Everyone has their
favourite Mozart opera. And yet, it
so often seems that whichever opera
one is listening to at any time seems
to be the top contender for favourite
Mozart opera. Così Fan Tutte
must always be a good bet for the title;
Mozart never wrote a tighter opera.
Change a single note and the whole would
be diminished, and no matter how many
great ensemble numbers there are in
the other operas, Così Fan Tutte
appears as the perfect ensemble
opera.
Nonetheless, although
Apex have put out a considerable number
of releases in their Opera Highlights
series – even including Tristan und
Isolde and an upcoming Götterdämmerung,
one has to wonder if there really is
sense in the creation of highlights
discs of opera when it is so easy to
prepare an edited version using the
programmable memory of any CD player.
The highlights disc always has the disadvantage
of losing the integral storyline; it
becomes, in effect a recital programme
of songs, the words of which don’t matter.
Surely this is only a bad thing. On
the other hand, it would be foolish
to pretend other than that most people
use CDs as background music most of
the time. In this context the removal
of the recitatives is possibly easy
to support, for they have, principally,
more dramatic function than musical
function. The choices in reducing a
complete opera to a little under an
hour and a quarter are always going
to be arbitrary, and invariably there
is much fabulous music lost. Here, at
least, the distributions are fairly
uniform; Fiordiligi, Dorabella, Guglielmo
and Despina are represented by two arias
each, Ferrando and Don Alfonso having
to make do with one. Most of the disc
is made up of the ensemble works, including
the great set-piece quintets Alla
bella Despinetta and Fortunato
l’uom che prende, and this succession
of ensemble numbers does make great
listening. One just has difficulty in
shaking off the feeling that there is
dramatic ‘glue’ missing. The story,
as in most operas, is stupid enough
in the complete version – truncated
like this it makes for an uncomfortable
dramatic ride, and no matter how stupid
the story might be, a complete story
is always more satisfying than one with
holes in it.
And what of the performance?
Here again, one quickly begins to wish
that Apex had treated this as a double
disc, complete set. At the budget price
of Apex discs it would have increased
the potential sales exponentially over
the increased price. The performances
are uniformally excellent – a splendid
cast, with a marvellously affecting
Fiordiligi in Charlotte Margiono, Thomas
Hampson as superb as ever as Don Alfonso,
and a particularly beautifully sung
Ferrando. It is unfortunate that Deon
van der Walt in this role is really
only shown off in the lovely Un’aura
amorosa towards the end of Act I,
but it is worth hearing. The Chorus
of De Nederlandse Opera have very little
to do but their reputation does precede
them. The true consistent glory is in
the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Not
a group that does a lot of operatic
work, they nonetheless have no difficulty
in bringing all the polish and intense
musicianship for which the orchestra
is famous. Under the direction of Harnoncourt,
with whom the RCO have worked frequently
over the years, this recording shows
that the Amsterdammers continue to deserve
their reputation as one of the world’s
very greatest ensembles. As always it
is the wonderful blend and piquancy
of the strings that is the highlight.
Harnoncourt’s direction is crisp and
insightful throughout; blending the
singers and the orchestra superbly.
Such a fine performance
would be easily recommendable at any
time, and becomes even more so at budget
price. If the recording were complete,
it would be a strong contender in any
selection of top Così recordings.
As it stands however, being only a selection
of movements, it is hard to recommend
this to anybody with a serious interest
in Mozart opera. This is a pity.
Peter Wells
Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera 