The Marriage of Figaro

On CD

Samuel Ramey, Lucia Popp, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen, Frederica von Stade; cond. Sir Georg Solti (Decca label)

A sumptuously cast performance, with the cast led by five of the most extraordinarily gifted Mozart interpreters of our time. Ramey, Popp, Te Kanawa, Allen, and von Stade perform with a teamwork that could only have resulted from in-depth partnerships developed in stage performances. Each is also vocally absolutely ideal, and Solti is in rare form on the podium. This is one of the most thoroughly satisfying operatic recordings in the entire Mozart discography.

Wladimiro Ganzarolli, Mirella Freni, Jessye Norman, Ingvar Wixell, Yvonne Minton; cond. Sir Colin Davis (Philips label) 

There’s a comforting quality about this performance, since it exudes a humanity that is all its own. That has a lot to do with the linchpin of the recording, the glorious Mirella Freni, whose portrayal of Susanna was one of her greatest achievements, and the sumptuous-voiced Jessye Norman, whose Countess was her very first complete studio recording of an operatic role. Ingvar Wixell is also a standout as one of the most emotionally complex and thoroughly dangerous Counts in any Figaro recording. Sir Colin Davis, always at his very best in Mozart, creates magic in the pit.

Sir Bryn Terfel, Alison Hagley, Hillevi Martinpelto, Rod Gilfry, Pamela Helen Stephen; cond. Sir John Eliot Gardiner (DG/Archiv label) 

Here is a delectable performance with an original-instrument orchestra, Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists, whose contribution is extraordinary in its musical brilliance. The team of soloists are enormously characterful at every moment, especially the unbeatable duo of Terfel and Hagley. Gilfry, one of America’s most intelligent and individual singing actors, makes a capital Count.

Lorenzo Regazzo, Patrizia Ciofi, Véronique Gens, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager; cond. René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi label)

As with the Philips recording, this one has a great asset in the participation of two native Italians as Figaro and Susanna. Regazzo and Ciofi are brilliant both in song and recitative, communicating in detail and with tremendous energy. Keenlyside, another marvelous Mozart interpreter, is in full command as the Count, and Véronique Gens give the Countess all the necessary dignity and soulfulness. There’s a terrific supporting cast as well, and above all, the stylistic authority of conductor René Jacobs leading the original-instrument Concerto Köln orchestra. Together they bring a special vividness and freshness to every scene.

 

On DVD

Hermann Prey, Mirella Freni, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Maria Ewing; cond. Karl Böhm, dir. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (Deutsche Grammophon label)

This is a made-for-television movie, rather than a stage performance. It’s also pure joy from start to finish. Just look at that cast—major stars all, all boasting exceptionally individual voices, stylistic brilliance, and immense personalities onscreen. There’s special pleasure in watching Freni’s Susanna, exuding charm and total naturalness as an actress (she also sings flawlessly). There’s also never been a more endearing Figaro than Prey, a more elegant Count/Countess pair than Fischer-Dieskau and Te Kanawa, or a more totally adorable Cherubino than Ewing. The visual side is sumptuous, and Ponnelle directs with imagination and matchless understanding of this work’s demands. With the legendary Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, what more could one ask? 

Erwin Schrott, Miah Persson, Dorothea Röschmann, Gerald Finley, Rinat Shaham; cond. Antonio Pappano, dir. Sir David McVicar (Opus Arte label)

This is an extraordinarily invigorating performance, captured onstage at London’s Royal Opera House. The principals are all absolutely believable, and they sing with the ease and musicality that have made all of them important interpreters of this opera internationally. Schrott and Persson, as the servant couple, have dazzling charisma and work together superbly, as do two of today’s most elegant Mozartians, Finley and Röschmann, as their employers. Shaham’s warm-voiced Cherubino is also a delight. Within a traditional stage picture, Sir David McVicar creates a fabulous spontaneity and naturalness in his cast—one could easily imagine them in the spoken theater, and the ROH’s music director, Antonio Pappano, is leading an orchestra whose expertise in this opera has long been renowned.

 

On YouTube:

Here are terrific performances by the TDO principals:

KYLE KETELSEN, bass-baritone
The Marriage of Figaro, “Non più andrai”

MADISON LEONARD, soprano
Rigoletto, “Caro nome” (excerpt)

SARA GARTLAND, soprano
Artist recital with Grace Browning, harp

ANDREI BONDARENKO, baritone
The Marriage of Figaro, “Hai già vinta la causa”

JOHN HOLIDAY, countertenor
Agrippina, “Quando invita”
Porgy and Bess, “Summertime” (with Holiday accompanying himself at the piano)

LUCY SCHAUFER, mezzo-soprano
Candide, “I Am So Easily Assimilated”

KEVIN BURDETTE, bass-baritone
The Barber of Seville, “A un dottor della mia sorte”

DAVID CANGELOSI, tenor
Ariadne auf Naxos, “Im Gegenteil”
Camelot, “If Ever I Would Leave You”

 

At Your Bookshop or Library:

The “Figaro Trilogy”: The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, The Guilty Mother by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (publ. Oxford World’s Classics)

It’s terrific that, in one reasonably priced paperback, you can acquire the texts of all three of Beaumarchais plays, each the basis for a memorable opera (in case you’re wondering, the third play was adapted by French composer Darius Milhaud as La mère coupable, premiered in 1966). Figaro in particular—such a sensation when it first appeared, a few years before the French Revolution—is impossible to put down. It will truly illuminate the characters who were so superbly adapted by Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.

Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon (publ. Harper Perennial)

This is the most authoritative Mozart biography we’ve had in English, and it’s also compulsively readable. What a pleasure to have such a rounded view of the composer, with every aspect of his life combining to create the image of someone we feel we know very well. Not only Mozart himself, but also the fascinating personalities surrounding him, emerge vividly, in the words of a scholar who is also a brilliant storyteller.