"To be human and good / and to forgive without selfishness" is the Enlightenment moral enunciated at the end of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail by the two pairs of protagonists, who have just survived misadventures that would be tragic (kidnapping, slavery, threats of torture and death) if we were not in a comedy. According to the cliché, this opera with spoken dialogues (technically a Singspiel) would prepare the ground for Mozart's future Die Zauberflöte. This is not entirely true: Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera with a very different character, where the Orient is not a magical place full of symbols, but the typical place of the eighteenth-century genre of "turcheria", where everything is absurd, paradoxical, upside down. The opera oscillates between comical and serious moments, and so does its musical language, rich in instrumental details that support an often impervious vocal writing, as in the virtuosic soprano part of Konstanze. "Too many notes!" Emperor Joseph II told Mozart after the premiere in Vienna in 1782: a rebuke that has remained famous, despite the success that the opera had and continues to have. 

On stage the elegant and colorful staging of the Opéra Royal de Versailles, signed by the French actor and film director Michel Fau. The orchestral direction is entrusted to Gianluca Capuano, winner of the prestigious "Abbiati" award as Best Conductor in 2022.