Salzburger Festspiele: Zaide oder Der Weg des Lichts

Salzburg Festival: Zaide or The Path of Light

Year: 2025
Country: Austria
Concept & Conductor: Raphaël Pichon
Texts by: Wajdi Mouawad
Lighting & Costume designer: Bertrand Couderc
Cast: Sabine Devieilhe, Lea Desandre, Julian Prégardien, Daniel Behle, Johannes Martin Kränzle
Genre: opera
Runtime: 99 min.
Age: 16+
Raphaël Pichon and his Pygmalion Choir and Orchestra are now known for their unusual new interpretations. For the Salzburg Festival, they present Mozart's opera fragment "Zaide" and the cantata "Davide penitente" in a new semi-staged production. Combined with other excerpts from Mozart's oeuvre and texts by the Lebanese-Canadian writer Majdi Mouawad, this "Zaide" is a dramatic story about the struggle for freedom and the right to love and live. The evening’s dramaturgy is based on the effective contrast between darkness and light, deception and truth. The lighting designer Bertrand Couderc, a longtime collaborator of Pygmalion, fills the Felsenreitschule’s space with overwhelming atmospheres. Here, the quest for freedom will also be a search for light – a profound hope for reconciliation.