Zaide

Zaide (originally, Das Serail) is an unfinished German-language opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780.

Mozart was composing for a German libretto by Johann Andreas Schachtner, set in Turkey, which was the scene of his next, completed rescue Singspiel (Die Entführung aus dem Serail).

The tender soprano air, "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben" is the only number that might be called moderately familiar.

The title Zaide was supplied by the Mozart researcher Johann Anton André, who first published the score, including his own completion of it, in the 1830s.

In 1995, le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels presented Zaide in a production helmed by modern choreographer Lucinda Childs in her directing debut.

Taking off from the opera's theme of slavery, he set it in a contemporary sweatshop and cast it with African-American and Asian singers.

The production featured the Concerto Köln under the direction of Louis Langrée, sets by George Tsypin, lighting by James F. Ingalls, and costumes by Gabriel Berry.

The elderly Lusignan, a prisoner of the Sultan (paralleled in the character Allazim) recognizes Zara and Nerestan as his children as she escorts him to safety.