Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Mei, Ciofi - Mehta 2002Performer: Mehrzad Montazeri, Eva Mei, Patrizia Ciofi, Markus John, Rainer Trost, Kurt Rydl
Conductor: Zubin Mehta
Orchestra/Ensemble: Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra, Florence Maggio Musicale Chorus
Boldly, proudly seductive in its rendering of Mozart’s idiomatic Singspiel forms, this production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail proves a visual bonanza as well, the giant, hanging tapestries of its mise-en-scène akin to compound windows framing the action—and there is a lot of it—and affording a clearer view into the depths of a picaresque farce quite beyond the implications and limitations of the term.
Right from the overture, there is clearly something vested in the evening, an extra bit of liveliness, as Mehta practically pops out of his tuxedo, breathless as the camera cuts to him after a particularly rapt flourish, like the singers themselves, who shift across the boards with the most nimble finesse, as though their movements were cued by the camera itself, peeling away when a wider shot best serves the plot, or stepping squarely into the frame when one of this work’s core dictums must be aired.
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