Poetry

of Sir John Eliot Gardiner—was simply splendid, as was the singing. The Finnish soprano Karita Mattila delivered a lush and com’ pelling performance in the title role, and the venerable Hildegard Behrens—singing in tough, unvarnished voice—was perfect as the tragic stepmother.

The problem with the Salzburg festival is that over the last ten years its director, the campy Belgian impresario Gérard Mortier, has been playing a vigorous game of catch-up in the no-win trendiness stakes. But Mortier is leaving the directorship of the festival; his departure may mean that we will have fewer posters of transvestites advertising the operas, and fewer productions like the Marriage of Figaro we saw. Poor Mozart! He had some accomplished singers looking after his music—Peter Mattei as Count Almaviva was especially fine—but, oh dear, what a production. Set in a bridal-dress shop (why?), it featured a kind of hippie character in blue jeans and stringy hair wandering around the stage with a chair affixed to his rear end and playing the recitatives on a Moog synthesizer, beer bottles, and other “period instruments.”

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of Sir John Eliot Gardiner—was simply splendid, as was the singing. The Finnish soprano Karita Mattila delivered a lush and com’ pelling performance in the title role, and the venerable Hildegard Behrens—singing in tough, unvarnished voice—was perfect as the tragic stepmother.

The problem with the Salzburg festival is that over the last ten years its director, the campy Belgian impresario Gérard Mortier, has been playing a vigorous game of catch-up in the no-win trendiness stakes. But Mortier is leaving the directorship of the festival; his departure may mean that we will have fewer posters of transvestites advertising the operas, and fewer productions like the Marriage of Figaro we saw. Poor Mozart! He had some accomplished singers looking after his music—Peter Mattei as Count Almaviva was especially fine—but, oh dear, what a production. Set in a bridal-dress shop (why?), it featured a kind of hippie character in blue jeans and stringy hair wandering around the stage with a chair affixed to his rear end and playing the recitatives on a Moog synthesizer, beer bottles, and other “period instruments.”