Schwarzkopf Archive

MOZART: Complete Operas = Le nozze di Figaro; Don Giovanni; Cosí fan tutte; Die Zauberflöte – Var. soloists & orch./Otto Klemperer – Warner Classics (11 CDs)

by John Sunier | Dec 30, 2013 | Classical Reissue Reviews

MOZART: Complete Operas = Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492; Don Giovanni, K. 527; Cosí fan tutte, K. 588; Die Zauberflöte K. 620 – Luigi Alva/ Gabriel Bacquier/ Teresa Berganza/ Walter Berry/ Geraint Evans/ Mirella Freni/ Nicolai Ghiaurov/ Gundula Janowitz/ Christa Ludwig/ Yvonne Minton/ Lucia Popp/ Margaret Price/ Elisabeth Schwarzkopf/ Kiri Te Kanawa/ Gerhard Unger/ Claire Watson & others/ John Alldis Choir/ New Philharmonia Chorus/ New Philharmonia Orch./ Philharmonia Chorus/ Philharmonia Orch./ Otto Klemperer – Warner Classics 5099940437859 (11 CDs box), TT: 3:08:36 [3/26/13] (Distr. by Naxos] ***(**): When these four major Mozart opera recordings from Otto Klemperer and EMI trod across the classical music industry landscape 50 years ago, they cemented the period as an over the top, latter day Golden Age of artists and research and rocked the audiophile world. Musically, the four recordings were strangely cast and the conducting became slower and slower. In terms of recording quality, the sound traced EMI’s increasingly heading for a problematic sojourn in the company’s desert of Quadraphonic Sound. The first, The Magic Flute in 1964, featured an impossible cast including the great diva Elizabeth Schwarzkopf as merely one of the Three Ladies of the Night. The Philharmonia Orchestra was in […]