A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Duodrama

by George Grove

DUODRAMA. A kind of melodrama, of which Mozart speaks with enthusiasm and at some length in letters to his father from Mannheim and Kaisersheim in the end of 1778. The name would indicate a piece for two performers; and those which he heard—Bendas 'Medea' and 'Ariadne auf Naxos'—and that which he contemplated writing himself—'Semiranis'—appear to have been pieces in which spoken dialogue was accompanied by the orchestra, as in Mendelssohn's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' and other pieces, and those called 'Melodram.' 'Not a note is sung,' says he, 'only spoken; in fact it is a recitative with instruments, only the actor speaks instead of singing' (Letter 120). There is no trace of 'Semiramis' having been composed, but Mozart acted on the idea in 'Zaide' (1780), which contains two long monologues treated en melodrame.

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