This Cosi is the second of the trio of da Ponte operas whose recording was initiated in 1984 to celebrate Glyndebourne's fiftieth anniversary. The tang of celebration, it has to be said, has left the air: this is an authoritative recording, conscientiously packaged with two excellent essays by William Mann and David Cairns, and conscientiously performed. It is not, generally speaking, the place to look for the excitement of revelation.
The most obvious comparison is with Sir Colin Davis's Covent Garden recording of 1975 on Philips. Both take the text more or less complete. Karajan's EMI performance comes from an age embarrassed by recitative, and savage with the shears: cuts are crudely and audibly made (the context of ''Soave sia il mare'' is painful to experience). Bohm (for EMI in 1963 and DG in 1975) cuts less, though he, too, excludes the Ferrando and Guglielmo Duettino (No. 7) with its subsequent recitative, so vital to the dramatic and harmonic separation of Quintet and March.
Both Davis and Haintik include this piece and, with only tiny and insignificant exceptions, all the recitative. And the recitative is suddenly reborn: in Davis's case emphasizing character and twinkling with mischief in the harpsichord playing of John Constable; in Haitink's case, rising phoenix-like from years of comparative disregard.
Martin Isepp, who has prepared the performance, provides recitative of stinging detail and unceasingly resourceful continuo playing. It may even be too intrusive for some tastes—listen to how he traces the relationship between Despina and Don Alfonso, and how he controls from the keyboard the pulse of nervousness and unease as the four are left alone in Act 2 scene 5. But the detail never gets in the way of its propulsive function; and the value given to precision of entries and exits from ensemble, and the use of silence itself is inestimable.
It is, indeed, the recitatives—and the affecting, delicately rococo ornaments at cadence points—which provide the life-blood of this Cosi. Otherwise, the performance is inclined to relax in the Neapolitan and Sussex sun. There are many magical touches: the suspense of true sotto voce in the first Quintet, the loving care lavished on the orchestral playing in the giardinetto gentile of the Act 1 finale, the quality of the timpani playing, the pungent woodwind introduction to Dorabella's ''E amore un ladroncello''.
But, among performances which thrive on the opera's ambiguities and ceaseless shifts of mood and attitude (and both Davis and Haitink do), Haitink's is a comparatively safe, moderate approach. His pacing is faultless from the point of view of continuity and proportion. But he never quite leaps to seize the dramatic moment and momentum as Davis does. Compare even the opening Terzetto: Haitink's is cautiously introductory; Davis makes us aware something is afoot. Davis draws from his singers and players a sense of tightrope walking, a feeling of mischief which holds menace in the palm of its hand. Haitink is a little slower to take vocal cues from the orchestral writing (here Davis is unsurpassed), and more reluctant to sweep aside the bloom of a summery Andante with the drama of the unexpected. In Act 2 scene 8, for example, the talk of vengeance surely needs to be followed by a real outburst; and this Guglielmo in his ''Donne mie'' is simply not given the chance.
The precarious balance of balm and asperity, teasing and tragedy, ingenuousness and deception which controls Cosi is still cherished by Haitink, even if his articulation of it is seldom so compelling as Sir Colin's. Neither Karajan nor Bohm look for this. Karajan's is the Cosi of the voice: a nicely balanced concert performance of great charm and seduction, taking its cue from the aura amoroso of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's Fiordiligi and the toy-theatre Despina of Lisa Otto. Bohm, in both 1963 and 1975, opts for consistent irony and self-conscious awareness in stately tempos, heavily stage-managed in phrasing and accenting. i find the later live Salzburg recording just too self-aware, with Fassbaender and Panerai, in particular, often way over the top. If Bohm is your man, the lovingly prepared 1963 Walter Legge studio recording is more poised both in ensemble and in orchestral playing. The male trios, with Kraus making one of his lamentably rare forays into Mozart, are full of delightful apercus; and those who enjoy Schwarzkopf's Fiordiligi and Ludwig's Dorabella will not be disappointed.
Only in Davis, perhaps, is the joy of bold, idiosyncratic singing, and sharp, subtle musical and dramatic perception satisfactorily balanced. Compared with Schwarzkopf and Merriman (Karajan) or Ludwig (Bohm/EMI), Janowitz and Fassbaender (Bohm/DG), Caballe and Baker (Davis), Haitink' Fiordiligi and Dorabelle are insufficiently contrasted. Carol Vaness, an undoubted asset to the Glyndebourne stage in recent years, has all the weight and brilliance for Fiordiligi's writing, and a true indigo chest voice which glories in ''Per pieta''. But we fell too little of the woman's inner conflicts. Delores Ziegler's Dorabella reveals rather more in her own right. She may not be so distinctive a tragic heroine as Dame Janet Baker, but there are compelling changes of mood in her ''Smanie implacabile'' and, helped by Isepp's sensitive ideas on phrasing, her duet ''Il core vidono'' is delicious.
I find John Aler's a charmless, if dapper, Ferrando. There is too little fragrance in his ''Un aura amoroso'', and too little support in the lower reaches of his voice to colour either melody or character. Dale Duesing as Guglielmo is on equally competent musical form, but he, too, resists disguise, and is seldom more than pedestrian in his responses. Claudio Desderi has been called on again for his understated, laconic Don Alfonso: a grey-haired cynic with little trace of a smile, and somewhat less engaging as master-of-ceremonies than Richard Van Allan (Davis). Lillian Watson is true gain as Despina: this is a full-voiced, full-hearted portrayal, with both an attractive malleability in her phrasing, and warmth enough within the cynicism of her ''In uomini, in soldati''.
So far, I've made no comparative mention of Ostman's Drottningholm Cosi on L'Oisea-Lyre. As I wrote in April, this performance stands on its own. There are reservations to be made, certainly; there are, to be sure, lacunae in this reading, which often seems to take as its starting point the orchestra of 'authentic' instruments rather than the voices. But the effect this has on the tempos is most telling: who else, after all, plays 3/8 as 3/8, not 3/4, and takes proper note of the line through the C of common time? And the consequent effect on Ostman's understanding of the rhythmic and harmonic breathing of the vocal line itself is revelatory. In this vitally important aspect alone, even Glyndebourne has a long way to go.'