page_title: Le nozze di Figaro (Herbert von Karajan April 1978 recording)
section_title: Reviews
hierarchical_section_title: Le nozze di Figaro (Herbert von Karajan April 1978 recording) / Critical reception / Reviews
caption_attribution_description: detail of the face of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Cropped version of the painting where Mozart is seen with Anna Maria (Mozart's sister) and father, Leopold, on the wall a portrait of his deceased mother, Anna Maria.
context_page_description: Le nozze di Figaro is a 169-minute studio album of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, performed by Christiane Barbaux, Jules Bastin, Jane Berbié, Ileana Cotrubas, José van Dam, Zoltan Kélémén, Tom Krause, Marjon Lambriks, Frederica von Stade, Anna Tomowa-Sintow and Heinz Zednik with the Chorus of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Herbert von Karajan. It was recorded in April 1978 and released in 1979.
context_section_description: The musicologist Stanley Sadie reviewed the album on LP in Gramophone in September 1979. It had a very strong roster of soloists, he thought, even if they did not mine quite as much meaning from Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto as they would have done if they had been Italian. Tom Krause was the more successful of the Almavivas, singing with "plenty of weight and virility", powerfully conveying the "rage, frustration and wounded social pride" that consumed the priapic Count after his failure to seduce his servant's fiancée. Sadie could not recall another artist who had expressed the Count's lust so potently. As his dignified wife, Anna Tomowa-Sintow sang with a voice that was "rich, glowing [and] spacious", but perhaps not as lissom or accurate as the bel canto ideal. José van Dam's Figaro was every bit as impressive as his master. Van Dam was meticulous in his attention to every nuance both of Figaro's music and of its dramatic context, attending to even the smallest minutiae with the utmost conscientiousness. Like Tomowa-Sintow, Ileana Cotrubas was somewhat outshone by her partner. Her singing was lovely in its limpidity and refinement, but she seemed downcast and numb rather than the lively personality that she generally was. The singers in the secondary roles fared better. Christiane Barbaux was a "pleasantly clear" Barbarina, Jules Bastin a "well articulated" Bartolo, Jane Berbié a "neat" if occasionally strained Marcellina, Heinz Zednik a "capable if not imaginative" Basilio and Frederica von Stade "a model of clear and straightforward singing" as Cherubino. The orchestra's contribution was laudable in some respects, disappointing in others. The Vienna Philharmonic's strings were "very rich, smooth and beautiful", but its woodwinds were too anodyne to satisfactorily express the commentary on the drama that Mozart had written for them. As for Herbert von Karajan's conducting of his "elusive, indeed indistinct" interpretation, there was little to be said in its favour. It was true that his recitativo secco was unusually imaginative in its abrupt variations of pacing and dynamics. But otherwise his influence was unhappy. He seemed to have inhibited his singers from performing their roles in the way that they would have preferred to, and he had chosen some highly unorthodox tempi for no discernible reason. His eccentric speeds might not "actually distress" listeners, but neither would they help anyone to understand the opera more deeply. The album's engineering too was less than ideal, providing a convincingly theatrical stereo soundstage but offering an anachronistic "sleek and rounded" audio with a reverberant acoustic and a balance that favoured strings over woodwinds and instruments over singers. In sum, despite all its good ingredients, the album was not one that could be recommended. It was "too bland, too concerned with a smoothly polished surface, too little alive to the quicksilver of Mozart's score".  
  J. B. Steane reviewed the album on LP in Gramophone in October 1979. He largely agreed with Sadie about the strength of Decca's cast. Ileana Cotrubas was "delightful" as Susanna. Tom Krause and José van Dam both sang with a "fine tone" that some of their competitors lacked. Frederica von Stade was "excellent throughout", and notably sang a "Non so più" very different from the exuberant performance on her bel canto recital disc, with "the voice caressing and yearning to an accompaniment of gentle murmurs and subdued ardours and excitements". Anna Tomowa-Sintow alone was something of a disappointment, sometimes lapsing into "tremulous" singing that was unexpected from an artist with such a high reputation. Where Steane differed from Sadie was in his assessment of Karajan's contribution to the album. He was impressed by Karajan's "special touch", and in particular by the considered way in which the conductor had distinguished between unguarded conversation and conspiratorial asides in Mozart's recitativo secco. The recording was, he argued, a performance rich in light and shade and one with "a great deal to say". It wa
caption: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, circa 1780
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