Week Two of Mostly Mozart Festival Promises FIGARO and THE WHISPER OPERA, 8/4

Week Two of the 2013 Mostly Mozart Festival begins with the first of two concert series with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on Tuesday, August 6 and Wednesday, August 7 in Avery Fisher Hall with French conductor Jérémie Rhorer. Rhorer, returning for the first time since his debut in 2011, will lead Mozart's Overture to Le nozze di Figaro and Beethoven's Symphony No. 1, along with Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503, with guest pianist Paul Lewis, continuing this season's overarching theme of musical lineage between the two iconic composers. Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée returns to lead the Festival Orchestra on Friday, August 9 and Saturday, August 10 in another program of paired Mozart/Beethoven works, featuring Beethoven's Overture to Die Ruinen von Athen, Op.113 and the legendary Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67. Violinist Isabelle Faust, who made her Festival debut in 2010, performs Mozart's "Turkish" Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K.219. Preceding the performances on August 9 and 10 is a pre-concert recital featuring Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra Concertmaster Ruggero Allifranchini on violin and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra members Shmuel Katz on viola and Ilya Finkelshteyn on cello.

A program update to the Mostly Mozart Festival: the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra concerts on August 6 and 7 will be preceded by a pre-concert recital on each night by the Four Nations Ensemble, 7:00pm at Avery Fisher Hall, performing Couperin's Pieces de clavecin, from the Septième ordre and Geminiani's Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5, No. 6. The artists and repertoire for these pre-concert recitals were previously unannounced.

Opera plays a significant part in this year's Festival with one classic and one new production: Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO and the New York premiere of David Lang's THE WHISPER OPERA. Mozart's masterwork comic opera is presented as a staged concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO), returning after their acclaimed production of DON GIOVANNI in 2011. Three performances, commencing Sunday, August 11, mark the first staging of the entire opera in the history of the Mostly Mozart Festival, and take place at the Rose Theater in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall at the Time Warner Center. The BFO's production of FIGARO will feature its Music Director, Iván Fischer, as both conductor and director, along with a cast of several artists making their Festival debuts, including Hanno Müller-Brachmann (Figaro), Laura Tatulescu (Susanna), Roman Trekel (Count Almaviva), Miah Persson (Countess Almaviva), and others.

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) returns for its third summer as Mostly Mozart Festival artists-in-residence. ICE continues its collaborative relationship with the Festival featuring 10 concerts with 10 premieres by 10 emerging and established New York based composers, in celebration of the ensemble's 10th anniversary. The first event in the Festival'smini-series of contemporary music programs features the New York premiere of THE WHISPER OPERA by David Lang. This new work is a chamber opera based on texts from internet "secrets" and explores the tenuous relationship with our interior dialogues, addressing what secrets we keep from each other and from ourselves. Part opera, concert piece and installation, the work is presented with limited and restrained staging, reflecting an appropriate intimacy for its small expressions. Lang'sthe whisper opera was called "an extraordinary achievement" by the Chicago Tribune, following its premiere this spring at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. THE WHISPER OPERA, featuring members of ICE and soprano Tony Arnold (Mostly Mozart Festival debut) and directed by Jim Findlay, is performed at Lincoln Center's Clark Studio Theater, August 10-13.

The A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC series, offering engaging, candle-lit events in an intimate setting, features three concerts during the second week of the Mostly Mozart Festival. On August 6, the Leipzig String Quartet performs two works by the Festival'shighlighted composers: Mozart's String Quartet in D major, K.499 and Beethoven's String Quartet in F minor. Op.95 ("Serioso"). On August 7, pianist Paul Lewis performs Schubert's Sonata in A major, D.959, following his performance earlier that evening with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. Violinist Isabelle Faust offers an all-Bach program on August 10, with the composer's Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005 and Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004.

Complementing the live performances during the Festival is a screening of director Phil Grabsky's 2009 film, IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN, at the Walter Reade Theater on August 10. This Beethoven-focused film follows a 2006 film centered on Mozart, and elaborates on Beethoven's challenging, intense, and ever-lasting music. The film includes interviews with famed artists such as Emanuel Ax, Hélène Grimaud and Mostly Mozart Festival Music Director Louis Langrée. Following the screening, the director will lead a discussion with the audience.

All programs and artists are subject to change.

Tickets for Mostly Mozart Festival 2013 can be purchased online at MostlyMozart.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, or by visiting the Avery Fisher Hall or Alice Tully Hall box offices at Broadway and 65th St. For a Mostly Mozart brochure, call 212.875.5766. Ticket prices subject to change.

Louis LangRÉE

The French musician Louis Langrée has been Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York since December 2002. He was named Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director in August 2006. He is also Chief Conductor of the Camerata Salzburg and will become Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra starting in September 2013. Highlights of his 2013/14 season include debuts with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich (Don Giovanni) and the Wiener Symphoniker at the Konzerthaus in Vienna. He will conduct the Camerata Salzburg in Berlin, Baden-Baden, Vienna, Salzburg, Naples and Bucharest. He will also continue his relationships with the Wiener Staatsoper (La Traviata) and the Opéra Comique in Paris (Pelléas et Mélisande). Mr. Langrée has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, as well as chamber orchestras including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in London and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. He also regularly conducts period instrument orchestras such as the Freiburger Barockorchester and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has a long-term relationship with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and has also conducted at La Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, the Dresden Staatsoper, Opéra Bastille and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam and Lyric Opera in Chicago. Festival appearances have included Wiener Festwochen, Mozartwoche Salzburg, BBC Proms, Glyndebourne Festival and Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. He has held positions as music director of the Orchestre de Picardie, Opéra National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège and Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Mr. Langrée's discography includes award winning recordings for Virgin Classics, Universal and Naïve. Many of his recordings have won awards, including Gramophone and Midem Classical Awards and the Diapason d'Or. In 2006, Mr. Langrée was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

ABOUT THE MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL

Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival-America's first indoor summer music festival-was launched as an experiment in 1966. Called Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusively to the music of Mozart. Renamed the Mostly Mozart Festival in 1970, it has become a New York institution and, now in its 47th year, continues to broaden its focus to include works by Mozart's predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. It is currently the only group in the United States dedicated to the Classical period. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra,Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by visiting period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as staged music presentations, opera productions, dance, film, and visual art.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Mostly Mozart Festival, and is the only orchestra in the U.S. dedicated to the music of the Classical period. Members of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra come from all over the world, performing in such premier orchestras and ensemble including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, MET Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. Internationally celebrated conductor Louis Langrée has been music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival since December 2002, and was named Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director in August 2006. Each summer since 2005, the Orchestra's Avery Fisher Hall home at Lincoln Center is transformed into an appropriately intimate venue for its performances. Over the years, the Orchestra has toured to such notable festivals and venues as Ravinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, Bunkamura in Tokyo, and the Kennedy Center. Conductors who made their New York debuts leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra include Jérémie Rhorer, Edward Gardner, Lionel Bringuier, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Edo de Waart. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist James Galway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida all made their U.S. debuts with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.

ABOUT LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 series, festivals, and programs including American Songbook, Avery Fisher Artist Program, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Books, Lincoln Center Dialogue, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Martin E. Segal Awards, Meet the Artist, Mostly Mozart Festival, Target Free Thursdays, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.

Lincoln Center is committed to providing and improving accessibility for people with disabilities. For information, call the Department of Programs and Services for People with Disabilities at (212) 875-5375.

The Mostly Mozart Festival 2013 is sponsored by Morgan Stanley.

The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, The Shubert Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly Mozart.

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