Muti Mozart

The perfect inner assonance emerged between Muti and Richter many years ago was even more touchingly confirmed during these concerts: the great Russian pianist imprinted on the pages of Mozart’s masterpiece all their sorrowful candor, all the gleam of a lyricism of unrivaled fantastic richness.

This acclaimed La Scala performance of "Don Giovanni" instantly took its place among the most important Mozart productions. Thomas Allen, hailed as one of the best British baritones ever, gives an engaging and seductive performance as the famous lover. Under the baton of Riccardo Muti, this La Scala production highlights all of the tragic grandeur of this masterpiece without sacrificing its lighthearted moments. Director Giorgio Strehler's staging has been lauded for its subtle psychological treatment of the characters.

For his production of “ Don Giovanni“ at the Vienna International Festival (Wiener Festwochen), Roberto de Simone does not want to follow in the footsteps of other directors who modernise the design and add something that did not exist in Mozart’s original. He sends Don Giovanni on a journey through time to revisit the centuries that the character lived through starting with the original costume of the 16th century and ending in the 19th century. Don Giovanni changes garments but is still the same legend and archetype. Something similar can be said for his accompanying antagonist, Donna Elvira.

Così fan tutte is the third most-frequently performed work at the festival after Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte. This DVD provides a closer look at a classical staging from the Salzburg Festival in the series of important opera productions seen at the festival in the last decades. Riccardo Muti had made a sensational Salzburg début in 1971 and this Così fan tutte was his first Mozart opera at the festival. It was acclaimed by both the general public and international critics, who were virtually unanimous in their praise of the aesthetic quality of the production. Muti was praised for his authoritative approach to Mozart’s music, while the remarkably homogeneous team of international soloists was equally applauded. The singers form an admirably cohesive ensemble and all of them are outstanding Mozart singers.

Riccardo Muti had made a sensational Salzburg debut in 1971, and this Cosi fan tutte was his first Mozart opera at the festival. It was acclaimed by both the general public and international critics, who were virtually unanimous in their praise of the aesthetic quality of the production. Muti was praised for his authoritative approach to Mozart's music, while the remarkably homogeneous team of international soloists was equally applauded. The singers form an admirably cohesive ensemble and all of them are outstanding Mozart singers.

Performed to coincide with Mozart's bicentenary celebrations, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, with conductor Ricardo Muti, performs Symphonies 40 and 41 and the Divertimento in D major, K136.
There aren't any surprises or spectacular splendors as such, and anyway Mozart doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve in his symphonies in the way he does in his more intimate and elusive piano concertos. That said, both the music and the performances here are of the highest quality. In addition, there's a very attractive early Divertimento, K.136, for strings only, played here as a curtain-raiser.

The central facts of this brilliant performance are the conductor's vision and energy, expressed through a virtuoso orchestra and a cast carefully selected for theatrical as well as musical skills. The feeling of unrelenting pressure in the music seems to be an externalization of Don Giovanni's compulsions, which are only thinly veiled by his aristocratic manner and Mozart's mellifluous but intensely dramatic music. Riccardo Muti's tempos are often fast, but not so fast as to interfere with the fine nuances of dramatic expression in the orchestra and the singers, and he makes the gritty realities underlying the often smooth surface of the words and music intensely clear at every point.

Mozarts "Le nozze di Figaro" ist nicht nur eine der populärsten Opern überhaupt, sondern auch eine der besonders häufig eingespielten. Die Gesamtaufnahme unter Muti aus dem Jahre 1986 mit den Wiener Philharmonikern gehört nach wie vor zu den allerbesten. Auch wenn der Orchesterklang natürlich nicht die Frische und Durchsichtigkeit der von der historischen Aufführungspraxis geprägten Einspielungen besitzt, geht es hier höchst lebendig zu. Die Wiener Philharmoniker erweisen sich auch in diesem Fall als wunderbar mozart-erfahren, und für den mit ihnen bestens vertrauten Riccardo Muti gilt das ebenso. Vor allem aber ist das Solistenensemble von einer Qualität, dass es einfach eine Freude ist.

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.