Mozart 250 – The First Commandment, St John’s Smith Square, London, review: His contribution remarkably sketches the man he will become

Classical Opera's Mozart 250 continues to explore the music that was being written by Mozart and his contemporaries exactly 250 ago

Alessandro Fisher as Christian in Thomas Guthrie's staging of Mozart's 'The First Commandment'

Continuing their outstanding project of shadowing in real time what Mozart was up to 250 years ago, Ian Page and the sprightly forces of Classical Opera have reached Mozart’s first extended dramatic work: the first part of a sacred oratorio written as the 11-year-old arrived back in Salzburg after three years touring Northern Europe.

The subsequent parts by two other composers haven’t survived, but Mozart’s contribution remarkably sketches the man he will become, already tweaking the contemporary idiom to his own ends, adept at scene painting, and skilled at dramatic tension and comic pace. All these virtues shone brightly in Thomas Guthrie’s modest staging in Nigel Lewis’s light-hearted translation of this mini drama.

Christian is sleeping off the previous night’s revelries, while two sopranos, Justice and Compassion, bicker just like a couple of pagan goddesses over the unlikelihood of his salvation. Christian Spirit (strong tenor Sam Furness) begs for their help to save Christian. All is nearly lost with the arrival of Worldly Spirit, whose thrilling soprano coloratura blandishments risk seducing him away into hedonism. Fortunately, Christian (addictively moreish light tenor Alessandro Fisher) has had a vision of the last trump (in Stephanie Dyer’s elegant trombone), and thanks to Christian Spirit’s quick turn as a herbalist, both day and soul are saved.