MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Mozart: Il Sogno di Scipione (complete opera recorded at the Salzburg Festival 2006)

All Regions - Widescreen 16:9 - LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1 Surround - Colour - NTSC

"Mozart's music blossoms here into the most intense arioso... This unusual Mozart dream makes for wonderfully refreshing theatre."
-Salzburger Nachrichten, 21 August 2006

"Il Sogno di Scipione" (The Dream of Scipione) is a kind of allegorical opera or symbolic oratorio in which the goddesses of moral virtue (Constanza) and earthly happiness (Fortuna) apear to Roman commander Scipione in a dream and demand he choose between them. Scipione's father and grandfather appear in the dream and offer counsel. Written when Mozart was only 15 years old it demonstrates his delight in elaborate coloratura singing and vivid orchestral depictions of emotional states. Director Michael Sturminger takes Mozart's early music drama (which might seem and sets it in a plush hotel room and re-interprets the contest between constancy and fortune as a contest between the Catherine Deneuve-like prim blonde housewife (complete with children) and the sultry brunette temptress of "la Fortuna". A very witty and spectacularly sung interpretation of this strange little historical/political allegory full of the most elaborate coloratura singing especially from the lead sopranos.