Mozart's birthday celebrated around the world

SALZBURG, Austria - It's a birthday bash being heard around the world.

The cobblestoned and turreted city of Mozart's birth was the focal point for Friday's 250th anniversary celebrations - but the sound of the master's music was being heard around the globe.

Orchestras halls and opera houses worldwide planned performances of his works. Piano students scheduled Mozart marathons and puppeteers were planning jubilee performances as hundreds of cities across five continents toasted the musical genius.

For mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, Mozart is "a gift from God" and "the light I orient my life around."

Salzburg cabbie Andrea Gautsch put it more simply Friday: "For us, Mozart came with mother's milk."

Too much hoopla? Consider this: Mozart wrote his first symphonies before turning 10 and his first significant opera at 12. He was instrumental in changing opera into the form we enjoy today.

He was prolific like few others, creating at least 626 musical works despite living to only age 35. Other greats like Beethoven and Wagner publicly recognized their debt to him.

But he had plenty of detractors in his day.

Some history books depict his tenure in Salzburg ending ingloriously in 1781 with a kick in the bottom from a servant of a patron, the city's imperious archbishop, after Mozart refused to follow orders on how to compose.

Still, the town where he was born on Jan. 27, 1756, was Mozart Central on Friday.

Always a trove for Mozart kitsch, Salzburg has outdone itself. Stores are stocked with Mozart beer and wine, Mozart baby bottles, Mozart milkshakes, Mozart knickers and Mozart jigsaw puzzles - along with the usual T-shirts, calendars and coffee mugs.

Salzburg was sprinkled with posters proclaiming "Happy Birthday Mozart" on Friday and the daily Salzburger Nachrichten displayed a full-page portrait of a serious-looking "Wunderkind" sitting at the harpsichord, as it proclaimed: "Salzburg celebrates its great son."

On the Salzburg schedule were Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic with Mozart's Piano Concert No. 18. Later, Riccardo Muti was to lead the orchestra - and renowned singers - through their paces in a collage of his works. Many of the 12 main events, including outdoor parties complete with mulled wine, were to start in the evening.

Salzburg visitors were advised to watch the calories. One of the attraction at an open-air event was a gargantuan birthday cake weighing in at more than 300 pounds.

In Salzburg's ornate Neue Residenz museum, visitors eyed Mozart's clothes brush and tobacco tins as they scurried through the "Viva Mozart" exhibit. Others at the interactive presentation joined in a minuet, under the watchful eyes of a dancemaster, dressed in 18th century garb.

"Front step, back, step, now back to your places," she intoned, as a group of Japanese tourists attempted to curtsy and pirouette in a clumsy copy of the bewigged and corseted dance troupe going through the movements in a live telecast behind them.

Vienna, which claims Mozart in his later years, was staging a new production of his "Idomeneo" in one of the city's three opera houses and reviving "The Magic Flute" in another.

Mozart ruled elsewhere as well.

Public broadcaster Swedish Radio set up an Internet radio station broadcasting Mozart music for 24 hours. The station will be up for at least five days, playing what Swedish Radio called "Wolfie's hits & misses." Public TV also honored Mozart with a 12-hour special.

Performances of his works were planned by orchestras or opera houses in New York, Moscow, Washington, Prague, London, Paris, Tokyo, Caracas, Quito, Havana, Mexico City, Taipei, Budapest and scores of other cities worldwide.

America's oldest orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, got a jump on the birthday by performing an all-Mozart program on Thursday night. The program, being repeated Friday and Saturday, included the orchestra's first ever performance of the uplifting "Coronation Mass," which Mozart wrote in 1779.

Even Nashville, more famous for country than classical, scheduled a musical tip of the hat to Amadeus, with the city's symphony orchestra performing his Piano Concerto No. 21.

Many classical radio outlets worldwide were reprogramming for the day to play only Mozart. Hundreds of marionettes were to take to the stage in excerpts of his operas in the German city of Augsburg, where his father was born.

