Classical Opera continue their series of Mozart Operas on Signum with Mozarts Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 87 (74a). Mozarts first great operatic success premiered at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 26 Dec 1770, marking the culmination of Mozarts first trip to Italy. The work received an initial twenty-two performance run sure proof of success and news of this astonishing youthful work spread quickly. As well as the complete opera, this 4CD set includes a bonus disc featuring original versions of a number of arias from the opera that Mozart subsequently changed in the final version.
Mozart's fourth opera - written when he was only 14 - displays all the hallmarks of the fresh, inventive writing that was to flourish into extraordinary genius in his later works and, with a cast as good as this, The Royal Opera's production takes Mitridate, re di Ponto to the highest levels of operatic achievement. Based on a play by Jean Racine, it is a story of jealous love and political intrigue.
Filmed and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in the unique interiors of Vicenza's Teatro Olimpico in 1986, this DVD offers an intimate glimpse of Mozart's first major opera, written when the precocious composer was just fourteen. Nikolaus Harnoncourt leads a stellar cast in portraying the inner circle of the Roman Empire's fiercest enemy: Mithridates, king of Pontus.
Mozart was just 14 years old when he composed Mitridate, re di Ponto, a noble opera seria based on a play by Racine. A great success at its premiere, it is only rarely staged today, so this 2016 performance, led by Emmanuelle Haïm at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées, was by definition a special occasion. The dazzlingly virtuosic cast is led by tenor Michael Spyres and sopranos Patricia Petibon and Sabine Devieilhe, while the intense modern staging is by Clément Hervieu-Léger, a resident director at France’s most illustrious theatre company, the Comédie Française.
Mozart Edition: The Complete Works will make a great gift this Holiday season for the music lover in your life or someone who is hard to buy for. This collection contains 170 discs of completed works by Mozart in one beautiful package. Also included is a cd-rom containing essays on his works, artist bio's, text and libretti's. All music lovers will enjoy the Symphonies - Concertos - Serenades - Divertimenti - Dances - Chamber Music - Church Sonatas - String Ensembles - Violin Sonatas - Keyboard Works - Sacred Works - Concert Arias - Songs - Canons and Operas in this collection.
The 15-year-old Mozart's Il Sogno di Scipione, K. 126, has not been much performed. It's too late to be truly the work of a prodigy, but not really a mature work, and it's not an opera but a serenata drammatica, a little one-act allegory in which the titular African king has to choose between Fortune and Constancy, prepared for the same Archbishop Colloredo who would later make Mozart's life hell.