From Glyndebourne, Simon Rattle conducts the original 1781 version of Mozart's first operatic masterpiece in a stunning new production directed by Peter Sellars with designs by Anish Kapoor and choreography by Mark Morris. While returning from the Trojan War, Idomeneo is rescued from a terrible storm by Neptune; as a result, he has vowed to sacrifice the first person he meets ashore -tragically it's his own son Idamante. Presented by Christopher Cook.
Glyndebourne Chorus,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conductor Simon Rattle
Act
7.05 Twenty Minutes: Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere Janet Suzman reads from Jan Morris 's latest book, telling the stories of the amazing emigres living in herfavourite city.
7.25 Act 2
8.15 Twenty Minutes: Those Magnificent Gods in Their Flying Machines
At the end of Mozart's opera, tragedy is averted by divine intervention from
Neptune. From Monteverdi's L'Orfeo of 1609 onwards, the deus ex machina - a dramatic tradition from antiquity - was as much a part of opera as it was of spoken drama. Piers Burton-Page asks classicist Edith Hall and literary historian
Roger Savage why the tradition was so enduring and why it was eventually abandoned.
8.35 Act 3
John Tusa interviews Anish Kapoortomorrow at 5.45pm