A high-calibre Mozart ensemble stranded at an international airport on its way back from Salzburg? Unfortunately, a pretty realistic idea these days… Soon the cast members’ idiosyncrasies emerge and become turbulently entangled on a “day of madness and folly” in the spirit of Mozart and Da Ponte, with justified hope for a bittersweet happy ending and apotheosis.

Davide Livermore creates the staging for this opera gala especially for Salzburg, the music is taken from Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, as well as some other works by Mozart, whose texts were also attributed to his congenial collaborator Lorenzo Da Ponte. The names of celebrated Mozartians such as Cecilia Bartoli, Lea Desandre, Daniel Behle, Rolando Villazón, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Alessandro Corbelli, the wit of conductor Gianluca Capuano and the fantastically refined pianism of Daniil Trifonov guarantee that the evening will be primarily theatrical, ironically cheerful and sincerely emotional, despite the prolonged wait for the onward flights.