“The Magic Flute” is Mozart’s most popular and beloved opera, and its melodies – from Papageno’s folkloric tunes to the Queen of the Night’s breathtaking coloraturas – are familiar even among non-listeners of classical music. In this production by Pierre Audi, however, it is the eyes and not the ears that first fall under the spell of this truly magical “Magic Flute.” From the illustration on the stage curtain to the incredible, wildly colored, primeval-looking monsters, animals and decorative elements on the stage, the production is dominated by the unmistakable expressive world of the Dutch artist and sculptor Karel Appel. A co-founder of the acclaimed Cobra Group, Appel developed a darkly expressionistic idiom and was the “secret dramaturge” of the production, says director Audi. Appel died at the age of 85 three months before the premiere of “Die Zauberflöte” at the Salzburg Festival. Blending smoothly into Appel’s exotic designs, director Pierre Audi’s production is neither a contemporization nor a deconstruction of Mozart’s German Singspiel, which was written in 1791 and was one of Mozart’s last works. Instead, Audi leaves the alleged stylistic breaks and unresolved conflicts between good and evil as they are and seeks to “give them a home,” as he puts it. He relates the fairy-tale story of the “Magic Flute” in a sensual and playful, but never childlike or childish way, using Appel’s sets as a component of his vision. While the sets may be a treat for the eyes, the music is a feast for the ears. Metropolitan Opera and La Scala star Diana Damrau shines as a Queen of the Night who effortlessly tosses out her coloraturas with dazzling accuracy. René Pape’s Sarastro is a worthy counterpart, a solemn figure with balsamic bass tones. Paul Groves’ supple tenor voice ensures a faultless Tamino next to the captivatingly natural lyricism of Genia Kühmeier’s Pamina. Christian Gerhaher is a welcome, almost restrained Papageno. His Papagena, Irena Bespalovaite, brings her fresh musicality to the ensemble. The Vienna Philharmonic is led with an expert hand by the great Riccardo Muti.
Don Giovanni (Mozart 22)
“Il dissoluto punito, ossia Il Don Giovanni” is the full title of the opera that is widely held to be the most perfect work of its genre. Luckily, it is known today merely as “Don Giovanni,” a title that far better evokes the hero in all of his seductive power, his disregard for the social order, his merry wantonness. It is this hero who fascinated Mozart, not the “dissoluto punito” – the “rake punished” – who harks back to the morals and conventions of the late 18th century. The work, again on a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte (like “Figaro” and “Così”), was written for Prague after “Figaro” had enjoyed such an overwhelming success in the Bohemian capital. It was premiered there on 29 October 1787. The opera’s perfect fusion of opera buffa and opera seria is suggested by its novel designation as a dramma giocoso, or merry drama. It is a moral tale of murder, sexual exploitation and betrayal that is lightened by comedic elements that infuse the whole with warmth and humanity. As sung by baritone Thomas Hampson, who made his international breakthrough as Don Giovanni under Harnoncourt in 1987, the title hero superbly incarnates the aging rake and emotional anarchist who’s seen and done everything. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo plays his servant without exaggeration, as an astute observer. While Melanie Diener dazzles as Donna Elvira, it is Christine Schäfer and Piotr Beczala who, with their powerful stage presence, give exceptionally unforgettable performances as Donna Anna and Don Ottavio. Director Martin Ku¿ej interprets “Don Giovanni” with compelling images that cast the rake as a child of today’s consumer society, a man who acquires women, uses them and disposes of them after consumption. Happiness can be bought – but the specter of retribution is never far away, as in the evocative “tableau vivant” of spent and broken high-society hedonists. Under the baton of young conductor Daniel Harding, the Vienna Philharmonic weave a fresh, transparent and jaunty musical fabric that underscores every nuance of passion and despair, as well as every shading of wit and humanity that make “Don Giovanni” a work of unequalled artistry.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart 22)
The plot couldn’t be simpler: the Spanish nobleman Belmonte must free his fiancée Konstanze, her English maid Blonde and Belmonte’s servant Pedrillo from the clutches of the Turkish Bassa, or Pasha, Selim. Belmonte must sneak into the pasha’s seraglio and sneak back out again, all the while eluding and outsmarting Osmin, the overseer of the harem. With his Salzburg production of 2003, young Norwegian director Stefan Herheim raised a storm of controversy that continued to crackle in 2006, when the production was revised for the Mozart 22 cycle. The controversy was largely due to the fact that Herheim transposed the events to the inner world of the human psyche. The harem is no longer a real harem, but a psychological place of longing and desire, enticing and yet threatening at the same time. The entire exotic, Janissary scenery gives way to the more familiar images of one’s own sexual urges and impulses. The production revolves around the question: how does a man get a woman? To get to the bottom of this age-old question, Herheim shows how men and women try to seek happiness together and fail since