mozart @ 225 festival

The winter edition of the Toronto Symphony orchestra programme celebrates one of classical music’s most brilliant and young composers, Mozart, at an annual Mozart @ 225 festival.

The January 22^nd weekend concert presented a special repertoire of arias that Mozart composed at age 14 as part of different operas. In Mitridate and in La Betulia liberata, written when he was 15, the virtuosity of the vocal writing was amazingly rendered by the Quebec contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, as were arias from the masterpieces Le nozze di Figaro and La clemenza di Tito. Lemieux turned out to be a perfect soloist for Mozart’s opera music, accompanied by Maestro Bernard Labadie, one of TSO’s favourite conductors.

There were also two Mozart symphonies in the concert. While the K.319 symphony brought the intimate texture of chamber music into the full sound of a symphony orchestra, the Prague K.504 opened with a movement of drama as if to remind us that Mozart was himself a fine listener and poet of human emotions. A delightful classical music series to continue until January 30^th; warm heart-felt music for cold winter days.