Salzburg 2006: A Mozart Gala

A Mozart gala. Salzburg Festival 2006. Soloists: René Pape, Michael Schade, Ekaterina Siurina, Thomas Hampson, Magdelena Kozena, Anna Netrebko, Patricia Petibon. Conductor: Daniel Harding with the Vienna Philharmonics. Further information and detailed programme here.

I suppose this is a case of: If you like this sort of thing, you will most definitely like this DVD..
And by this sort of thing I mean a glitzy gala concert with a bunch of star singers each performing one aria, including some orchestral padding.

The overall quality is impeccably high, however I have to admit, that no matter how perfectly brilliant the individual performances, I find these things tedious to watch.
That said, several of the performances were indeed perfectly brilliant (René Pape with the Catalogue Aria, Magdalena Kozená with "Parto, ma tu ben mio", Ekaterina Siurina with "Se il padre perdei") and none were less than fine. Anna Netrebko finished the singer´s part of the show with an engaging delivery of "D´Oreste, D´Ajace".

All engagingly accompanied by Daniel Harding, who finished the evening with a straight-on delivery of Mozart´s Prague Symphony (personally I would have preferred some more singing, however).

The occasion, of course, was the 250th anniversary of Mozart´s birth, which was celebrated at the Salzburg Festival in 2006 with DVD releases of his entire operatic output. As well as this gala concert from the Felsenreitschule.

Ekaterina Siurina "Il padre perdei" (Idomeneo):

The bottom line (scale of 1-5, 3=average):

If I liked this sort of thing: 5

Video by tenore23 on YouTube