LDV106

‘Among the great musical forms, there are two which, going beyond the purely musical element, get to grips with and formulate the whole of humanity, praising its greatness, mourning its frailty, manifesting its dependence on higher powers: the oratorio and the opera. Mozart’s operas are for me the epitome of theatre, the way one imagines a theatre as a child, even before seeing one: like heaven . . .’ Hermann Hesse Why did you choose the title ‘Mozart at the Opera’? Philippe Cassard: One might say that Mozart signed his ‘opus 1’ in 1777 with the Piano Concerto K271, known as the ‘Jeunehomme’ (the name is a corruption of that of the French pianist Mademoiselle Jenamy, for whom it was written), by which I mean that he abandoned the galant style. From that time on, he gradually transformed his non-operatic works into an inexhaustible research laboratory for the musical genre in which he is still unsurpassed, two hundred and thirty years after his death: opera. Of course, it’s become a commonplace to say so, but that general observation must be supplemented by giving specific examples and studying the scores.