BaL 2.04.22 - Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro

[HighlandDougie]

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten that it was in that box, which I have. I tend to have more time for the Ostman and JEG recodings.

Oh dear, I am losing track. I also have it in the Jacobs Da Ponte Trilogy box which I snapped up for £13.70 in November 2018 but had not got round to listening to. Now spinning Act I and rather enjoying it. Can anyone offer information about the Stolberger Saal in Cologne, its recording venue? The Internet appears to be scant on details regarding the hall.

It's the rehearsal/orchestral space for the Cologne Opera - No 3 Stohlberger Strasse. See:

https://www.oper.koeln/media/content/Sonstiges/Orchesterprobenzentrum_quer_NEU.pdf

I didn't listen this morning but am now so intrigued by what has got Barbs so agitated that I feel that I ought to give the programme a spin, as it were.

[MickyD]

I always enjoy hearing Nick Kenyon, but with such a gorgeous work at the MOF, how lovely it would have been to wallow in about two hours of comparisons. It was like having a delicious dinner whipped away from in front of you before having finished it.

[Bryn]

It's the rehearsal/orchestral space for the Cologne Opera - No 3 Stohlberger Strasse. See:

https://www.oper.koeln/media/content/Sonstiges/Orchesterprobenzentrum_quer_NEU.pdf

I didn't listen this morning but am now so intrigued by what has got Barbs so agitated that I feel that I ought to give the programme a spin, as it were.

Thanks, so not exactly church-like acoustic properties, it would appear.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks, so not exactly church-like acoustic properties, it would appear.

Depends a bit where you place the microphones . There’s a distant sound to the band I’m not keen on. But it’s the leaden conducting that gives it the Oratorio feel others have remarked on . Despite Nick’s laudable desire to hear the woodwinds to me they are sometimes buried in the string texture which , to my ears is just too bass heavy. That studio isn’t cheap to hire is it?

[ardcarp]

with such a gorgeous work at the MOF, how lovely it would have been to wallow in about two hours of comparisons. It was like having a delicious dinner whipped away from in front of you before having finished it.

Superbly expressed if I may say so.

[french frank]

Von Stade - now that’s a Mozart singer ….

She's Cherubino on the Solti/LPO recording with an amazing cast: Thomas Allen, Kiri te Kanawa, Lucia Popp, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Kurt Moll, Robert Tear, Philip Langridge. I've never managed to wean myself off the never-in-contention Abbado/VPO version which was the first recording I heard (borrowed from the local library and subsequently bought).

[MickyD]

Superbly expressed if I may say so.

Thank you...it was just how I felt at the end of the programme!

[Barbirollians]

Thank you...it was just how I felt at the end of the programme!

I feel that about the work but not about this dire BAL.

[Barbirollians]

Having obtained a second hand copy of the Ostman it is five stars for the cast and the playing - not quite so much for the conducting in places it seems rather dutiful and four square.

[Barbirollians]

Having obtained a second hand copy of the Ostman it is five stars for the cast and the playing - not quite so much for the conducting in places it seems rather dutiful and four square.

I have tried really hard with this Ostman version but it is just so flatly conducted . The 3CDs seem to last as long as Meistersingers !

[smittims]

Herbert for me, his second (mid-70s Decca) version seems to hit the happy medium between Furtwangler and Klemperer.