The Mozart Experience Vol.5 La Nozze Di Figaro Import

I love opera and “Le Nozze di Figaro” is one of my very favourites. I own quite a few versions of this work and thought that it might be of use to post reviews of them online. I have already posted a review of the all-star Solti recording and this remains my number one recommendation.I also own a number of highlights compilations, among which can be counted this version dating from 1985, with the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner.This is a generously filled compilation, featuring all the best known arias and, I am pleased to note, the great sextet.Marriner leads his smallish ensemble in an energetic, lean and dramatic reading of the score. Decorations are few and far between and the conductor opts for fastish speeds, light textures and crisp rhythms.His cast is a very strong one, with the cream of British operatic talent in minor roles; the contributions of Felicity Palmer and Neil Jenkins are here restricted to the great sextet, but we also have Robert Lloyd giving a magnificent account of Bartolo's aria; no one’s buffoon, he! The two main male roles have been formidably cast. José van Dam is a strongly projected, thoughtful, ironic, but not especially comic Figaro, while Ruggero Raimondi is a domineering, fiery, bitter Count, whose aria is a veritable tour-de-force. The only real problem is that the two voices are so very alike. The women are not quite on the same level. Barbara Hendricks is not especially individual, but sings with taste and style and with an attractively girlish tone, while Lucia Popp, a matchless Susanna for Solti, is perhaps a little small-scale for the Countess, but she sings with pure, crystalline tone and a splendid sense of line. Agnes Baltsa is a tempestuous, impulsive Cherubino, with more edge to the voice than some of her counterparts.The recorded sound is first-class and I’m very glad to have heard this version.