Met Saturday Broadcast: Die Entführung aus dem Serail

We listened to the Met's Die Entführung this afternoon, and while we don't do reviews here of live opera broadcasts except in the special case of performances from the Bayreuther Festspiele, we do want to go on record, brief as it will be, as saying that this performance of Die Entführung — with its newly written or rewritten speaking parts nicely paced — was first-rate from beginning to end for the most part. On balance, the performance was just what a performance of this delicious Mozart bonbon should be. The singers were dramatically convincing and in fine Mozartian voice, also for the most part; the band — which surely has to be the best pit band in the business bar none — beyond mere praise; and conductor David Robertson a Mozartian marvel. His reading of this score today — which reading was our first experience of his Mozart — was sensitively and expressively nuanced and colored, his handling of ensemble at once precise and fluid, and his choice of tempi perfect throughout. In short, a reading fully worthy of Mozart and of this music.

We would have liked to have been in the house for this one.