Mozart in Prag by Various, Wed 07 Sep 2022, From (2022/2022), Conductor Laurence Equilbey, Grosses Haus, Bremerhaven, Germany

Mozart and Prague, that was a happy combination! While he repeatedly struggled with problems in Salzburg and Vienna, the Bohemian capital gave him a warm welcome when he arrived for his first stay in 1787 – with the new Symphony No. 38 in D major in his luggage. The enthusiastic Prague residents immediately gave the composer the commission for his last opera seria »La clemenza di Tito«, which impresses with a mercilessly deep psychological penetration of its characters and at the same time comes up with a magnificent musical arrangement. Haydn's great dramatic Berenice scene is in no way inferior to Mozart in terms of intensity: in an outburst of desperation, the Egyptian princess fears her lover's suicide. With the French conductor Laurence Equilbey and her Insula Orchestra, who play historical instruments, Mozart and Haydn are in the best of hands. Equilbey confidently succeeds in creating an elegantly phrased, intensely focused and movingly stimulating sound that harmonizes perfectly with Cecilia Molinari's warm, powerful and colorful mezzo-soprano!