Die Entführung aus dem Serail

From The Metropolitan Opera website: http://www.metopera.org/Discover/Synopses/Die-Entfuhrung-aus-dem-Serail/

Die Entführung aus dem Serail (translation: The Abduction From The Seraglio) was written at the order of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II. For source material, Mozart turned to a popular farce of his day about two pairs of European lovers, one noble and the other their servants, who are trying to escape from the harem of a Turkish pasha and his amusingly sleazy overseer. The work uses spoken dialogue and separate musical numbers in the form of a Singspiel, or “sung play.”

Met Music Director James Levine returns to a work he has long cherished, Mozart’s delightful comic gem of wily captives in a harem. Coloratura soprano sensation Albina Shagimuratova stars in the bravura role of Konstanze. Rising tenor Paul Appleby is her lover, Belmonte, soprano Kathleen Kim is her shrewd maid, Blondchen, and bass Hans-Peter König delivers comic gravitas as the overseer of the harem.