I approached the Muti set with the highest expectations arising from the excellence of the cast and the general enthusiasm for Muti's conducting of the work evinced at Salzburg last summer. I have to admit that my hopes weren't quite fulfilled. The strength of the singing and the vivid drama achieved by the conducting cannot be denied, but I seldom felt, as with the Glyndebourne sets from Haitink and Busch, the reissued Furtwangler and the Giulini (all on EMI), the sense of an ensemble working in a unified way towards a well-defined end; rather a strong group of artists giving their own individual interpretations, under a conductor whose direction is idiosyncratic.
Muti very much emphasizes the drama at the expense of the giocoso elements. This is a very serious Giovanni indeed, suggested in the helter-skelter speeds for each and every fast section. Muti is rightly concerned to bring out the demonic element in the score but to do so to the extent of forcing his singers almost to gabble the text can't be right, can't be Mozartian. The pity of it is that in most other respects Muti seems to pace the work sensibly, encouraging singers and players to shapely phrasing. He seems to be employing a fairly large orchestra. I say ''seems'' because the recording, made in Vienna's notoriously quirky Musikvereinsaal, is excessively reverberant, so that the number of players may sound larger than it actually is. The acoustics also adversely affect the singers: there is at times almost an echo round the voices. Listen to the recitative before Giovanni's Serenade or before Ottavio's ''Il mio tesoro''. If it doesn't disturb you, you will tolerate the recording more easily than I could. It compares unfavourably in my ears with that on EMI's own Haitink set.
There is a happier comparison to make with that version. William Shimell's Giovanni is in the same mould as Thomas Allen's arresting interpretation (for Haitink). Indeed it is even more thrusting, as though the man were possessed by his obsession. By and large it is a rightly dominating performance, sung with alternately spirited attack and seductive, sensuous tone (listen to his farewell to Donna Anna that gives away his identity as her intended seducer). His handling of recitative is most telling, helped by the judiciously played fortepiano. He really uses the text and varies his tone as the mood of the moment requires. I have heard more sensuous accounts of the Serenade, but that apart this is one of the best Giovannis on disc. He's happily partnered by Ramey, himself more usually heard as Giovanni. Ramey may not be as acute as Shimell with his words, but he and his master establish a real rapport, quick to respond to each other's parries. As ever, Ramey's singing is well schooled and smooth.
Frank Lopardo's Ottavio is flowingly but a trifle anonymously sung. His technique is faultless, with the long run in ''Il mio tesoro'' sung in a single breath. Natale de Carolis's forthright Masetto and Jan-Hendrik Rootering's resolute Commendatore complete the very competitive male side of the cast.
Cheryl Studer presents a properly grieving, strongly emotional Anna. Vocally she sustains the demands of ''Or sai chi l'onore'' heroically with only the slightest sign of strain in the highest reaches. She phrases ''Non mi dir'' thoughtfully, and its cabaletta holds no worries for her. Carol Vaness, herself Anna on the Haitink set, is a very grand, impassioned Elvira, perhaps not sufficiently differentiated in tone and manner from Studer's Anna. Sometimes I wish she would sing with a little less voice, as the sound can become tiring on the ear; when she does do so, as in the recitative to ''Mi tradi'', the effect is telling (helped by the set's welcome use of appoggiaturas), but that aria itself suffers from one of Muti's impossibly fast speeds, which in consequence becomes unpleasantly aggressive in character, accents overemphasized.
As in Muti's video version of this work (Castle Vision VHS (Full price) CV12061, 5/90) Suzanne Mentzer, a mezzo Zerlina, is warm and affecting, delightfully responsive to the different demands of her two arias. What I miss in all these American divas is any special insights into the meaning of the text or an individual response to their roles.
The point is made for me by turning to the same roles as sung in the Furtwangler 1954 Salzburg performance. Grummer, Schwarzkopf and Berger may not have the vocal power of their counterparts, but each—and especially Grummer's Anna and Schwarzkopf's Elvira—expresses her role through a close and intimate response to phrasing and to the text; an inner humanity, not matched by their modern counterparts. And the tone of Grummer and Schwarzkopf doesn't have the slightly hard edge I hear in Studer's and Vaness's singing. The recording in the Felsenreitschule has a natural warmth that is balm to the ear after that on the new version.
Of course an even greater contrast comes when one compares the conductors. Furtwangler's slow tempos are at the opposite extreme from Muti's fast ones. But there is more to it than that. Furtwangler seems to extract from an earlier incarnation of the VPO a sweetness and warmth absent on the new version. If you want to hear many of these points exemplified try listening to the recitative before ''Non mi dir'' and to the aria itself, where Grummer is incidentally supreme, able to phrase with meaning at Furtwangler's pace. An old-fashioned, human soul here courses through the music as compared with something generalized and anonymous. When drive and fire are needed, as in the finale, Furtwangler provides it in abundance.
Mind you, for all Siepi's charm, I might not exchange his bass-orientated Giovanni for Shimel's altogether nimbler reading, nor is Edelmann as adept a Leporello as Ramey. Nor again has Dermota, for all the beauty of his singing, Lopardo's technical ease as Ottavio. For me these are small defects in a performance that—as I wrote five years ago when this version came out on LP—bespeaks loving preparation, true ensemble and the sense of a 'real', as against a manufactured, performance, in true sound, somewhat improved now on CD.
Of course there are other, less controversial choices, ironically enough both from EMI, both more gratefully recorded than the new version, both listed in the current Good CD Guide. Like the Furtwangler, these enjoy the advantage of a team spirit in them and singers able to bear comparison with those on the new set. Haitink and Giulini are more orthodox Mozartians than Muti, both aware of the drama while not needing to indulge in fancy speeds. The Giulini, ideally cast, produced and recorded, remains my outright choice, always a joy to meet again when making comparisons. And then there's the classic Busch version (at mid-price), which shows a supreme Mozart conductor in action with a splendid cast, but don't ignore the fact that strongly cast versions by Barenboim (Erato) and Marriner (Philips) will be out in the coming months.'