they are caught in conventions and subservient to their inner demons – illustrated here by Osmin as priest and devil. “It is a genesis, the beginning of all beginnings, when man is separated into two sexes, is disoriented, and from then on seeks to return to his original form in ever new constellations,” explains Herheim. Giving powerful accounts of their difficult roles is a top-notch cast dominated by Laura Aikin as Konstanze and Charles Castronovo as Belmonte. With her elegiac Andante arias, Aikin is an oasis of calm and nobility. Castronovo suggests his own vulnerability with his wonderfully lyrical timbre. At the head of the Mozarteum Orchestra, Ivor Bolton once again confirms his reputation as a dynamic and sensitive interpreter of Baroque and Classical operas. The clarity and wisdom of his music-making provide an astute contrast to the turbulent activity on stage. Indeed, the marriage of orchestra and voices evokes the image of the stage of life: on the surface, everything is in motion; below, order rules – but it is an order that is often lost in everyday life.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
La Finta Giardiniera (Mozart 22)
“My opera … was such a success that it is impossible for me to describe the applause to Mamma,” wrote Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his mother from Munich on 14 January 1775, the day after the premiere of his new opera buffa, “La finta giardiniera” (The Make-Believe Gardener) K. 196. Written for the Munich carnival season, it is not only the first example of a combination of buffa and seria roles in Mozart’s music, but it also carries its plot of pretense, disguise and surprising revelations to the brink of catastrophe. Belfiore believes he has killed his betrothed, Violante, in a fit of jealousy. He flees in panic – which does not prevent him from falling for Arminda, who then spurns her admirer Ramiro in favor of Belfiore. Violante, meanwhile, searches for her lover with her servant Roberto. Under a false name, she takes a post as gardener on the estate of Don Anchise; her servant passes himself off as her cousin. While Anchise pursues Violante, Roberto romances the maid. The labyrinth of pursuit and deception becomes completely entangled when Belfiore, his new conquest Arminda and her persistent admirer Ramiro turn up on the estate… The Mozart 22 production of “La finta giardiniera” was placed in the hands of Doris Dörrie, a noted filmmaker (“Men”) and, more recently, director of controversial opera productions (“Rigoletto” in Munich). Asked why she set the work in a garden center, Dörrie replied: “It’s a market of emotions! The plants represent feelings, the garden is our little paradise. […] We all have the same dream …, which is why we buy so much equipment, chemicals, even weapons to keep our garden under control. It must be kept in its boundaries, for just as an uncontrolled garden can mutate into a wild jungle, so can uncontrolled emotions, proliferating like wild plants, become dangerous to us.” The rousing musical underpinnings of this irreverent production are provided by the Mozarteum Orchestra under its principal conductor Ivor Bolton, who has made a name for himself as champion of authentic and spirited interpretations of Handel, Monteverdi, Gluck and, of course, Mozart. In this performance of “La finta giardiniera,” Bolton makes it clear that the real dramatic development in this early work is to be found in Mozart’s music.
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Filmed at the 1954 Salzburg Festival, this restored and technically enhanced recording of “Don Giovanni” is more than simply a superb performance of one of the world’s most lastingly popular operas with an exquisite cast led by Cesare Siepi, Elisabeth Grümmer and Lisa della Casa. It is the last visual document of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s art, the legacy of a great conductor. A giant among 20th-century conductors, Wilhelm Furtwängler was associated for many years with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. After the war, he discovered a new, exceptionally rewarding venue for his artistry at the Salzburg Festival. Beginning with “Fidelio” in 1948, Furtwängler ushered in a golden age of memorable performances in Salzburg.
Armonie dello spirito in Florence
The Vatican Concert 2005 – In Honor of Pope Benedikt XVI
Recorded live in the presence of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City, this profoundly moving and inspiring concert is a true musical landmark. While the music ranges from the grand to the sublime, the atmosphere retains the warmth and intimacy of a “family reunion”: both the Munich Philharmonic and the boys’ chorus “Regensburger Domspatzen” are world-renowned institutions from the Pope’s native Germany and from cities closely connected with the former Cardinal Ratzinger. Among the works performed is a Sanctus from a mass written by Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s brother and one-time director of the “Regensburger Domspatzen”. Under the direction of its distinguished young principal conductor Christian Thielemann, the Munich Philharmonic is joined by the boys’ chorus (which also sings a cappella works led by Georg Büchner) in music by Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Palestrina, Pfitzner, Verdi, Wagner and Georg Ratzinger. The musical event is rounded off with an address to the listeners and performers by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.