The prestigious Gran Teatre del Liceu from Barcelona presents Mozart's beloved opera in an elegant, dramatic twist with a sparkling cast of world-class stars, led by coloratura soprano Diana Damrau as Constance and rising star Olga Peretyatko as Blonda. Director Christophe Loy has created a thought-provoking and surprisingly original script in which both Constance and Blonda feel respect, admiration and even deep love for their captors. As a result of this tantalizing, torturous approach, traditional norms and concepts of good and evil were turned upside down.
Legendary director Hans Neuenfels once again proves his great skill with this interpretation of Mozart’s “Entführung aus dem Serail” (Abduction from the Seraglio). This extraordinary production conducted by Lothar Zagrosek, and with Catherine Naglestad, Kate Ladner and Matthias Klink in the main roles, won the Bavarian Theatre Prize in 1999 and offers a refreshingly new view of one of the most frequently played operas worldwide. Special highlight: Neuenfels places an actor at every singer’s side who not only takes over his role for the spoken original scripts, but also interacts with his singing double and other characters of the piece. In recent decades, directors have sought to revitalise the somewhat naive plot of the “Entführung” with fresh interpretations. Hans Neuenfels, who produced his “first Mozart” here in Stuttgart, retains the story’s naivety and absurdity. He does this in a very stimulating and intelligent way.
Mozart's famous Singspiel after Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's work "Belmonte und Konstanze", DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL comes to life in the sumptuous setting of Topkapi, the Ottoman sultans' own Istanbul seraglio (palace harem). Belmonte finds his fiancée Konstanze and her English maid Blondchen, who were captured and sold by pirates, in the Mediterranean seraglio of the Ottoman pasha Selim. Belmonte's servant Pedrillo gets him engaged as builder. After Selim tried to enforce himself upon Konstanze, Pedrillo and Blondchen, his own sweetheart, prepare their flight, managing to get Osmin, the pasha's overseer, drunk. Yet Osmin and Selim's guard still capture them, already in the garden; however the touching display of true love melts the pasha's heart, so he lets them go.
Production of Mozart's opera about the Spanish nobleman who seeks to rescue his beloved Konstanze from the hands of the Pasha.
Karl Bohm conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Bayerischen Staatsoper with the right balance of serious purpose and light lilting lyricism. This production, staged by August Everding with set and costume design by Max Bignens, was filmed from a live television production relayed on the First Programme (Channel 1) of German television on 25 April 1980,
