Anna Netrebko once again triumphed at the 2006 Salzburg Festival with her winning portrayal of Susanna in Claus Guth's new production of Le nozze di Figaro, the highlights of which can be heard on this spectacular CD. Led by conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt with the Vienna Philharmonic, this production of Figaro garnered critical acclaim: "Guth and Harnoncourt have opened up a new perspective on an opera that is normally staged as a lightweight, turbulent farce," wrote the Zeit Online, while Die Welt described Harnoncourt as "a sorcerer able to conjure up magical sounds."
Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro is an unforgettable opera about love, desire and the primal force of uncontrollable passion. Concluding the Salzburg Festival’s highly successful Mozart / Da Ponte cycle, director Sven-Eric Bechtolf sets this emotional tour de force in a stately English country house during the 1920s. The renowned Vienna Philharmonic ensures an exceptional evening of music from Mozart’s birthplace. “Everything about the show exuded immediacy and naturalness: the intriguingly updated production by the director Sven-Eric Bechtolf; the winning performances of a compelling cast; and the supple, glowing playing that the conductor Dan Ettinger drew from the Vienna Philharmonic…”. (The New York Times)
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata (The Marriage of Figaro, or the Day of Madness), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (1784)…
The Zurich Opera House has recorded more productions for DVD than any other opera house in the world. During the last twelve years, conductor Franz Welser-Möst has conducted more than fifty premieres with the Zurich Opera. They perform regularly together in London, Paris, Tokyo and other major international cities. Welser-Möst has enjoyed a long and very fruitful relationship with the Zurich Opera. From 1995 - 2002, he was Chief Conductor of the House, was Principal Conductor from 2002 - 2005 and was then appointed General Musikdirektor. In June 2007, Welser-Möst was appointed General Musikdirektor designate of the Staatsoper, Vienna, a position he will assume in the 2010/11 season. Prior to that, he undertakes a new production of “The Ring" in Vienna, which started in the 2007/8 season. He is also Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Welser-Möst has assembled over the years a close-knit ensemble which is frequently praised for both its vocal and acting abilities.
In 2006, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, the Salzburg Festival set itself the task of producing all 22 of Mozart's operas, and this recording of highlights from Le nozze di Figaro is a result of a live performance. Nikolaus Harnoncourt's reading of the score is marvelously nuanced; it's clear that the performance reflects a lifetime of living with and performing the opera. His dramatic pace tends toward briskness, which works well in a work as wordy as this. He's especially skillful at bringing out the instrumental colors of the score, particularly of the winds and timpani; he makes the listener especially aware of the inventiveness, cleverness, and subtlety of Mozart's orchestration. The Vienna Philharmonic and Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor perform with finesse, warmth, and sensitivity to the opera's poignancy and humor…
"… a fascinating glimpse into the history of the Salzburg Festival…The designer is Rudolf Heinrich, whose atmospheric sets cleverly suggest the different rooms in the Almaviva mansion within which Rennert, as ever, directs the work with an unforced feeling for the thoughts and actions of the Count’s scheming household and entirely without exaggeration…Berry’s then-reigning Figaro leads his eponymous opera with the confidence and exuberance of long experience in the part. His antagonist is the sturdy, impulsive Count of Wixell, obviously driven by testosterone. Both sing with absolute command of the stage and boast exemplary tone and technique with voices of properly contrasted timbre… Reri Grist’s Susanna is at once worldly-wise and quick-witted…" - Alan Blyth, GRAMOPHONE
Live Recordings 1955 - 1994. The wide-ranging repertory in which Christa Ludwig appeared at the Vienna State Opera, often surprising her audiences over a period of many years, is central to the present set of three CDs issued to mark her 80th birthday. It begins with her Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro and her Composer from Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, both of which she sang at the Salzburg Festival soon after her Vienna State Opera début in 1955.
Live Recordings 1955 - 1994. The wide-ranging repertory in which Christa Ludwig appeared at the Vienna State Opera, often surprising her audiences over a period of many years, is central to the present set of three CDs issued to mark her 80th birthday. It begins with her Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro and her Composer from Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, both of which she sang at the Salzburg Festival soon after her Vienna State Opera début in 1955.