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Harmonia Mundi: HMC901818/20Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K492 | ||||||||||||||||||
Winner of numerous awards including the Gramophone Record of the Year 2004, this is one of the must-have opera recordings of all time. "This is the only suitable adjective to define what we are looking for, with our period instruments, our fast tempos, the performance of the recitatives, the ornaments added here and there by the singers, and a few other features that may surprise the audience: an approach that is not ‘Baroque’ – the term would be wholly out of place here – but ‘neo-Classical’, as opposed to the ‘post-Romantic’ one which began to determine our listening habits in the first half of the twentieth century. Every period has its own Mozart tradition; the neo-Classical approach is the fruit of an increasingly intense desire, not to ‘reconstruct’ musical performance practices of Mozart’s time, but to utilise them with the imagination proper to the individual personality of each musician, as important elements that are nevertheless subordinate to an overall vision." René Jacobs | ||||||||||||||||||
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Press comments: "One of the most dynamic period-instrument conductors in Europe, René Jacobs, is also, thankfully, one of the most prolific in the studios. How splendid then, that Gramophone’s current Record Label of the Year is carrying the torch for recorded opera with a superb new Figaro. With Simon Keenlyside and Véronique Gens heading the cast, this set captures some of today’s finest singers." Gramophone "This is an undeniably exciting, challenging Figaro, with a cast who works brilliantly as a team. Veronique Gens brings a mingled finesse and vulnerability to the Countess's music, while Simon Keenlyside's Count - truly formidable, yet capable of honeyed suavity - is as charismatic as any on disc." Richard Wigmore, The Daily Telegraph "Concerto Koln's playing is beautifully balanced, with an unusually dynamic fortepiano continuo. Of the cast, Keenlyside's Count is most interesting: properly threatening and pleasingly unpredictable. Though Jacobs's tempi verge on the breathless in some arias, his control of the ensembles is exhilaratingly tight. Not a quaver is lost, not a nuance ignored." Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday "This is as fine a Figaro as has appeared on disc in the past 20 years, and certainly the best of the four so far that have used period instruments. The cast has no significant weaknesses, and the playing of the Concerto Köln is alive to every nuance of the score. Most important of all, this is a version of Figaro that sounds as if it has come straight out of the theatre, as if the spontaneity of a live performance had been reconciled with the accuracy and attention to detail afforded by studio takes. There is always the twinkling sense of dramatic give-and-take that is the hallmark of a good performance of Figaro in the opera house, and for which Jacobs must be given most of the praise; his approach to the score is a perfect amalgam of the scholarly and the practical." The Guardian "This is an undeniably exciting, challenging Figaro, with a cast who works brilliantly as a team. Veronique Gens brings a mingled finesse and vulnerability to the Countess's music, while Simon Keenlyside's Count - truly formidable, yet capable of honeyed suavity - is as charismatic as any on disc." The Daily Telegraph "Keenlyside's robust Count is every inch a match for Regazzo's sonorously Italian Figaro, with Gens a sumptuous Countess and Ciofi a feisty Susanna. Throw in Kirchschlager's beguiling Cherubino, plus terrific ensemble support, and you have a racy, pacy, really thrilling new account of one of the greatest of all operas." The Observer "After his exhilarating Così five years ago, Jacobs delivers a fresh view of this much-recorded music. I haven’t enjoyed a Figaro so much in years." The Sunday Times "I learned to love and appreciate the opera afresh...This is a major issue, marvellously recorded." The Sunday Telegraph "The wayward account of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro by René Jacobs... will keep you busy and amazed . Utterly exhilarating." Geoff Brown, The Times | ||||||||||||||||||
Gramophone Awards 2004
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