“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had to offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at).

During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. Harnoncourt has once again lived up to his name as a “Mozart rebel”: “True to his reputation as a provocateur, Harnoncourt takes at a fast speed what we are accustomed to hear slow, while reining in what we expected to be lively” (Forum Opera).

Bonus documentary: Nikolaus Harnoncourt - Between Obsession and Perfection (Le nozze di Figaro)

Cast:
- Conte di Almaviva: Bo Skovhus
- Contessa di Almaviva: Christine Schäfer
- Susanna: Mari Eriksmoen
- Figaro: Andrè Schuen
- Cherubino: Elisabeth Kulman
- Marcellina: Ildikó Raimondi
- Bartolo / Antonio: Peter Kálmán
- Basilio / Don Curzio: Mauro Peter
- Barbarina: Christina Gansch

Sound format: PCM Stereo, DTS-HD MA 5.1
Picture: 16:9, 1080i
Booklet: English, German, French
Subtitles: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Korean, Japanese
Documentary: German, English, Korean, Japanese
Total running time: 242 mins (Opera: 190 mins / Documentary: 52 mins)