MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne, June 1958 – Evans, Sciutti, Berganza, Székely, Sinclair, Lorengar, Cuénod, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt

Several justly renowned recordings of the first collaboration between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte have come from the Glyndebourne Festival over the years, conducted by Fritz Busch, Vittorio Gui, and Bernard Haitink, among others. To their number must now be added the performance recorded this evening in June 1958, conducted by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, in his only appearance at the festival.

The performance crackles with wit and tension from the outset, belying Schmidt-Isserstedt’s reputation in some quarters as a solid purveyor of the classics. The cast includes several of the singers who had lent such distinction to Vittorio Gui’s recording three years previously, including Graziella Sciutti (a capricious Susanna) and Hugues Cuénod (a Basilio all the funnier and more spontaneous for being captured live); among these, importantly, were not Geraint Evans (Figaro), a baritone long held in esteem by audiences and conductors, whose recorded legacy has not done him justice, and Pilar Lorengar (the Countess), then beginning a career that would see her become a favourite of The Royal Opera.

Throughout this recording we sense the pert social comedy and intimacy peculiar both to the opera itself and to the atmosphere fostered by the unique performing conditions available at Glyndebourne; perfectly instantiated in the Cherubino of Teresa Berganza, the Spanish mezzo-soprano who would make a no less memorable impression on UK festival audiences two decades later with her Carmen in Edinburgh. This production of Figaro marked Berganza’s UK debut.