June 27 - July 27, 2008

"Fuor del mar, ho un mar in seno": Having been saved from the turmoil of the sea, Idomeneus, King of Crete, can find no peace – the storm wrestles on within his soul. The drama of man, who is completely at the mercy of fickle fate, has often been depicted in the metaphor of the stormy sea and nobody has better expressed this metaphor musically than Mozart in his great opera "Idomeneo".

This marvellous piece, written by the 24-year-old Mozart, directed and staged by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, stands at the centre of the styriarte 2008. The Graz maestro reverts back to the original Munich version of the piece and deploys a sensational young line-up of singers with Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu in the title role. The immense power of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir braves Neptune's storms while the original sound of Concentus Musicus Vienna will be pushed to its limits with Mozart's most revolutionary score.

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