Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 5th of June 2016 at 6 - 9.40 pm
Thursday 10th of September 2015 at 8 - 11 pm
Sunday 1st of June 2008 at 3 pm
INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (Deutsch/Englisch)
LIBRETTO (English)
PREVIEW (2015)
2016
MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio
K384 a comic opera in three acts
Konstanze.................... Albina Shagimuratova
Blondchen................... Kathleen Kim
Belmonte..................... Paul Appleby
Pedrillo........................ Brenton Ryan
Osmin.......................... Hans-Peter König
Pasha............................ Matthias von Stegmann
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/James Levine
2015
Belmonte.......................... Edgaras Montvidas
Konstanze......................... Sally Matthews
Blonde.............................. Mari Eriksmoen
Pedrillo............................. Brenden Patrick Gunnell
Osmin............................... Tobias Kehrer
Pasha Selim...................... Franck Saurel
Glyndebourne Festival Opera Chorus,
Orch of the Age of Enlightenment/Robin Ticciati
(recorded in the Royal Albert Hall, London by the BBC)
(Proms 2015)
2008
MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio, opera in three acts
Konstanze..................... Diana Damrau
Blonde..................... Aleksandra Kurzak
Belmonte....................... Matthew Polenzani
Pedrillo......................... Steve Davislim
Osmin........................... Kristinn Sigmundsson
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/David Robertson
QUIZ in Intermission 1 (Natalie Dessay!)
This is the Mozart opera that has "too many notes" (Emperor Joseph II, as seen in Amadeus). What he said was: gewaltig viel Noten (which is literally "mighty many notes", or "an enormous number of notes"). As usual I offer you a lot of notes (not too many, I hope) but the ones from the Metropera archives have been taken away from us.
This was one of the earliest operas I saw, when I was a university student in Sydney. I told my uncle Archie I was going to see it (he had been a prisoner of war on Sentosa island next to Singapore, and I respected him greatly) and he said I should go for something more "red-blooded" than opera.
I can't think what he meant, since this opera seems to revel in sadism and masochism, with a heroine (Konstanze) who is prepared to suffer "tortures of all kinds" (Martern aller Arten) from her Turkish captor Pasha Selim; and his palace overseer Osmin is ever ready to inflict them on all of the Europeans (flaying alive, impaling on red-hot spikes, burning, hanging, beheading, drowning). However, for anyone who enjoys watching other people's pain, there is only the mental cruelty of imprisonment and unrequited love; otherwise it is jollity and japes.
I bought a pocket-libretto out of my pocket-money (it cost 1 shilling and 9 pence), and sang the tenor and bass songs when they came up on the radio. As for recordings, I got a second-hand 78 rpm disc of the overture (turn it over in the middle of the piece) conducted by Thomas Beecham (the pill pusher), which I played on a Dual turntable through the one-valve (1K7G) amplifier I built for my crystal set, listening on 2000-ohm headphones from the army disposal store. I have equipment for playing it now, but I later acquired the full (and wonderful) Beecham set on two vinyl discs. The one I am hearing right now, in the spacious acoustics of the garage auditorium next to this little office, is the 1985 Zürich version (3 discs!), conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with Peter Schreier (Belmonte), Yvonne Kenny (Konstanze), and Matti Salminen (Osmin). Beecham had Gottlob Frick as the bass, to declaim exultantly "Oh how I will triumph when they lead you to the place of execution and string you up by the neck" (or maybe by "die Hälse schnüren zu" he meant garrotting not hanging).
The other bit that always tickles me, especially in the Beecham interpretation, is the trio at the end of Act 1, where Osmin tries to keep the Spaniards out of the palace, but "Wir gehn hinein" they insist, and in they go.
Let me add that I saw Malvina Major do it in the Wellington opera house. I think that that is a false memory. Anyway she sings Konstanze on the personally signed recording I have.
Mozart had already tried this theme of European captives at the mercy of a benevolent Turk, in his Zaide (which we had an opportunity to hear in 12/2007):
http://operawonk.blogspot.com
Another variation on the theme is Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers.
Remember that Seraglio is like The Magic Flute, a Singspiel, the German version of "opéra comique", so there is dialogue, as in Carmen and The Daughter of the Regiment. Don't make the mistake of tuning in, hearing talk not song, thinking this can't be opera, and switching off!
Salaam `alaykum
Obsolete links (sad, as they were useful!)
COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUNDCHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
LIBRETTO (German)
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