"Mozart22" is an enterprise of utterly unique dimensions, the musical
project of the century: all of Mozart's stage works presented over the
course of six weeks during the 2006 Salzburg Festival. The project
brought together the greatest Mozart singers, conductors, stage directors
and ensembles of the day. To make this extraordinary artistic achievement
accessible to a broad public, the entire "Mozart22" cycle was recorded
with the highest-quality HD technology and 5.1 Dolby Digital sound.
The cycle also includes 20 one-hour documentaries containing excerpts
from rehearsals, interviews with artists, and background reports that
shed light on the meticulously elaborated, multi-layered concepts of the
musical interpretations and stage productions. The programs introduce the
work in question and situate it in Mozart's oeuvre. Each documentary is
devoted to one opera, whereby the shorter works and fragments are bundled.
All the operas, of course, are available from UNITEL CLASSICA.
In addition to providing valuable insights from the artists, the
documentaries also bear witness to the incredible logistic achievement of
the Mozart22 project. At the peak of the project, about 160 people were
working on it nearly around the clock. Fifty thousand meters of cable were
laid out in seven venues in Salzburg. Parallel to the recording crew of
the opera cycle, who required up to twelve cameras for each recording,
the documentary filmmakers scurried from rehearsal stage to hotel lounge,
from artists' canteen to make-up studios in their mission to capture the
unique dynamics and electrifying atmosphere of this undertaking - a
project of superlatives and a landmark in media and music history.
