Abstract
For Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio), we shall be reunited with Riccardo Minasi, currently one of the most interesting musicians specialising in the baroque and classical repertoire. He has already conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Zurich, and now returns to the rostrum of our Orchestra La Scintilla. The cast of this revival production is also hand-picked: the internationally sought-after soprano Brenda Rae will be giving her début at Zurich Opera as Konstanze, and Belmont will be sung by the tenor Daniel Behle, who is celebrated for his interpretations of Mozart roles.
Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail is widely considered to be the fresh, optimistic, but harmless work of a brilliant composer on the threshold to greatness. And the plot – which at first glance appears to be rather naïve – about Konstanze, who has been abducted by pirates and is now stranded in Bassa Selim’s seraglio, would appear to confirm that impression. But Mozart’s music transforms the figures of the piece, which seem to be heavily indebted to the “Turkish” opera popular in the 18th century, into deeply human characters.
Mozart was more concerned with the inner conflicts of the figures, which he analyses psychologically with his music, than the external action. Director David Hermann, who stages the action in a completely modern setting, thus interprets Belmonte’s journey – he intends to free Konstanze from the seraglio – not as an excursion into outwardly unfamiliar territory, but as a nightmare journey into Belmonte’s own fears and emotional depths.