ZAIDE (W. A. Mozart) is an opera that exists in a state of tantalising incompletion: a Singspiel fragment without a definitive libretto, overture, or final scene. In the Oldenburg staging, this openness becomes the central theatrical engine. Rather than “completing” the piece, the production treats it as a living draft—music that keeps offering possibilities without ever sealing them into certainty. 

To make that dramaturgical principle tangible, Oldenburg presented ZAIDE in a deliberately chamber-like format—voice and piano—sharpening the focus on text, breath, and the volatility of human decisions.  Mozart’s arias and ensembles appear like bright fragments of a larger mosaic: moments of longing, fear, tenderness, and resolve, surrounded by the unanswered question of what comes next.

A crucial layer is provided by Italo Calvino’s narrative version, which embraces the fragment as an aesthetic method: an act of storytelling that can stop, rewind, contradict itself, and begin again—testing different routes through the same emotional landscape.  The result is a theatre evening that is at once playful and unsettling: a love story and an escape story, but also a reflection on how narratives—and systems of power—are constructed.

The Oldenburg production was directed by Nils Braun, with dramaturgy by Stephanie Twiehaus and musical direction (piano) by Piotr Fidelus.  The cast featured Elena Harsányi in the title role and Johannes Leander Maas as Gomatz, alongside Ill-Hoon Choung, Henry Kiichli, Matthias Kleinert, and Logan Rucker.