Munich, 25th October 2006. Starting in December the classical music TV-channel Classica on Premiere celebrates the height of the Mozart year with „Mozart 22“. In the project of the century every Saturday at 20.15 one of the twenty-two Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s stage works, originally performed at the Salzburg Music Festival 2006 and recorded with unparalleled expenditures, can be enjoyed on TV. The complete works, inclusive recordings of rehearsals, interviews and documentaries, appear on German TV exclusively on Classica.
The operatic round starts on December 22nd with German TV premiere of “Don Giovanni?, conducted by the English shooting star Daniel Harding and with Thomas Hampson in the name part, followed by German TV premieres of “Idomeneo? (9.12.) with Ramón Vargas, “Die Zauberflöte? (16.12.) conducted by Riccardo Muti, Mozart’s first musical comedy “Bastien und Bastienne? (23.12.), the mini-opera “Der Schauspieldirektor? (23.12.) and, closing the Mozart’s year 2006, “Die Entführung aus dem Serail? (30.12.) with Laura Aikin. Further operas of Mozart will follow in the coming months.
After three years’ preparations “Mozart 22? was made during fifty-three shooting days in the summer of 2006. In order to create a TV-adequate adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s complete dramatic work, every performance was shot by up to twelve cameras. Moreover, every work was recorded three times so that in the following editing the best version of a scene could be chosen. For camera direction the best known stage directors could be engaged, such as the Emmy award-winner Brian Large.
“Mozart 22? is a co-production of Unitel/Classica and Bernhard Fleischer Moving Images (BFMI), with the collaboration of Salzburger Festspiele, ORF, Bayerischer Rundfunk and 3sat and with the support of Filmfernsehfond Bayern (FFF). The Mozart22 DVD edition will be released at Deutsche Grammophon and Decca in November.