Unfinished opera in 2 acts
Libretto: Johann Andreas Schachtner
First performance: January 27, 1866, Frankfurt
Recorded: 2008, 60th Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Zaide - Ekaterina Lekhina
Gomatz - Sean Panikkar
Allazim - Alfred Walker
Sultan Soliman - Russell Thomas
Osmin - Morris Robinson
Geroge Tsypin, set design
Gabriel Berry, costume design
James F. Ingalls, lighting design
Mozart left his Singspiel Zaide unfinished, but its wonderful music is most definitely still worth performing. And which director is better suited to staging this tale of slavery and love than Peter Sellars, who is famous for the tremendous passion with which he confronts political and intercultural questions in his productions and interprets classical operas in altogether convincing ways? "In Zaide", Sellars insists, "Mozart was attempting to construct a musical and dramatic bridge between Europe and the Muslim world, replacing the 'menace' perceived on both sides with mercy and compassion." |
[ NTSC ] (???)