Mozart Don Giovanni
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Genre:
Opera
Label: Eurodisc
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 302 435
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Don Giovanni |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Alan Titus, Don Giovanni, Baritone Arleen Augér, Donna Elvira, Soprano Bavarian Radio Chorus Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Edith Mathis, Zerlina, Soprano Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Commendatore, Bass Julia Varady, Donna Anna, Soprano Rafael Kubelík, Conductor Rainer Scholze, Masetto, Bass Rolando Panerai, Leporello, Bass Thomas Moser, Don Ottavio, Tenor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Author: Alan Blyth
In a field that is already so well tilled, a newcomer must offer something special if it is to make its mark. I am sorry to say that this new version fails to do that, and is bettered in practically every respect by the recent Gramophone Award-winning Haitink from HMV. In all my comparisons I found Kubelik's conducting lacking in the fibre and rhythmic impulse found on the Haitink. Too often the music goes flaccid under Kubelik's careful, too easy-going direction, nowhere more so than in the recitatives, dully accompanied, which miss the sense of cut and thrust found on the HMV set, and indeed on the older version from the same source, directed by Giulini. To compound these deficiencies, the recording has the orchestra so recessed that instrumental detail is hard to discern.
The singers are something of a mixed bag. Alan Titus has energy as Giovanni, but his tone is inclined to be nasal in legato passages and he doesn't have the daemonic touch, particularly in recitatives, evinced by Allen (Haitink), nor quite the personal magnetisim of Raimondi (Maazel/CBS) or Waechter (Giulini), though Titus is vocally better mannered than either. He has a nice rapport with Panerai's colourful Leporello, and the Italin baritone, showing few signs of his age, relishes the text more idiomatically than any Leporello since Taddei (Giulini). But Van Allan (Haitink) is hardly outclassed—and his relationship with Giovanni is even more vivid.
Of the donne, Julia Varady has plenty of panache. Though not so dominating as Vaness for Haitink, she is more flexible and smooth in her arias, concluding with as sensuously a shaped ''Non mir dir'' as on any recording. Auger seems to me a too-simpering Elvira. As always, she sings with musical correctness, but tonal character isn't her forte, and ''Mi tradi'' is strangely hesitant. Mathis is now a slightly staid Zerlina, although she projects both her arias strongly, and she is vocally more confident than any Zerlina since Freni (Davis/Philips).
Thomas Moser hasn't the fluency or line of Keith Lewis (Haitink), and the microphone often catches the grit in his tone. Rootering, whom I have often admired at the Munich Opera, is a powerful, implacable Commendatore (the supper scene goes well), Scholze a lively but not specially individual Masetto.
The Bavarian Radio orchestra seem a trifle below their accustomed excellence in matters of articulation and ensemble is not helped by the murky recording. Always an admirer of Kubelik, I had hoped to like this set much more than I did, but recommendation must still lie between Haitink, Davis and Giulini, their various mertis often rehearsed in these pages.'
The singers are something of a mixed bag. Alan Titus has energy as Giovanni, but his tone is inclined to be nasal in legato passages and he doesn't have the daemonic touch, particularly in recitatives, evinced by Allen (Haitink), nor quite the personal magnetisim of Raimondi (Maazel/CBS) or Waechter (Giulini), though Titus is vocally better mannered than either. He has a nice rapport with Panerai's colourful Leporello, and the Italin baritone, showing few signs of his age, relishes the text more idiomatically than any Leporello since Taddei (Giulini). But Van Allan (Haitink) is hardly outclassed—and his relationship with Giovanni is even more vivid.
Of the donne, Julia Varady has plenty of panache. Though not so dominating as Vaness for Haitink, she is more flexible and smooth in her arias, concluding with as sensuously a shaped ''Non mir dir'' as on any recording. Auger seems to me a too-simpering Elvira. As always, she sings with musical correctness, but tonal character isn't her forte, and ''Mi tradi'' is strangely hesitant. Mathis is now a slightly staid Zerlina, although she projects both her arias strongly, and she is vocally more confident than any Zerlina since Freni (Davis/Philips).
Thomas Moser hasn't the fluency or line of Keith Lewis (Haitink), and the microphone often catches the grit in his tone. Rootering, whom I have often admired at the Munich Opera, is a powerful, implacable Commendatore (the supper scene goes well), Scholze a lively but not specially individual Masetto.
The Bavarian Radio orchestra seem a trifle below their accustomed excellence in matters of articulation and ensemble is not helped by the murky recording. Always an admirer of Kubelik, I had hoped to like this set much more than I did, but recommendation must still lie between Haitink, Davis and Giulini, their various mertis often rehearsed in these pages.'
Mozart Don Giovanni
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