La finta semplice, K. 51

Composer: Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Librettist/Text Author: Goldoni, Carlo

Conductor: Hofstetter, Michael

Orchestra: Camerata Salzburg

Auctoritas: Hamre, Marianne

Don Cassandro: Wagner, Josef

Don Polidoro: Klink, Matthias

Fracasso: Ovenden, Jeremy

Giacinta: Comparato, Marina

Ninetta: Moi, Silvia

Rosina: Hartelius, Malin

Simone: Turk, Miljenko

Set Designer: Kilian, Jens

Costume Designer: Kilian, Jens

Lighting Designer: Finn, David

Choreographer: Schlomer, Joachim

Stage Director: Schlomer, Joachim

Television Director: Spiro, Olivier

Television Director: Spiro, Anais

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Date of Production: 2006

Festival: Salzburg Festival

Venue: Residenzhof, Salzburg

Playing Time: 02:08:59

Catalogue Number: A04001478

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The Irrfahrten (Odysseys) trilogy comprises three independent, self-contained performances that are motivically interwoven into a compelling whole through a great variety of references. Various artistic genres - music, theater, dance and video - are fused into an original form of music theater that could very well point to the future. The trilogy was conceived by Joachim Schlömer, a noted dancer, choreographer and director. He sees his project as the "odyssey of an artist from external control to self-determination" (Schlömer). This concerns not only Mozart himself, but also the artist in general, and, by extension, everyone who has overcome a crisis in their life to achieve their personal freedom.

At the beginning of the trilogy is the twelve-year-old Mozart's first opera buffa, La finta semplice (The Make-Believe Simpleton), a full-length opera with commedia dell'arte-style characters. "The music," says Schlömer, "tells of wanting something - even if the characters still don't really know what they want." The second Odyssey, Abendempfindung (Evening Sensation), a pasticcio of Mozart arias, songs, instrumental pieces (including some for the rare and evocative glass harmonica) and letters. The great Ann Murray is the featured performer here. The third Odyssey, Rex tremendus presents a thought-provoking combination of two opera buffa fragments, Lo sposo deluso and L'oca del Cairo, along with various unfinished pieces and fragments from Mozart's last work, the Requiem. It represents the artist's ultimate liberation from the restrictions and conventions of society, his farewell from the world, in total darkness...

Schlömer on his Odysseys: "It is about the path the artist follows from his entrance into adult life to a period of artistic crisis, comparable to the midlife crisis we all go through, and on to a fragmentation and liberation from all interpretation of the artist's activity." Irrfahrten / Odysseys is one of the most illuminating productions of the Mozart 22 cycle, one that makes Mozart's genius shine in all of its facets.