Annual Mozart Fest underway in Warsaw

Mozart’s most popular operas – Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute – will be performed three times during the month-long event.

There will be two open-air performances of Don Giovanni at the courtyard of the Wilanow Palace on the outskirts of Warsaw.

The festival programme also includes the composer’s Requiem, the Great Mass and the Coronation Mass. Apart from the Warsaw Chamber Opera, the festival events are held in the city’s churches, the 18th-century Royal Theatre in the Łazienki Park and the Royal Castle.

The Mozart Festival is the flagship event of the Warsaw Chamber Opera.

Launched in 1991 to mark the bicentenary of the composer’s death, it was the brainchild of the company’s founder and director Stefan Sutkowski and until last year the event featured all of Mozart’s stage works.

This year, following Sutkowski’s resignation and the company’s financial problems, the programme of the Mozart Festival is much more modest. (mk/pg)