Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail

“Without hesitation I would proclaim this the most satisfactory version of the opera yet to be recorded,” was Opera magazine’s verdict on Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s exhilarating realisation of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Growing from the Austrian conductor’s collaboration at the Zurich Opera with stage director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, it is informed by both searching scholarship and a vivid sense of theatre. Mozart’s Turkish-inspired scoring, here almost startling in its brilliance and immediacy, sets the scene for a superb cast led by Yvonne Kenny as Constanze and Peter Schreier as Belmonte.