Reprising this about Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio [Die Entführung aus dem Serail], which has a charming scene indicating England’s eighteenth-century reputation in Europe as a land of liberty.
A woman named Konstanze and her English servant Blonde have been abducted by pirates and sold to Pasha Selim. In Act II, the Pasha’s crude overseer, Osmin, attempts to get a resistant Blonde to submit to him, whereupon these excellent lines are uttered:
OSMIN: Aren’t you forgetting that the Pasha gave you to me as a slave?
BLONDE: Pasha this, Pasha that! Girls are not goods to be given away! I’m an Englishwoman, born to freedom, and I defy anyone who would force me to do his will!
Osmin retires from the scene startled by this plucky display of courage and principle from an unexpected source — a woman and a servant at that.
The opera was composed late in 1781 and premiered in July of 1782 in Vienna.
Interesting… while enjoy Mozart’s instrumental music, am not much the opera fan, so not familiar with much other than Marriage of Figaro… and The Magic Flute…