VIENNA, AUSTRIA.-The City of Vienna’s official exhibition on the occasion of the Mozart Year 2006 presents the composer’s life and work in the context of their social background: It conveys not only a portrayal of the courtly and aristocratic society across Europe, encountered by Mozart during his extensive travels, but also illustrates the dynamics of the period’s future potentials. And it sparklingly reflects the relevance this epoch, referred to as the Eclaircissement (Enlightenment), still has.

The Albertina has been adorned with a carpet by Franz West, and visitors are welcomed by Klaus Pinter’s huge installation of a transparent montgolfier, Conquering of Air Space. Works of art by Valie Export, Günter Brus, Gelitin, Deutschbauer/Spring, and the Atelier West are juxtaposed with art from Mozart’s days and of the Rococo, which in turn is complemented by modern haute couture, Reinventing Rococo 2006 – an unexpected image of Mozart.

In the 1780s Mozart’s genus was unfolding in Vienna. His most intensive creative period – years of overwhelming success and remarkable wealth, but also of financial need, resulting from an inclination towards venturesomeness – took place in the Josephine climate of rapid reform. This open-minded, enlightened society was marked by the ideals of freemasonry.
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The large number of objects from the Albertina’s own holdings underlines its worldwide significance as a trend-setting collection, compiled by the freemason Duke Albert of Saxony-Teschen. It was a time when Europe presented itself as a supranational network – fast-moving, experimental, and innovative, a début des siècles, before the pragmatic rationality of the 19th century prevailed as a principle of reality.

Visitors will enter on the “carpet” by Franz West. Without being confronted with Mozart clichés and souvenirs, they will be received in the inner courtyard by a pneumatic installation by Klaus Pinter, a huge, translucent montgolfier hovering above their heads: a symbol of a visionary takeoff and floating melancholy, both moods of the late 18th century.

The Neo-Classicist colonnade, adorned with contemporary haute couture (Reinvented Rococo 2006), will connect the entrance hall and the three exhibition halls to the Neo-Classicist staterooms.

The largest exhibition hall, the Basteihalle in the basement, will offer a view of urban Europe as Mozart experienced it during his travels, as well as of Vienna, his place of activity during the 1870s, where he was most successful and productive. The individual stages of his career will be illustrated: his starting out as prodigy, then developing into a young composer or compositeur, until his genius finally unfolded during his time in Vienna.

Mozart’s social environment will be presented by means of exemplary and first-rate objects: important autographs, furniture, silver and porcelain, and chandeliers (the major part of which was provided by the traditional Vienna-based Lobmeyr company). Twenty monitors (Samsung Electronic Austria) will offer a media background of sequential images and exhibition architecture. They will present comments, associations, and illusionary images, but also contemporary art to put the flood of objects into a contemporary context. From an audio-guide, visitors will be able to retrieve 70 pieces of music matching the individual objects. Moreover, original letters by Mozart’s hand, as well as some by his father, family, and friends, will be read out to the visitors.

In the Pfeilerhalle, a columned hall, visitors will be surprised at seeing two robes by Azzedine Alaïa, symbolising the Queen of the Night and introducing into the world of the opera The Magic Flute together with the relevant musical quotations.
A tour d’horizon through the mysterious realm of freemasonry will lead up to the reconstruction of the most important ritual actions necessary to acquire the degree of a Master Mason, with the Magic Flute being referred to as a basis. This part of the concept relies on research undertaken by the renowned Egyptologist and scholar Jan Assmann.