From the Salzburg Festival: "Ascanio in Alba" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by Ádám Fischer, directed by David Hermann. With Iris Kupke (Venere), Sonia Prina (Ascanio), Marie-Belle Sandis (Silvia), Charles Reid (Aceste), Diana Damrau (Fauno). Mozart wrote the festa teatrale "Ascanio in Alba" for the wedding of the Empress's son, Archduke Ferdinand, and Maria Beatrice d'Este of Modena. The work's main function was to portray the members of the Habsburg wedding party as generous, kindly rulers and virtuous heroes. Director David Hermann and his designer Christof Hetzer draw out of this unknown opera the elements that are of particular interest to us today. The imaginative production - featuring a reduced chorus, a "movement chorus" and even a segment to be watched through 3D glasses - ideally complements the work, which is, after all, a festa teatrale and not an opera seria. We would hardly find a hero such as Ascanio in an opera seria: a puppet-like young man forced to follow orders and unable to determine his own life. And Silvia, his betrothed? She's been in love for four years with a man she's never seen...