 and probably the early version of K538; he also fell in love with her, mooting to his father his plans to take her to Italy (an idea to which Leopold objected strenuously).
Anon, Aloysia Lange c1778
After her move to Vienna, Mozart composed the arias ‘Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!’ K418 and ‘No,che non sei capace’ K419 for her debut as Clorinda in Anfossi’s Il curioso indiscreto. Lange fell out of favour with the Italian troupe and in 1785 was transferred to the less prestigious Kärntnertortheater, where among other roles she sang Konstanze in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail K384. Occasionally she was engaged for the Italian opera, most notably in 1788 when she sang the role of Donna Anna at the Viennese premiere of Don Giovanni K527. She sang the aria to ‘Se il padre perdei’, from Idomeneo K366, at Mozart’s Burgtheater concert of 23 March 1783.
- Category/Role
- Singer
- Date 1
- 1760 Zell im Wiesental
- Date 2
- 1839-06-08 Salzburg