La finta giardiniera - The gates of love

An early work of Mozart, but musically already equipped with everything that makes the distinctive »Mozart sound« of the late Da Ponte operas: »La Finta Giardiniera« is simply a masterpiece. Hans Neuenfels takes this jewel of operatic literature as his first production at Staatsoper in two respects. As a director and an author of the texts that link the arias together. Neuenfels' revision of the somewhat crude and often criticized plot focusses on the basics: The trials and tribulations of love that do not stop even before madness and attempted murder. Without exception, all protagonists stuck in the vortex of confused feelings and try at the end to get to »The gates of love« as Neuenfels subtitled the version of his text.