A Very Special Opera Experience

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

On August 26, Hangar-7 at the Salzburg Airport will be transformed into an event location resounding with culture, when Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, produced especially for TV viewers in coproduction with ServusTV, is broadcast live from there.

Ordinarily home to a collection of historic Flying Bulls airplanes as well as Formula 1 racecars, a space for art exhibits, the restaurant Ikarus, the bars of the Outdoor Lounge and a café, Hangar-7 turns into an opera setting and a TV studio for Mozart’s play with music about an abduction – performed not on stage in front of a seated audience, but at various locations embedded in the normal course of evening events at Hangar-7 – a great artistic and technical challenge.

With Diana Damrau (Konstanze), Javier Camarena (Belmonte), Daniela Fally (Blonde), Kurt Rydl (Osmin) and Thomas Ebenstein (Pedrillo), a high-carat ensemble embarks upon this fascinating experiment together with Camerata Salzburg and the Salzburg Bach Choir, united under the baton of Hans Graf. Tobias Moretti will play the role of Bassa Selim. The stage director is Adrian Marthaler and the TV director is Felix Breisach. In front of your TV at home, you will enjoy the “best seats in the house,” for the individual scenes are meant to form a unified whole when viewed on screen.

Synopsis

Bassa Selim is a fashion tsar, Blondchen a makeup artist and Konstanze is torn between a bourgeois relationship and seductive passions. The Salzburg Festival and ServusTV present a very special opera production. The entire Hangar-7 will become a fashion empire, a film set and the performance venue for a spectacular version of Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail.

Visitors to Hangar-7 are protagonists of the live broadcast and also witnesses to its production process. The opera will be recorded at various locations inside the hangar and assembled like a puzzle for the TV audience. Only onscreen will the parts of the live production form a whole. Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail is interpreted here as Konstanze’s seduction by the promises of the jet set world – an adventure for anyone interested in a new and different way of experiencing opera and TV.