Word: figaro
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro (Glyndebourne Festival Opera Company, Fritz Busch conducting; Victor, 33 sides, three albums). A re-issue of a fine performance in which sound and surface suffered slightly in the process; a worthy collector's item. Performance: good...
...musty masters are Soprano Frances Alda's gracefully sung Willow Song and Ave Maria from Otello (recorded in 1910) and Baritone Mario Ancona's Eri tu from The Masked Ball (1907). Even scratchier is Luisa Tetrazzini's carelessly sung Voi che sapete from The Marriage of Figaro (1908). Enrico Caruso's faltering Rachel, quand du seigneur, from La Juive, was recorded in 1920 when the great tenor's voice was running down.* Victor has far better Tetrazzini and Caruso records in its files, and obviously wasn't shooting the works the first time around...
...Mozart fans who expected another Don Giovanni or Marriage of Figaro, it was a disappointment. The Abduction from the Seraglio is a trifle in which half of the dialogue is spoken, not sung. Its story (supplied by Librettist Gottlieb Stephanie, who borrowed it from a comedy by Dramatist Christoph Bretzner, who probably borrowed it from an English comic opera called The Captive) tells of an English cavalier and his manservant who try to liberate the cavalier's lady love and her maid from a Turkish pasha's harem...
...England Opera Theatre was founded on the announced premise that opera must be seen as well as heard and should therefore be considered just as much from a theatrical as a musical viewpoint. In line with this policy, Goldovsky decided to do his first production, "The Marriage of Figaro," in English, so that not only the audience but the singers themselves would understand the motivation behind the action and music of the opera...
...musical excellence of Goldovsky's effort also suffered somewhat from the mediocrity of several of his singers. Robert Gay and Francis Barnard in the leading male roles of the Count and Figaro, respectively, lacked both the force and training essential to good Mozartean baritones. Luigi Vellucci, however, surprised with superb performances in two roles, the comic ones of Basilio and Curzio...