(Photo Credit: ©Gianni Cravedi) Emanuel Schikaneder, a prolific stage comedian, singer, and skilled impresario, proposed to Mozart the creation of a new singspiel–a form of German musical theater that alternates spoken dialogue without musical accompaniment–in response to the enduring hegemony of Italian opera, which had long dominated European stages. The entrepreneur’s brilliant insight, as highlighted by Mattia Marino Merlo in {…}