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Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro, Symphonies 38 & 39 | EMI - Great Recordings of the Century 2126812

Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro, Symphonies 38 & 39

New Item

Label: EMI - Great Recordings of the Century

Cat No: 2126812

Barcode: 5099921268120

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 3

Release Date: 8th September 2008

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Artists

Sesto Bruscantini
Graziella Sciutti
Ian Wallace
Monica Sinclair
Rise Stevens
Franco Calbrese
Hughes Cuenod
Sena Jurinac
Gwyn Griffiths
Jeanette Sinclair
Daniel McCoshan
Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra and Chorus

Conductor

Vittorio Gui

Works

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K492
Symphony no.38 in D major, K504 'Prague'
Symphony no.39 in E flat major, K543

Artists

Sesto Bruscantini
Graziella Sciutti
Ian Wallace
Monica Sinclair
Rise Stevens
Franco Calbrese
Hughes Cuenod
Sena Jurinac
Gwyn Griffiths
Jeanette Sinclair
Daniel McCoshan
Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra and Chorus

Conductor

Vittorio Gui

About

In his detailed and elegant note, Richard Osborne relates how this recording of Figaro was made in July 1955 for release during the 1956 Mozart bicentenary. Based on a 1950 stage production by the artistic director, Carl Ebert, it was the first Glyndebourne recording to be made in stereo. The producer was Lawrance Collingwood, a Gramophone Company veteran from the Gaisberg era. Collingwood was already a master of aural perspective even when working in mono; for this set he enlisted Ebert’s help in deciding how best to ‘stage’ the production for the gramophone. In the end, even the original sound effects were used.

The conductor Vittorio Gui (1885–1975) was a much loved figure in post-war Glyndebourne. A composer in his youth and a pioneering Rossini scholar, Gui was a leading member of a celebrated generation of Italian opera conductors who knew down to the last demi-semi-quaver the scores they conducted and the capabilities of the singers they engaged. Gui brought with him some outstanding Italian artists, notably the stylish and affable Figaro of Sesto Bruscantini, who was married at the time to the lovely Sena Jurinac, another Glyndebourne regular who here plays the Countess for the first time, nobly and sympathetically.

The opera is virtually complete, with just a little recitative and Marcellina’s Act IV aria cut. (It was HMV’s original intention to cut Basilio’s Act IV aria until it was discovered that the Basilio was the incomparable Swiss tenor and character actor Hugues Cuénod. A Glyndebourne institution, Cuénod would still be appearing there in 1987 aged 85.)

The necessity of three discs to accommodate this recording complete for the first time on CD afforded not only the opportunity to present each act unbroken, but also space to include the considerable bonus of the two Mozart symphonies that Gui recorded in 1953 with the same orchestra.

All tracks are newly transferred and remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios.

Cast:
- Figaro (Count Almaviva’s valet): Sesto Bruscantini
- Susanna: Graziella Sciutti (Countess Almaviva’s maid, betrothed to Figaro)
- Bartolo (a doctor from Seville): Ian Wallace
- Marcellina (Bartolo’s housekeeper): Monica Sinclair
- Cherubino (the Count’s page): Rise Stevens
- Count Almaviva: Franco Calbrese
- Don Basilio (a music master): Hughes Cuenod
- Countess Almaviva: Sena Jurinac
- Antonio (a gardener): Gwyn Griffiths
- Barbarina (Antonio’s daughter): Jeanette Sinclair
- Don Curzio (a magistrate): Daniel McCoshan

Chorus master: Peter Gellhorn

Symphonies Nos.38 ‘Prague’ & 39
Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra / Vittorio Gui

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