Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | La finta giardiniera

Zurich Opera stages Tatjana Gürbaca’s production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera. True to the opera buffa genre, it teems with silliness.

Diego Fasolis leads a period performance of Mozart’s early masterpiece with a strong cast and a clever production.

Christian Carsten’s hilarious production of Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe reveals Mozart’s non-judgmental social satire and irrepressible sense of fun.

Mozart himself might have pulled a few weeds from this early opera. Lovely voices and sprightly playing can't overcome an overgrown plot in Santa Fe. 

La finta giardiniera isn't one of Mozart's greatest operas. But this is about as good a production of it as I can imagine and makes for a deliciously light-hearted evening. 

Classical Opera’s well-attended concert at the Wigmore Hall was intriguingly titled “Mozart’s Castrati”.

After the overture, whose two movements, fast and slow, were adequately dispatched by a suitably small orchestra, the audience mistook the arrival of an orchestral horn player as that of the soloist himself, and burst into applause, which turned to laughter as the mistake became obvious.