Director Thomas Reichert had to do a trick for this Salzburg production of Bastien Und Bastienne and Der Schauspieldirektor. Both operas in themselves can hardly captivate for an evening. Mozart wrote Bastien Und Bastienne when he was twelve years old, quite an achievement but not yet a masterpiece. Der Schauspieldirektor was composed much later, in 1786, the same year of Le Nozze. But this parody
… contained a lot of jokes and references to contemporary operas that a contemporary audience can never understand. That is why the spoken dialogues have been adapted. In the new version of Der Schauspieldirektor, a production of Bastien Und Bastienne is auditioned, not by people but by the puppets of the famous Salzburg Marionette Theater. Yet there is also interaction between the puppets (players) and the singers, who enjoyed this performance a lot. Childish? Make no mistake, the technical difficulty of the arias in Der Schauspieldirektor is unimaginably high. They were therefore intended as showpieces for two of Mozart's most successful sopranos in Vienna: Catarina Cavalieri, Salieri's mistress, and Aloysia Lange, Mozart's own sister-in-law. (CP)more
