Mozart’s Idomeneo is regarded as his first mature opera, written for Munich in 1781. The subject may not have been Mozart’s choice but it represents the composers continuing engagement with Italian opera seria, a style that had dominated his operatic output in his teenage years. Mozart continued his engagement with this style, though his three mature operas with Lorenzo da Ponte represent a new direction, yet in 1791 he would return to opera seria for his late masterpiece, La clemenza di Tito.
Idomeneo was written to a libretto by Giambattista Varesco, the court chaplain, based on a libretto written for André Campra’s Idoménée (1712). It has been suggested that Varesco was familiar with the work of Calzabigi, Gluck’s librettist, and much of the opera represents a mediation between the French and the Italian serious styles. The opera is something of a musicological minefield, before the first performance Mozart was making large cuts and changes, then in 1786 he was contemplating wholesale revisions to make it more Gluckian, with Idomeneo as a bass and Idamante as a tenor (rather than a castrato). In the event, all he did was give a concert performance in Vienna in 1786, writing some new music, making more cuts and changing Idamante to tenor, a half-way house towards a version that he never created.
Idomeneo‘s dependence on the Italian 18th-century opera seria style can mean dramatic challenges for directors, yet you need to set beside this that Mozart wrote a full-scale dance divertissement for the opera too! Idomeneo remains one of those operas that fascinates and tantalises on the stage, whilst few productions manage to distil its essence.
If you fancy a trip to Amsterdam then on 7 February 2025, the Nationale Opera & Ballet opens a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Lawrence Cummings conducts, making his debut with the company and the production is directed by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who will also be working with members of his dance troupe, Eastman, and sets are designed by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. Daniel Behle is Idomeneo with a cast including Cecilia Molinari, Anna El-Khashem, and Jacquelyn Wagner.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, former artistic director of Royal Ballet of Flanders, has directed a number of operas including Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes (2016, Bavarian State Opera), Philip Glass’ Satyagraha (2017, Theater Basel), Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (2018, Opera Vlanderen) and Gluck’s French version of Alceste (2019, Bavarian State Opera, see YouTube)
This is a co-production with Grand Théâtre de Genève and Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, so if it appeals then there are other wonderful operatic trips to be made.
Interesting note: In 1964, Luciano Pavarotti made his UK debut as Idamante in Idomeneo at Glyndebourne in a production directed by Carl Ebert, conducted by John Pritchard with a cast including Gundula Janowitz as Ilia and Richard Lewis as Idomeneo. Now doesn’t that make the mouth water! [full details at the Glyndebourne website]
Full details from the company’s website.
