Organization

Conductor

Karl Böhm

Stage director

August Everding

Set designer

Max Bignens

Costume designer

Soprano

Edita Gruberová

Constance

Reri Grist

Blonde

Tenor

Francisco Javier Ariza

Belmonte

Bass

Martti Talvela

Osmin

Norbert Orth

Pedrillo

Bayerische Staatsoper

Die Entführung aus dem Serail -  (The Abduction from the Seraglio)

Munich

Germany

August Everding staged Mozart's Singspiel at the Munich National Theater as a cheerful opera, but, as he said, with the "background" that Mozart demanded: the buffo characters were given human traits. The stage consists of bright architecture with an oriental touch, the elements of which are constantly shifting. Stage designer Max Bignens speaks of "choreographic" decoration: "We didn't want anything cumbersome for Mozart's music and, above all, no major conversions". Karl Böhm, who conducted his first "Abduction" in the National Theater in 1924, sees the depth of the music, what it contains in terms of glamor and magic, Eros and spirituality. Edita Gruberova takes center stage with accurate and flashing coloraturas. Martti Talvela as Osmin is flexible in performance and voice, cunning braggart. Thomas Holtzmann speaks Bassa Selim as a nervous, short-tempered potentate. Francisco Araiza sings the Belmonte with luminous tones. Norbert Orth is a fresh Pedrillo and Reri Grist is a blonde with natural charm and musical sensitivity.

When Joseph II was planning a "German national theatre" in 1776, which was primarily to perform German operas, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first thought of revising his unfinished Singspiel "Zaide" for this theatre, but then wrote a completely new one Opera on a similar subject: "The Abduction from the Seraglio".

The plot follows the then popular "Turkish Operas", which - under the impression of the defeated siege of Vienna by Turkish troops - had been written in ever new versions for some time. (Around 25 years later, Gioachino Rossini revived this scheme for the opera buffa with his operas "The Italian Woman in Algiers" and "The Turk in Italy".) However, Mozart drew the characters of his Singspiel in finer colors than he did in the was the case with most of the operas of his contemporaries. And through the generous gesture of Bassa Selim at the end of the opera, ideas of humanism and enlightenment find their way onto the Singspiel stage.

Much has been puzzled and speculated as to why the role of Pasha Selim is only for speaking; the reason for this seems to be an emergency solution: the tenor who was actually supposed to sing this role had been dismissed when the opera was being written..

Die Entführung aus dem Serail Mozart

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The Abduction from the Seraglio

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