Salieri Archive

MOZART: Da Ponte Operas, Blu-Ray (2016)

by Audiophile Audition | Nov 14, 2016 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews

MOZART: Da Ponte Operas, Blu-Ray (2016)  The great writer/rogue/adventurer Da Ponte deserves far better than this middling set. (Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cosi fan tutte) Performers: Chorus & Orch. of the Zurich Opera House/ Juergen Flimm (Director), Soloists: Rodney Gilfrey, Cecilia Bartoli, Liliana Nikiteanu, Agnes Balta, et al. – Nikolaus Harnoncourt; Chorus Master: Ernst Raffeksberger/ Studio: Arthaus Musik [7/29/16] [Dist. by Naxos] Length: 598 minutes Video: for 16:9 screens, color Audio: DTS-HD 5.1, PCM Stereo Subtitles: English, German, French Ratings:    Audio: ***¼ Video: *** I had great hopes for this set. Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838) wrote the librettos for three of Mozart’s greatest operas and his lines sparkle, amuse, and sting, unlike any librettist before or since. You can read all about his colorful life in his Memoirs (New York Review of Books, 2000). Oddly, he doesn’t spend much time describing his work with Mozart; he treats their collaboration as if it were just another gig, like the hack work he did for Antonio Salieri. Arthaus Musik has collected the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s versions of these on three Blu-ray discs. The operas, recorded about twenty years ago at the Zurich Opera House – Le Nozze de Figaro […]