About the work
Prima la musica e poi le parole is a one-act divertimento teatrale by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Giovanni Battista Casti. Emperor Joseph II commissioned the short work together with Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor for a party honouring his sister Archduchess Marie Christine and her husband; both pieces premiered on 7 February 1786 in the orangery of Schönbrunn Palace, performed at opposite ends of the same hall.
Plot
A composer and a poet are pressed for time to write an opera for two rival singers: Eleonora, a prima donna favouring serious roles, and Tonina, who pushes for comic effect. Their dispute over precedence and style becomes the subject of the piece itself.
Cultural significance
The work is among the earliest operas to take the opera business itself as its subject; its title became a byword for the primacy of music or text and later inspired Richard Strauss's Capriccio. Its staged rivalry with Mozart's companion piece the same evening remains a well-known episode of Viennese musical history.