This, I'm afraid, is one Figaro too many. It adds little in the way of perception or insight to an already flooded market, and little in the line of outstanding individual performances to the Figaro archive. And this despite a well-matched team of soloists, much fine orchestral playing, and the delight of a fortepiano continuo. So what went wrong?
It is almost as if Muti had become overawed at finding himself with the Vienna Philharmonic in the city where the opera was first performed 200 years ago at the time of the recording. The kid-gloved approach to tempos, pacing and, particularly the dramatic role of the orchestra itself, drains the performance of vital inner energy. Muti simply fails this time to draw out of either his singers or the work itself all they have to offer. There is one exception, and that is the Countess of Margaret Price. She alone finds the essence of the character within the phrasing and harmonic movement which mould it: there is the warmth, but also the chill of isolation; for her, this has really been a ''giorno di tormenti, di capricci, e di follia''.
Muti scores moderately on the caprice and the folly but, by and large, misses the torment. One longs, on repeated hearings, to be able to persuade him that, if he moved a little closer to the score, it really wouldn't bite. His tender care and lucid but reticent stage management turn the performance into a series of tableaux, some more successful than others, rather than a vital, purposeful and often provocative dramatic whole. Too often, particularly in the important finales, the sforzandos of humour merely tickle the ribs, the crescendos of apprehension provide little sense of turmoil and mounting tension. Listen to his introduction to ''Giunse alfin il momento'': it is exquisitely, fragnantly played, but it is marked Allegro vivace assai, and there must be a scent of intrigue in the air as well.
Kattleen Battle sings her ''Deh vieni'' as sweetly as night-scented stock. She is a Susanna very much in the mould of Marriner's Barbara Hendricks (Philips): a relatively circumscribed vocal and expressive range, and very much the coquettish ragazza rather than the sophisticated and highly intelligent young woman of a Mathis (Bohm/DG) or a Freni (Davis/Philips). It depends, I suppose, on what you expect of your Susanna.... Her Figaro is Thomas Allen, more sober that I have ever heard him in this role, and less comfortable in the lower reaches of its register. If he did as much with the role as a whole as he does with his recitative ''Tutto e disposto'', Seville would be a better place.
Jorma Hynninen's Count is more disappointing: too dry, too impatient, too one-dimensional. He takes care with his phrasing, his voice is well-enough groomed; but there is far too little physicality and room for emotional manoeuvre in this Almaviva. Ann Murray's light, breathless, brilliantly volatile Cherubino lifts the recording: Margaret Price's Countess almost redeems it. If anything, the tones in the palette of female characters are just a little too close: Marcellina sounds very bit as young as Susanna, though Patrizia Pace's Barbarina, who packs a world of pathos into her Cavatina, is one of the most personable on disc.
If it is Compact Disc you are after, I would still unhesitatingly endorse AB's recommendation of the Marriner. Despite the very real attraction of Bob Kettleson's fortepiano playing, the recitative itself, the barometer of any Figaro, is unsurpassed in the hands of John Constable and coach Ubaldo Gardini (who, incidentally but significantly, also provide the input for Davis). Marriner's crisp, urgent reading finds a pacing which fuses musical sense and dramatic sensibility with a vigour approaching that of Giulini (also EMI). Bohm (DG) is unsurpassed for ensemble and orchestral authority; Solti's ensemble (Decca) is weaker, his reading too hard-driven.
If you're content, for a while, with LPs, both Davis and Giulini offer truly great performances. It's impossible not to heave a sigh of relief even in Davis's Overture: the work begins to breathe deeply again, and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soloists like Norman, Minton and Wixell, who cares about slightly inferior engineering and the odd touch of static? Giulini's refurbished 1961 set still sounds new-minted, thanks to his laser-like perception of the work's human and musical relationships, and Walter Legge's superb production.'