Brussels celebrates Mozart with week-long festival

There's a new summer music festival in Brussels this week. The Midsummer Mozartiade is a week-long series of musical performances taking place in heritage sites in central Brussels, especially around the Royal Park which dates from Mozart's lifetime.

Considering the very heavy summer event schedule in Brussels - just for starters the Mozartiade will be sharing the Royal Park with the Ommegang - it is quite an optimistic venture to create a new festival. Kansas native Keith Tillotson is one of the driving forces behind the event, along with Eric Gobin and David Miller. After nearly 20 years in Brussels he is ready to add to the Brussels summer festival season in a permanent way.

What was Mozart's connection with Brussels?

Mozart was in Brussels with his family on his first European tour - he was six at the time. We know from his father Leopold Mozart's letters that they were here for six weeks. It's very interesting how they did their tour. They did not have anyone to finance it straight up, they simply gave concerts in the hope of getting well paid and here in Brussels they had to wait a good long time for Charles de Lorraine, governor of the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium) to decide to pay. During their wait they did some sightseeing and Leopold was very impressed by the richness of everything that was available here, the paintings, the porcelains and so on. Finding out about Mozart's stay in Brussels is what sparked our imagination and helped us to build the concept.

Which pieces will you be performing?

We are thrilled to be able to perform the opera Le Nozze di Figaro in the Théatre Royal du Parc which dates from 1782. The Théâtre du Parc is a fantastic working theatre. From the very beginning it was multi-functional, although most people don't realise that because for many many years it's been for spoken theatre, so we are happy to reconnect with its lyrical and operatic past and take advantage of its construction à l'italienne which means that there's an orchestra pit. It is also a small theatre so there is an intimate connection between the audience and the performers.

Additionally we have a series of recitals, The Servants' Ball, which will take place in the Salon de Lorraine in the Cercle Gaulois which also dates from 1782. And finally we will have free concerts in the afternoons at the Royal Park bandstand.

The afternoon concerts are a mostly Mozart programme performed by wind ensemble Venti Nuovi. The Servants' Ball recitals are performed by different Belgian conservatories that we tasked with developing recitals on the theme of man-servants and maid-servants in Mozart and his contemporaries' work. We are excited about our selection of very talented young artists and the venue we are providing them to showcase those considerable talents.

What makes the Marriage of Figaro such a special piece?

The exciting thing about Le Nozze di Figaro is that it's a perfect marriage between Mozart's music (which is a masterpiece) and da Ponte's libretto. Da Ponte took Beaumarchais' story and smoothed over the political aspects so it's not perhaps as revolutionary but really see the human heart and Mozart's music captures that. This is the third time for me to be working on the opera and every time we open the score there are details and levels and things that we've never seen before, it's such a rich work.

Midsummer Mozartiade, 3-9 July
Le Nozze di Figaro (four performances at Théatre Royal du Parc)
Le Bal des Serviteurs (three performances at Cercle Gaulois)
Mozart in the Air (five performances at Royal Park bandstand)