I shall now shock the purists and all those who believe that perfection in the studio using big-name singers and conductors is the only way to achieve satisfactory performances of opera on disc. Here we have a reading to disprove those theories, one that far surpasses, in dramatic truth, vivid characterization and a sense of a drama palpably taking place before us, those many recent, seemingly more classy recordings, and rivals those deriving from Glyndebourne. Indeed its success arises, as did that of the recent Don Giovanni from Macerata, now a kind of Italian Glyndebourne. There Kuhn insists on lengthy and probing rehearsals both with his young players and singers. As a result we hear a performance of unified purpose, of true ensemble and of instinctive musicality that warms the heart and delights the ear.
Wherever you care to listen, you will hear from Kuhn, who has become one of the leading conductors of the day in this field, and his orchestra a refined sensibility of sound appropriate in size, tempo, texture and detail. Try, if you like, the accompaniments to both the girls' Act 1 duets, to the support for ''Per pieta'' or to Dorabella's ''E amore un ladroncello'' and you'll hear the rhythmic incisiveness and clarity of colour so lacking in the versions conducted by Barenboim (Erato) and Levine (DG). This is Mozart interpretation on the highest level, and I couldn't quarrel with a single speed (as you might with those on the challenging Harnoncourt/Teldec set). Just as satisfying is the timing of the recitative, which trips along at a natural, conversational pace and is accompanied promptly and unobtrusively on a harpsichord, avoiding entirely the clumping fortepiano effects heard on the Levine set. This kind of easy, sensible flow is something hard or even impossible to achieve in the studio where the piece is recorded in unrelated chunks. You feel here that you are attending an absorbing night at the theatre with everyone involved in projecting the drama, and that impression is enhanced by a real opera-house acoustic, with the orchestra sounding in ideal relationship with the singers, again something hard to simulate in the studio.
All would be set at naught if the cast had not been so carefully chosen and here this set surpasses the Giovanni from the same source. Antonacci, the rising young star of Italian opera, is a vibrant, confident Fiordiligi. Those who want a creamy, Viennese-like voice in this music may not care for the Italianate edge on Antonacci's tone; for me she is as moving and palpitating a Fiordiligi as any on disc. Not as technically fluent as Vaness for Haitink (EMI) but similar to her in timbre, she articulates the text and the notes with more imagination than Vaness or indeed any other soprano in the part except perhaps Margiono on Harnoncourt's Teldec set whose tone isn't as sappy as Antonacci's. All sorts of detail in ''Per pieta'' give evidence of her intelligence and of the rewards of Kuhn's methods. She finds the ideal partner in Bacelli's lively, colourful Dorabella, who is another to sound the more comfortable and communicative in her role on account of long rehearsal. Her voice combines and contrasts with Antonacci's to just the right degree. Cherici's sparky, knowing Despina completes as engaging and youthful a trio of women as you'll find on any set.
Dohmen confirms his good form as Giovanni with a Guglielmo of the highest class, bags of character and confidence emerging from his seduction of Dorabella and from his cynicism in his Act 2 aria. Here's another singer who knows how to use words while never stepping outside vocal verities. Decker's tenor is certainly not as pleasing as many on disc, not so attractive as Araiza's for Marriner (Philips) or Aler's (Haitink), drier in tone, not as supple in phrasing, but he convinces you that he is the sensitive, romantic youth through his vivid characterization. Bruscantini repeats a role that he sang some 40 years ago for Karajan on EMI. The voice has lost what little bloom it once had, but the mastery of word and feeling is more vital than ever so one hardly misses the sonorous sound of, say, Hampson (Harnoncourt), but then Harnoncourt saw Alfonso as a younger man; Kuhn obviously takes a more conventional view—though the Macerata staging, in the David Freeman mould, is set in modern circumstances, something we don't need to worry about when listening to a performance of such theatrical brio.
Some stage noises are inevitably in evidence, and the applause has been allowed to take its natural course; if these things worry you, you'll avoid this set but you'll be denying yourself an enjoyable experience as far from routine or ''internationalitis'' as any I have recently heard, and rivalled of late only by Harnoncourt's arresting though very different perceptions.'