Idomeneo, King of Crete, has been away from home during the long years of the Trojan War. Idamante, his son, now regent of the island, waits for his return, heralded by the arrival of Trojan prisoners in Crete. One of these prisoners is Ilia, daughter of the murdered King Priam of Troy. Idamante has fallen in love with Ilia, but is loved by Electra, daughter of the Greek King, Agamemnon, who is taken refuge in Crete.
The Drottningholm Court Theatre is a tiny and exquisite rococo theatre, the only surviving eighteenth-century theatre in Europe in perfectly-preserved working order. The Swedish conductor and musicologist Arnold Östman became the theatre s director in 1981 and introduced an orchestra of original instruments playing an authentic style to complement the unique atmosphere of his surroundings and he has steadily built up a worldwide reputation for his authentic interpretation of Mozart.
This revised revival of the acclaimed 1986 Drottningholm production by Michael Hampe conducted by Arnold Östman, was staged during the Mozart Bicentenary year. Combining both tragedy and comedy with drama, Idomeneo boasts a series of superbly expressive pieces which Einstein described as one of those works that even a genius of the highest rank, like Mozart, could write only once in his life.
