Figaro

"Barenboim continues to favour a forceful, big-scale reading with often deliberate speeds for the slower numbers, a musically accomplished, thought-through account of the crucial finales to Acts 2 and 4, lively treatment of the recitative, finely-honed playing of the wind, alert rhythms and an avoidance for the most part of appoggiaturas…John Tomlinson is much better suited by Figaro than he was by Alfonso, but still wants in tonal focus…but he does at all times create a lively personality, a force to be reckoned with…" (Gramophone)

Riccardo Muti's 2011 performances of Saverio Mercadante's I due Figaro (The Two Figaros) were the first it had received since 1835, and this Ducale release of the presentation at the Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Italy, is the world-premiere recording. The story of this comic opera is a sequel to events in the Beaumarchais plays, which inspired Rossini's Barber of Seville and Mozart's Marriage of Figaro; the characters of Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino, and the Count and Countess Almaviva are seen a decade later in another farce of disguises and deception. The music is very much in the animated style of Rossini, with an exotic quality that Mercadante discovered on his visit to Madrid, and the mood of the opera is brightened by the combination of Neapolitan tunefulness and Spanish dance rhythms.

Auch die zweite Staffel von Opera!, der neuen Opern-Serie von Decca und Deutsche Grammophon, steht wieder für herausragende digitale Gesamteinspielungen der beliebtesten Meisterwerke der Operngeschichte. Legendäre Sängerbesetzungen, große Dirigenten und ein konkurrenzlos günstiger Preis – das Paket, das die beiden großen Opernlabels mit Opera! schnüren, sollte geeignet sein, die Herzen der Fans von Bartoli, Domingo und Co. höher schlagen zu lassen. Zu den Höhepunkten der zweiten Staffel zählen unter anderem Richard Strauss’ Rosenkavalier in einer legendären Einspielung unter Herbert von Karajan, W. A. Mozarts Le nozze di Figaro mit Cecilia Bartoli als Cherubino sowie Donizettis Lucia di Lammermoor mit Cheryl Studer und Plácido Domingo als tragisches Liebespaar.
“Characterful and musically imaginative” The Penguin Guide

In 1988 when this period-instrument Figaro was released, the style was still a novelty, and Ostman gained some notoreity for his rushed tempos as well as the scrawniness of his chamber orchestra, by far the smallest to play this great opera on CD. Yet when I read a glowing review by Andrew Porter in the New Yorker, I immediately bought the performance, shortly discovering that it was a true gem in the extensive Figaro catalog.
By Santa Fe Listener

Unlike the late arrival of Mozart's Turkish opera, "Figaro" was much more of a constant in Solti's long career. Apart from being his debut opera, and a work he conducted at Covent Garden in a new staging in 1963-64, he also led editions in Chicago (1957), and with the Paris Opera in the highly visible Giorgio Strehler production that opened Intendant Rolf Liebermann's bold-new-start regime in March 1973; it was initially presented at the Palace of Versailles and in 1976 toured to the US. Frederica von Stade, the most admired Cherubino of the day, who had sung the role for Solti at Versailles, also appears on his subsequent recording. Made in 1981 with an exceptional cast, it won a Grammy award, perhaps unsurprisingly given that its other major assets include Kiri Te Kanawa's creamy-voiced Countess, Lucia Popp's sprightly Susanna, Thomas Allen's authoritative Count and Samuel Ramey's weighty Figaro. Smaller roles - Jane Berbié's Marcellina, Robert Tear's Basilio and Philip Langridge's Curzio among them - are also handled with tremendous care.

The protagonist of the film, set in 1700, is Figaro, the barber of Seville, who risks being arrested for opening his shop on Sundays despite a ban. Figaro is a friend of a young Count who's in love with Rosina, the governor's daughter. But her father doesn't consent to their marriage.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Highlights from Mozart's Figaro
Anna Netrebko / Ildebrando d'Arcangelo / Wiener Philharmoniker / Nikolaus Harnoncourt
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 366 MB | Artwork: 23 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon # 460502601602 | Country/Year: Russia 2008
Genre: Classical | Style: Opera, Viennese School

"…The singers are both dramatically and vocally superb; this is probably as close to a dream cast for the opera as one is likely to get. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Anna Netrebko are completely winning as Figaro and Susanna, and there's real chemistry between them. (…) The sound is remarkably fine for a live recording; it's bright and clear, as well as warm and intimate, and the singers' volume levels are steady despite their movement around the stage." (AMG)