Back in Salzburg, not everyone was in all-Mozart-all-the-time mode. Breakfast at the Hotel Auersperg was accompanied by the soft piped-in sounds of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. But the seeming protest against too much Mozart was short-lived.

"Oops, how did that happen?" tittered waitress Anna Santiago, when asked about the choice of music. Within minutes, a Mozart concerto was wafting through the air.

A guide to Mozart:

FOR WAKEUP TIME:

A wonderful sound to have on your CD-alarm clock is the G-minor symphony, No. 40. There are many good choices, from conductor Bruno Walter's versions with the New York Philharmonic and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra to a well-regarded recording by Leonard Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic on DG.

FOR ROMANCE:

"Don Giovanni" was the greatest romancer of them all. There is his mandolin aria "Deh, vieni alla finestra" ("Please, come to the window, oh my treasure") or the catalogue aria on the Don's conquests by Leporello, "Madamina, il catalogo e questo" ("My dear lady, this is a list"). Bryn Terfel gives spirited renditions on DG's "Bryn Terfel: Opera Arias" with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and James Levine.

FOR INCREASING A CHILD'S IQ:

Guaranteed to put a smile on a child's face is "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" ("A Little Night Music"). The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, known for its light, crisp versions, released a 1985 recording on DG that is full of sunshine.

FOR PRAYER:

A DVD of the Requiem, his final composition, and the Mass in C Minor has just been released by Philips. The 1991 performance at the beautiful Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, Spain, features conductor John Eliot Gardiner leading Barbara Bonney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Alastair Miles, with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.

FOR A LONG DRIVE:

"Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro") has many of Mozart's most brilliant tunes. There's no shortage of top contenders, including the 1955 Decca with Erich Kleiber conducting Cesare Sieppi, Hilda Gueden, Alfred Poell, Lisa della Casa and Suzanne Danco; and the 2003 Harmonia Mundi, with Rene Jacobs conducting Lorenzo Regazzo, Patrizia Ciofi, Simon Keenlyside, Veronique Gens and Angelika Kirchschlager. Until it is released commercially, the 1998 Metropolitan Opera version is only available from those who recorded the PBS telecast - it has James Levine conducting Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, Dwayne Croft, Renee Fleming and Susanne Mentzer, and features the alternative arias "Un moto di gioia" and "Al desio di chi t'adora" in place of "Venite inginocchiatevi" and "Deh vieni." A quirky modernized version set in Trump Tower was staged by Peter Sellars and was released on a Decca DVD last year. For those desiring a couple of excerpts, try Fleming's "Signatures" on Decca, which features her flowing versions of "Porgi, armor" and "Dove sono" with Sir Georg Solti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

FOR CALMING DOWN:

Carlos Kleiber, the famed conductor who died in 2004, led orchestras in just two Mozart works during the latter half of his life, No. 33 in B-flat major and No. 36 in E-minor ("Linz"). His rendition of the 33rd with the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra at Munich's Herkulessaal on Oct. 21, 1996, was recorded by television cameras and was released on a DVD last year by DG. The music has a silken sheen, and his conducting has the grace of ballet.

FOR REVVING YOURSELF UP:

Natalie Dessay, the noted coloratura soprano, set off fireworks as the Queen of the Night in "Die Zauberfloete" ("The Magic Flute"). Versions appear on a Virgin Classics solo recording with Louis Langree leading the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and an Erato complete recording of the opera with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants. Diana Damrau is fierce in a BBC/Opus Arte DVD of a 2003 performance conducted by Colin Davis at the Royal Opera House in London

FOR APPEARING CULTURED AT YOUR DINNER PARTY:

Mozart composed more operas than "Die Zauberfloete" and the three famous collaborations with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte: "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Cosi fan tutte" and "Don Giovanni." He wrote 22 stage works, and all will be presented this summer at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. There is the semi-seria "Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail" ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"); the seria "Idomeneo" and "La Clemenza di Tito" ("The Clemency of Tito"); and the buffa "Mitradate." Some categorize "Entfuehrung" as a singspiel, as is "Zauberfloete."

On the Net:

http://www.mozart2006.net/eng/index.html