Bringing Mozart Home

Thousands gathered on Friday in Salzburg, Austria, for the culmination of the worldwide celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Vienna Philharmonic performed, with Riccardo Muti on the podium and mezzo Cecilia Bartoli standing in for the hastily dismissed Renee Fleming. “There is much around Salzburg at the moment that smacks of unabashed exploitation of a composer whose relationship with it was, to put it mildly, ambivalent. But these concerts seemed to be genuine efforts to do right by the essence of Mozart.”