When he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart created an unforgettable work about love and desire, about the primal force of uncontrollable passion. Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf presents this storm of emotions to the Salzburg Festival in the very model of an English stately home of the 1920s, inspired no doubt by the setting and furnishings of the fictional Downton Abbey.

The Salzburg Festival has seen over 20 productions of Le nozze di Figaro since 1922 and directors such as Walter Felsenstein, Günter Rennert, Michael Hampe and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle have all made memorable interpretations of Mozart’s masterwork. Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s latest exegesis can easily withstand comparisons to these legendary productions, in no small measure due to English set designer Alex Eales’ visually entertaining staging.