Mozart’s Idomeneo is considered his first mature opera, written for Munich in 1781. The topic might not have been Mozart’s alternative however it represents the composers persevering with engagement with Italian opera seria, a method that had dominated his operatic output in his teenage years. Mozart continued his engagement with this type, although his three mature operas with Lorenzo da Ponte signify a brand new route, but in 1791 he would return to opera seria for his late masterpiece, La clemenza di Tito.
Idomeneo was written to a libretto by Giambattista Varesco, the courtroom chaplain, primarily based on a libretto written for André Campra’s Idoménée (1712). It has been recommended that Varesco was accustomed to the work of Calzabigi, Gluck’s librettist, and far of the opera represents a mediation between the French and the Italian critical kinds. The opera is one thing of a musicological minefield, earlier than the primary efficiency Mozart was making massive cuts and adjustments, then in 1786 he was considering wholesale revisions to make it extra Gluckian, with Idomeneo as a bass and Idamante as a tenor (quite than a castrato). Within the occasion, all he did was give a live performance efficiency in Vienna in 1786, writing some new music, making extra cuts and altering Idamante to tenor, a half-way home in the direction of a model that he by no means created.
Idomeneo‘s dependence on the Italian 18th-century opera seria type can imply dramatic challenges for administrators, but you’ll want to set beside this that Mozart wrote a full-scale dance divertissement for the opera too! Idomeneo stays a type of operas that fascinates and tantalises on the stage, while few productions handle to distil its essence.
Should you fancy a visit to Amsterdam then on 7 February 2025, the Nationale Opera & Ballet opens a brand new manufacturing of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Lawrence Cummings conducts, making his debut with the corporate and the manufacturing is directed by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who may even be working with members of his dance troupe, Eastman, and units are designed by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. Daniel Behle is Idomeneo with a solid together with Cecilia Molinari, Anna El-Khashem, and Jacquelyn Wagner.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, former creative director of Royal Ballet of Flanders, has directed a variety of operas together with Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes (2016, Bavarian State Opera), Philip Glass’ Satyagraha (2017, Theater Basel), Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (2018, Opera Vlanderen) and Gluck’s French model of Alceste (2019, Bavarian State Opera, see YouTube)
It is a co-production with Grand Théâtre de Genève and Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, so if it appeals then there are different fantastic operatic journeys to be made.
Fascinating observe: In 1964, Luciano Pavarotti made his UK debut as Idamante in Idomeneo at Glyndebourne in a manufacturing directed by Carl Ebert, performed by John Pritchard with a solid together with Gundula Janowitz as Ilia and Richard Lewis as Idomeneo. Now does not that make the mouth water! [full details at the Glyndebourne website]
Full particulars from the corporate’s web site.
