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Astonishingly, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart penned his first opera, Mitridate, Re di Ponto, at the tender age of 14. The work plunges into the dark heart of the inner circle of Mithridates, king of Pontus, the dark tower of a nemesis who dwarfed and tried to stamp out the Roman empire. This Jean-Pierre Ponnelle stage production of the work, which Ponnelle mounted and staged at Vicenza's Teatro Olimpico in 1986, stars Gosta Winbergh as Mithridates, Yvonne Kenny as Aspasia, Ann Murray as Sifare, Anne Gjevag as Farnace, and Joan Rodgers as Ismene. The Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, provides musical accompaniment.