BBC Music Magazine
October 2019
Opera Choice

Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmoniker
Constantinos Carydis, Lydia Steier

Matthias Goerne (Sarastro), Mauro Peter (Tamino), Albina Shagimuratova (Königin der Nacht), Christiane Karg (Pamina), Adam Plachetka (Papageno), Maria Nazarova (Papagena), Michael Porter (Monostatos), Tareq Nazmi (Sprecher)

W.A. Mozart’s timeless masterpiece at the Salzburg Festival is always an event! Especially when Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) receives such a ‘spectacular and virtuosic staging’ (Le Figaro) by director Lydia Steier. Steier introduces the role of the grandfather, a narrator reading the opera like a fairy tale to his three grandchildren, performed by the famous actor Klaus Maria Brandauer (Out of Africa, James Bond). This ‘trick’ in combination with the gigantic moveable sets by stage designer Katharina Schlipf, allows new views on Mozart’s magical opera, with its different worlds. Thanks to conductor Constantinos Carydis, who ‘seems to breath with the music’ (Tagesspiegel), there is a new Mozart to be heard too: Carydis draws ‘precise phrasing and plenty of crisp articulation’ (Financial Times) from ‘the musicians of the great Vienna Philharmonic’ (New York Times).

"Steier offers brilliant and convincing solutions to the perennial problems of Die Zauberflöte." - BBC Music Magazine, October 2019.