Le Nozze di Figaro: Mozart

This production created for the opening of the Salzburg Festival in 1966, which remained on the programme for five years, was Karl Bohm's last Salzburg Figaro. After multiple tries to stage Figaro at the Salzburg Festival in the 1950's and 60's, the successful team Karl Bohm/Gunther Rennert mounted this production with new decor, costumes by Rudolf Heinrich and with a practically new, young cast of singers. It was not only the celebrated highlight of the festival summer 1966 but also became a 'standard for Mozart' - that at least was the headline the German critic and future director of the Stuttgart Opera, Wolfram Schwinger, gave his report in the 'Stuttgarter Zeitung' of 27 July 1966. "Never before has Figaro been staged in such a totally meaningful way and so balanced in its theatrical and emotional elements." As far as the critics are concerned, the singers of this Salzburg Figaro are also "a stroke of luck for the Festival, who right at the beginning set a risky standard for anything that follows." This film from the archives of Austrian television, which has been digitally restored in sound and picture for this DVD, preserves an exemplary Mozart performance in its fascinating immediacy, which is rare even at Salzburg Festival.