The Midsummer Marriage the work in 1968 conducted by Colin Davis with the Ritual Dances choreographed by Gillian Lynne and in 1970, where the production formed the basis of the first commercial recording. Tippett extracted the "Four Ritual Dances" from the opera as a separate concert work. The story of "The Midsummer Marriage" was consciously modeled after Mozart's "The Magic Flute". Both trace the path to marriage of one "royal" and one "common" couple: Jenifer and Mark correspond to Pamina and Tamino, the earthy Jack and Bella to Papageno and Papagena. King Fisher stands in for the Queen of the Night, the Ancients
Mozart and dance it was rich in figures (individual movements and patterns) and was popular among all social classes. Mozart composed contredanses as a sequence of multiple sections. They sometimes quote popular melodies; for instance, K. 609 quotes the aria "Non più andrai" from Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro". Of the three genres, minuets predominate in Mozart's early career, the latter two types later on. The core instrumentation of the dances is a simplified orchestra in which there are no violas, and the bass instruments (cello and double bass) play the same line. A variety of wind instruments is usually included, and