By ALLAN KOZINN [NY Times, 25 August 2006]

In its two opera productions this summer, Mostly Mozart focused on the protracted moment when Mozart found his operatic voice. Passing over his nine early-stage works, from “Apollo et Hyacinthus” through “Il Re Pastore,” the festival first looked at “Zaide,” an incomplete score that was fleshed out here with orchestral interludes from “Thamos.” It didn’t work particularly well: a listener more taken with the “Thamos” borrowings than with “Zaide” might have wished that the pit band, Concerto Köln, had played a symphonic concert instead.