Zaide

Our Review:

25 June 2010

Mozart’s unfinished opera Zaide has been interpreted anew by the founder, conductor and artistic director of the Classical Opera Company, Ian Page for this Sadler’s Wells presentation and subsequent tour.

Page had the idea to take the fifteen pieces (including twelve arias) that Mozart wrote for Zaide in 1779, and the opera we now see is the product of his (and many others’) efforts over the last nine years.

Page took the decision to ‘fill in the gaps’ by using Mozart’s own music, utilising pieces written within a few years of Zaide to aid stylistic continuity. So Act Three, for which Mozart never wrote a thing, includes excerpts from Thamos, König in Ägypten, Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Page did not believe that any living composer could produce Mozartian music up to the standard of the original, while to write anything in another style risked dest...

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Latest User Review

Cassox - 25 June 2010:

Sam Smith... opera critic? He seems to not understand that the short bits of musical interlude are 'melodrama' which is how Mozart actualy wrote it. His issue with the 'spoken' dialogue and his comment of being taken out of an operatic experience is absurd. How dare there be an opera with speaking in it... like THE MAGIC FLUTE. Anyhow, the production is far from perfect, but i applaud it's refusal to fall back on stilted operatic gesture, and it's rough round the edges approach creates an energy that is very rare to find in any operatic perfomances. A brilliant stab in the right direction, but i'd love to see this production developed further. With a budget....

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