Abducted by pirates, Konstanze and her maid Blonde have been sold into Pasha Selim’s harem.

With the help of their lovers the two women plot their escape. But when their plans are betrayed and punishment looms, help comes from an unlikely quarter.

Mozart’s first opera for Vienna is an ambitious musical calling-card, designed to establish its young composer at the heart of this sophisticated society. Exotic orchestral textures give the score its distinctive colour and vitality. Add to this many of the most demanding and dazzlingly virtuosic arias Mozart ever wrote, and you have a work of buoyant, irrepressible charm, whose lively twists and turns resolve in an unexpectedly thought-provoking conclusion.

Vicki Mortimer’s evocative designs conjure an 18th-century Eastern fantasy of sun-filled gardens and cool, shady terraces – a world of hedonism, delight and unfettered desire.

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, Festival 2015.