WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)

Così fan tutte

 

Janice Watson (soprano), Lesley Garrett (soprano), Diana Montague (mezzo-soprano), Toby Spence (tenor), Christopher Maltman (baritone), Sir Thomas Allen (baritone), Geoffrey Mitchell Choir

David Watkin (cello), John Cohen (cello), Ronald Schneider (fortepiano)

 

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Sir Charles Mackerras

 

Eminent cast – including Lesley Garrett and Sir Thomas Allen – with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Sir Charles Mackerras, 2008 Grammy award winner

 

Così fan tutte is Mozart’s third opera to a Da Ponte libretto. It is in opera buffa style and has only six characters, two couples and an elderly philosopher and a trusted maid. In this recording Lesley Garrett sings the part of the maid, Despina, and the celebrated veteran Sir Thomas Allen the philosopher, Don Alfonso. Despite the somewhat cynical storyline this opera contains some of Mozart’s most memorable and sublime music.

 

The conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras, has spent many years researching performance practice of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is a noted authority on Mozart’s operas. He writes of this recording, ‘it is indeed a pleasure having the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment lending its expertise in tonal colour, phrasing and rhythmic impulse to Mozart’s wonderful score… I have chosen to record this English version of Così fan tutte with the traditional cuts, thus making it closer to a staged performance’. The English translation, by the Rev. Browne, was first used in London at a performance conducted by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford in 1890.

 

Mackerras is a hugely talented conductor, now over 80 years old, with a wealth of experience to bring to this his twelfth recording on Chandos Opera in English. Indeed, his recording of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, which also appears on the Chandos Opera in English label, has just won the 2008 Grammy award for Best Opera. On his recording of The Magic Flute, The Sunday Times commented, ‘Mackerras is perhaps the world’s wisest and most enquiring Mozartian, and here he gets playing of magical transparency from the LPO… bringing a sense of wonder to the music now rarely experienced in the theatre’.

 

Sir Thomas Allen will be appearing as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich in July. Sir Charles Mackerras will conduct The Marriage of Figaro at Covent Garden during the summer, whilst Christopher Maltman will appear in Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival.

 

Chandos Opera in English CHAN31523