The catalogue of Figaro recordings is a long one, and the cast lists are full of famous names. In this new version there is only one principal with more than a half-dozen recordings behind him, and some have none at all. It is a commentary on the times, on the astuteness of the casting here and on the capacity of a strong conductor to make the whole so much more than the sum of its parts that this version can stand comparison with any, not only for its grasp of the drama but also for the quality of its singing.
It is, of course, a period-instrument recording, and to my ears rather more evidently so than many of those under John Eliot Gardiner. The string tone is pared down and makes quite modest use of vibrato, the woodwind is soft-toned (but happily prominent). The voices are generally lighter and fresher-sounding than those on most recordings of the opera and the balance permits more than usual to be heard of Mozart's instrumental commentary on the action and the characters.
This is a live performance, made during two concert performances at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London last summer (plus, I imagine, some studio retakes: there are a few points where the background is hushed beyond credibility for a public performance). The recitative is done with quite exceptional life and feeling for its meaning and dramatic import, with a real sense, during much of it, of lively and urgent conversation, especially in the first half of the work. At a number of points later on, particularly in Act 3, it becomes over-indulgent and excessively drawn-out, and such passages as the one around the trial scene would, I think, become quite tiresome on repeated hearings—the fact that the audience are clearly relishing it, and laughing in places where apparently nothing is happening (though doubtless it was on the QEH stage), doesn't make it better listening at home.
Bryn Terfel and Alison Hagley make an outstanding Figaro and Susanna. Terfel is quite a deep bass-baritone with enough darkness in his voice to sound pretty menacing in ''Se vuol ballare'' as well as bitter in ''Aprite un po' quegli occhi''; it is an alert, mettlesome performance—and he also brings off a superlative ''Non piu andrai'', done with tremendous spirit to its rhythms and richly and pointedly coloured. Hagley, the much and justly admired Susanna in the recent Glyndebourne production, offers a reading of spirit and allure. The interplay between her and the woodwind in ''Venite inginocchiatevi'' is a delight, and her cool but heartfelt ''Deh vieni'' is very beautiful. Once or twice her intonation seems marginally under stress but that is the price one pays for singing with so little vibrato, and it's worth it. I enjoyed Hillevi Martinpelto's unaffected, youthful-sounding Countess; both arias are quite lightly done, with a very lovely, warm, natural sound in ''Dove sono'' especially. Some may prefer a more polished, sophisticated reading, of the traditional kind, but I have no doubt that this is closer to what Mozart would have wanted and expected. Rodney Gilfry provides a Count with plenty of fire and authority, firmly focused in tone; the outburst at the Allegro assai in ''Vedro mentr'io sospiro'' is formidable. Pamela Helen Stephen's Cherubino sounds charmingly youthful and impetuous; ''Voi che sapete'' is taken a good deal quicker than usual, and with a touch of comedy, and benefits from it. Carlos Feller repeats his Bartolo (he is on the L'Oiseau-Lyre set), with due buffoonery in ''La vendetta'', Francis Egerton contributes a sharply drawn Basilio, and Susan McCulloch catches Marcellina very neatly. If I am commenting more on characterization than on actual singing as such, that is because this is so much more a realization of the work than simply a performance of its music.
Yet it does not quite have the opera-house aura that some Figaro performances on record achieve. Older readers will think, first, of the famous Erich Kleiber set, where you feel you are in the stalls, eager for the rise of the curtain, the moment you hear the overture begin. The Ostman version has something of that, too. But certainly there is no want of dramatic life in Gardiner's direction. His tempos are marginally quicker than most, and the orchestra often speaks eloquently of the drama: it rages at the beginning of ''Cosa sento?'', for example, and it is pretty alarming too in the Act 2 trio where Susanna is supposedly in the Countess's dressing-room (the Count's battering on the door is included). The finale here is paced in an original and effective way. ''Crudel, perche finora'' has a charming sensuality. I thought the fandango in the Act 3 finale marred by coarse dynamic treatment. The Act 4 finale has many good things—note the prominent giggling viola phrase where Figaro at last realizes that the 'Countess' is Susanna in disguise and the apt, unexaggerated but very effective, timing of the denouement: though I wish Gardiner had not risked sentimentalizing the Andante of the Count's plea for forgiveness by taking it so very slowly. I also wished he would not taper, dynamically, the phrase-ends in the overture, which sounds to me weak-kneed and has no imaginable historical justification. He has his singers include a lot of appoggiaturas, but not with much consistency (though without the wanton promiscuity of the advice in the New Mozart Edition score): sometimes a phrase and its response are treated differently. There are a few little oddities in the Italian pronunciation. These are small, almost trivial points, worth raising only because there is so much here that demands criticism by the highest possible standards.
Gardiner adopts the Moberly/Raeburn order of events in Act 3, the first, as far as I can remember, to do so in a recording. This involves placing ''Dove sono'' before, instead of after, the sextet. He argues the case in the notes, but misses two basic points: we know, from the original printed libretto, that the work was first given in its traditional order; and Mozart could not, at the time of writing his score, have intended the revised order (as Alan Tyson has proved). His other arguments do carry some weight, however, and the revision makes sense, but it is not what Mozart intended and to my ears unbalances the Act by having the sextet too close to the finale. Secondly, in the last Act he places Susanna's aria before, instead of after, Figaro's. There are excellent reasons for thinking that this was Da Ponte's and Mozart's original intention, in particular (as Gardiner does not actually point out) because it motivates Figaro's outburst so much more powerfully if he has just heard Susanna apparently relishing the prospect of making love with the Count; but when (or if) this was intended, Mozart had a different key scheme, and probably two different arias, in mind, and surely different recitative texts. It is interesting to hear it this way, but with the music we have it is possible to manage it only by interrupting Figaro's accompanied recitative for Susanna's scene, which is an unsatisfactory procedure. An interesting and worthwhile experiment even if it does not quite work.
The only other period-instrument recording of Figaro is the Oestman one, from Drottningholm. The Figaro apart, the Oestman has a modest advantage as regards the cast (there is nothing to choose between the two Susannas: both outstanding). Tempos are marginally faster on the Oestman version, which also offers a valuable appendix of alternative numbers. It's a very difficult choice: Gardiner's is the more dramatic, Oestman's the livelier and the more Italianate and giving a remarkable sense of everyone enjoying themselves. That, and the audience's laughter and applause on the new set, incline me to Oestman, but I can imagine that many readers, especially those of a slightly more conservative taste, would prefer Gardiner. I should not like to be without either.'