About the production

Rossi Fest is organizing a charity event for children and youth, in cooperation with the National Theatre in Belgrade – an opera performance of Bastien and Bastienne. This initiative aims to raise awareness of the importance of music in childhood education and also to enable children to express their creative potential.

One of the shortest operas written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one-act singspiel Bastien and Bastienne, was composed when he was only 12 years old and it is one of Mozart’s earliest operas. It was commissioned from young Mozart by an eccentric Viennese physician dr Franz Mesmer in 1768.

Bastien and Bastienne, one of Mozart’s first operas, is ideal for introducing young audiences to the opera genre and therefore adapted into an interactive play for children. Bastien and Bastienne are engaged in love games created by Kolas, and to prove their mutual affection they even use social networks, which make them bond closer and drift apart simultaneously. Another participant in the game is also Kolina, who watches the play with the audience and reveals the secrets of opera to them. This libretto adaptation aims to make it contemporary for children and young people and introduce the opera genre to younger audiences with educational content through the character Kolina.

The libretto was adapted to bring the plot closer to children and young people, and educational parts were added through the character of Collina, to introduce the youngest audience to this theatre genre in an engaging way.

How will this love story end? Is the magic of Kolas strong enough to reconcile the lovers after a quarrel? Or, perhaps, magic is not necessary for true love?