THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO. Mozart

“For her production at the Graz Opera (…) Höckmayr borrows elements from the depth-psychologically imbued Viennese Fin de Siècle, above all from Schnitzler’s ‘Traumnovelle’. As in Schnitzler’s ‘Traumnovelle’, it is also about dreams and repression, about the deceptive appearance of missed erotic possibilities. (…) The evening develops into a deep psychological navel-gazing of Constance and Belmonte with quotations above all from Hofmannsthal’s stories after 1001 Nights (…): they are recited and read to Elena, the couple’s little daughter, or they are realised as scenic visions. (…) The highlight is Constance’s “Martern” aria, marked by extreme turmoil; Sophia Brommer grandiosity forces music and scene into one. (…) An evening full of clever ideas and with high aesthetic standards.”

Opernwelt, Gerhard Persché, June 2016

“Where does infidelity begin? Only with a kiss or already with a thought? Eva-Maria Höckmayr prefaces her production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail with this basic question (…). Since this approach can neither be met with an oriental kitsch look nor with the original dialogues, the director chose a completely different way and created a new dialogue version (…). For the most part, the dialogue version harmonized excellently with the music and the sung action (…). (…) even well-known musical passages {erschienen} shone in a completely new light – for example, when Konstanze sings of ‘tortures of all kinds’, seeming to sound the torture she inflicts on herself by suppressing her own desires, rather than real threats.”

Bachtrack, Isabella Steppan, April 16

“The German director Eva-Maria Höckmayr stripped Mozart’s successful oriental play down to scenes of a marriage. From the edge of the bed, as it were, Höckmayr creates a psychological chamber play that tells of searching and finding, only of lovers on the run and far away from the palace of Bassa Selim (…). Yes, that is quite a lot at once. And yet the German director, who directs very much in and with the music, succeeds in interpreting Mozart’s Singspiel in a way that is not entirely sensuous, but always sensual, and moreover in creating a dense allegory of love and its thousand and one powers.”

Kleine Zeitung, Michael Tschida, 22 April 2016

“The theme from ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ is more timeless than ever: what is cheating in a relationship? How far does fidelity go? How do husband and wife deal with temptation? These and other fundamental questions plague Belmonte and Konstanze, the couple at the centre of the play. They embark on a journey into the subconscious, which no longer seems to differentiate clearly between reality and fantasy (…). The external plot has been deliberately reduced in order to pay particular attention to the psychological core of Mozart’s music.”

Blog24, Marlene Olga, April 2016

“Eva-Maria Höckmayr took over the staging She helps well-known opera plots to surprising effect by consistently following the subjective view of individual characters in their story. It was interesting for me as an audience member to gain insight again and again figuratively about the thoughts of the respective roles.”

MyDistrict, Margarete Rinnhofer, April 2016