Through Mozart's eyes

Peter Sellars had been uncharacteristically shy about his new production of Idomeneo. Simon Rattle, conducting, let slip a few hints about this being Mozart's darkest opera, concerned with "the direct aftermath of war" and family torment.

No one was in any doubt that, with Anish Kapoor's sets and Mark Morris's choreography, this would be an event. Nothing could have prepared us, however, for Sellars's latest prismatic view of the world through the eyes and ears of Mozart.

If one lists some of the visual touchstones - bodybags, Guantanamo Bay, khakis, the veil - this suggests old-style shocker Sellars of a decade ago. How wrong that impression would be. The mood is sober, elegant, highly stylised, which will irritate a few no doubt, and devastating. Kapoor's hot set borrows the curvaceous, taut membrane feel of his Marsyas for Tate Modern. A skein of colours, cerulean, faded rose, ash grey - plays over two fixed designs.

The main problem was that it was often so dark that, moth-like, one's eyes were inevitably drawn to the highly watchable, well-lit Rattle instead.

First performed in 1781, Idomeneo was long considered problematic and not seen here, professionally, until 1951 at Glyndebourne. Yet now Mozart's lyric tragedy is highly prized as masterpiece, if a flawed one. With its dramatic choruses, ornate arias and startling orchestration, it extends music's language of emotional expression. Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment bit into the overture with a ferocious energy, which they maintained throughout this almost uncut account.

Philip Langridge, a seasoned Idomeneo, was powerfully affecting. A slight fragility of voice merely strengthened his portrayal of a stricken father faced with sacrificing his son Idamante, played by the Czech soprano Magdalena Kozena. Her light, pristine soprano suits this difficult role, which can also - perhaps more convincingly - be sung by a tenor. Christiane Oelze's impassioned Ilia, and Anne Schwanewilms's strident Elettra (vagueness of consonants notwithstanding) made up the impressive cast, with Jonathan Lemalu a delectable Neptune. The Act III quartet, staged as a study in alienation, was the emotional heart of the performance.

The work ends with a ballet that was as stunningly done as you could ask, bringing the work to a perplexing end in Kapoor's bright, violet-hued new dawn.

Idomeneo