 |
 |
 |
 |
![Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]](http://www.jungleshop.com/prod_images/B000YCLRBA.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg "Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]") |
| Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro / Gens · Ciofi · Kirchschlager · Regazzo · Keenlyside · McLaughlin · van Rensburg · Abete · Rial · Concerto Köln · René Jacobs |
Mozart: Così fan tutte |
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century |
Mozart - La clemenza di Tito / Padmore, Pendatchanska, Fink, Chappuis, Im, Foresti, RIAS, Freiburg, Jacobs |
Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007] |
1. Ouvertura
2. Act 1. Scene 1. No. 1. Introduzione. Notte e giorno faticar
3. Act 1. Scene 2. Recitativo. Leporello, ove sei?
4. Act 1. Scene 3. Recitativo. Ah del padre in periglio / No. 2. Recitativo accompagnato. Ma qual mai
5. Act 1. Scene 3. Duetto. Fuggi, crudele, fuggi!
6. Act 1. Scene 4. Recitativo. Orsù, spicciati presto
7. Act 1. Scene 5. No. 3. Aria. Ah chi mi dice mai
8. Act 1. Scene 5. Recitativo. Chi è là?
9. Act 1. Scene 5. No. 4. Aria. Madamina, il catalogo è questo
10. Act 1. Scene 6. Recitativo. In questa forma dunque
11. Act 1. Scene 7. No. 5. Coro. Giovinette che fate all'amore
12. Act 1. Scene 8. Recitativo. Manco male è partita
13. Act 1. Scene 8. No. 6. Aria. Ho capito, signor sì
14. Act 1. Scene 9. Recitativo. Alfin siam liberati
15. Act 1. Scene 9. No. 7. Duettino. Là ci darem la mano
16. Act 1. Scene 10. Recitativo. Fermati scellerato
17. Act 1. Scene 10. No. 8. Aria. Ah fuggi il traditor
18. Act 1. Scene 11. Recitativo. Mi par ch'oggi il demonio si diverta
19. Act 1. Scene 12. Recitativo. Ah ti ritrovo ancor / No. 9. Quartetto. Non ti fidar, o misera
20. Act 1. Scene 12. Recitativo. Povera sventurata!
21. Act 1. Scene 13. No. 10. Recitativo accompagnato. Don Ottavio, son morta!
22. Act 1. Scene 13. Aria. Or sai chi l'onore
23. Act 1. Scene 14. Recitativo. Come mai creder deggio
24. Act 1. Scene 14. No. 10a. Aria. Dalla sua pace
25. Act 1. Scene 15. Recitativo. Io deggio ad ogni patto
26. Act 1. Scene 15. No. 11. Aria. Fin ch'han dal vino
27. Act 1. Scene 16. Recitativo. Masetto: senti un po'
28. Act 1. Scene 16. No. 12. Aria. Batti, batti, o bel Masetto
29. Act 1. Scene 16. Recitativo. Guarda un po' come seppe
30. Act 1. Finale. Scene 17. No. 13. Presto presto pria ch'ei venga / Scene 12. Su svegliatevi, da brav
31. Act 1. Finale. Scene 18. Tra quest'arbori celata
32. Act 1. Finale. Scene 19. Bisogna aver coraggio
33. Act 1. Finale. Scene 20. Riposate, vezzose ragazze
34. Act 2. Scene 1. No. 14. Duetto. Eh via buffone
35. Act 2. Scene 1. Recitativo. Leporello. / Signore.
36. Act 2. Scene 2. No. 15. Terzetto. Ah taci, ingiusto core
37. Act 2. Scene 2. Recitativo. Amico, che ti par? / Sceme 3. Recitativo. Eccomi a voi!
38. Act 2. Scene 3. No. 16. Canzonetta. Deh vieni alla finestra
39. Act 2. Scene 4. No. 17. Aria. Metà di voi qua vadano
40. Act 2. Scene 5. Recitativo. Zitto! Lascia ch'io senta / Scene 6. Recitativo. Ahi ahi! La testa mia!
41. Act 2. Scene 6. No. 18. Aria. Vedrai, carino
42. Act 2. Scene 7. Recitativo. Di molte faci il lume
43. Act 2. Scene 7. No. 19. Sestetto. Sola sola in buio loco / Scene 8. Ferma, briccone
44. Act 2. Scene 9. Recitativo. Dunque quello sei tu / Recitativo. Ah pietà... / Scene 10. Recitativo.
45. Act 2. Scene 10a. Recitativo. Restati qua!
46. Act 2. Scene 10a. No. 21a. Duetto. Per queste tue manine
47. Act 2. Scene 10b. Recitativo. (Amico...) / Guarda un po'come stretto
48. Act 2. Scene 10c. Recitativo. Andiam, andiam, signora
49. Act 2. Scene 10d. No. 21b. Recitativo accompagnato. In quali eccessi, o Numi
50. Act 2. Scene 10d. Aria. Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata
51. Act 2. Scene 11. Recitativo. Ah ah ah ah, questa è buona
52. Act 2. Scene 11. No. 22. Duetto. O statua gentilissima
53. Act 2. Scene 12. Recitativo. Calmatevi, idol mio
54. Act 2. Scene 12. No. 23. Recitativo accompagnato. Crudele! Ah no, mio bene!
55. Act 2. Scene 12. Rondo. Non mi dir, bell'idol mio
56. Appendix (Version Prague). Recitativo. Dunque quello sei tu
57. Appendix (Version Prague). No. 20. Aria. Ah pietà, signori miei
58. Appendix (Version Prague). Recitativo. Ferma, perfido, ferma
59. Appendix (Version Prague). No. 21. Aria. Il mio tesoro intanto
Click on Product Listings for Details!
- Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro / Gens · Ciofi · Kirchschlager · Regazzo · Keenlyside · McLaughlin · van Rensburg · Abete · Rial · Concerto Köln · René Jacobs
- Mozart: Così fan tutte
- The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
- Mozart - La clemenza di Tito / Padmore, Pendatchanska, Fink, Chappuis, Im, Foresti, RIAS, Freiburg, Jacobs
- Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]
Don Giovanni
- Audio CD: 0 pages (2007-10-09)
- Publisher: Harmonia Mundi (France)
- Label: Harmonia Mundi (France)
- Format: Import, Box set
- Studio: Harmonia Mundi (France)
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 12 reviews
- Sales Rank in Music: #48361
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great performances in all areas 2008-08-30
Comment: This is a fantastic Don Giovanni. I won't go into all the details of each area except one. This recording has the best, most creative accompanying of recitativi secchi I have ever heard. It is not just simple playing of the chords and harmonies to support the recitatives but fully interactive and quite engaging. I have listened to and studied many recordings of late 18th century opera; not only the standard rep of Mozart, but of many lesser-known composers as well. Again this is the best example of creative recitative accompanying I have ever heard. The rest of the musical performances are equally impressive. So whether this is your first Don Giovanni, or your 13th, this is a recording worth owning.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don Giovanni 2008-08-24
Comment: Don Giovanni is grand recording under the direction of René Jacobs. Johannes Weisser does a very good job in the role of Don Giovanni, and there are many fine performers besides this, e.g., Kenneth Tarver in the role of Don Ottavio. Harmonia Mundi has verily gone out of their way to create an outstanding product. The sound quality if crisp and it is like hearing it live in person. The book-let is massive (300 pages) and contains many beautifull photographs of the performers. They have also picked 2 very beautifull paintings and included this in the book-let. Andreas Frisenhagen (translated by Charles Johnston) has written a very well-written essay entitled "Recognised as the greatest masterpiece of his genius". René Jacobs (translated by Charles Johnston) also has written a very well-written and thought worthy essay called "Burning Questions". The lyrics are in four different languages, French, Italian, English and German. It also contains well-written short biographies of each performers, the orchestra and the conductor. Very well done Harmonia Mundi. 5/5!
3 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: NOT MOZART'S DON GIOVANNI, RENE JACOBS' 2008-04-30
Comment: What is wrong with everyone ??? How is this a great Don Giovanni ??? It comes nowhere near what Mozart originally conceived as an opera! It's restyled as a Baroque opera and really more of a "beautiful mistake". This is the latest recording of Don Giovanni, my favorite opera so I thought I'd listen to it. A friend of mine let me borrow this and I heard it one weekend. Let me tell you. Forget the "glowing" reviews on here. This is Rene Jacob's Don Giovanni, his version, his style, but not Mozart's. There are better recordings out there and with TRUE Mozart style and Mozart singers. This SHOULD NOT be your first Don Giovanni. It's more of an interesting uniqe experiment for acquired opera tastes and veteran opera lovers. I've heard Don Giovanni live in performances many times and on recordings and this is not the way Don Giovanni should be done. Don Giovanni is a Classical-Era opera, and Mozart's brilliant musical genius was already established by the time Don Giovanni hit stages in Austria. The music, is therefore, very important. It is a classical work, full of Mozart's inspired melodies and the singing must reflect the "Mozart" singing voice, a combination of purity of tone/sound and beautiful singing but also dramatic abilities. It is true that Mozart employed the use of the harpsichord for the recitatives scenes, a staple of opera since Baroque times, but the entire orchestra heard here under Jacobs' baton is strictly a Baroque orchestra, with a sound that sounds more like Handel or Vivaldi chamber orchestras. The pacing is also way off. At times the music drags too slowly and other times it speeds up (such as the entire scene "Non Ti Fidar o Misera") and there is no sense of consistency throughout. The male singers are very dull and uninspired. The baritone in the role of the Don is not acting the part and just of the stand-there-and-sing types. He is trying to show off as much ornate baritone singing as possible, despite the fact that the Don has only two arias and his real strenghts lie in the ensemble scenes and recitatives. The Don here is a Baroque voice, again, not a real Mozart voice. The same goes for everyone else, including the baritone-buffo in the part of Leporello, the baritone in the part of Maseetto and the tenor singing Ottavio. The tenor, here, especially is trying to sing as ornately as a Handel opera hero and that's not right for Ottavio. Only the bass in the part of the thunderous Commandatore does a really good performance. The entire Commandatore Dinner Scene is very well done. The women in this cast truly disappoint, with the exception of Alexandrina Pendatchanska as Donna Elvira. Truly, hers is the best Elvira but that's no reason to get this album unless you are absolutely nuts about Elvira. Her performance is right on the money as far as the way Elvira should be sung - full of that dramatic feisty attitude, that anger and also that sense of pathos and beauty. She considers herself still married to Don Giovanni, despite the fact he abandoned her. She wants to get him back but she wants him to quit his wild ways. She is both angry for loving him and still in love with him, in fact the only one of the three women visibly in love with him and showing it. Russian soprano Olga Pasichnyk is a "softer" Donna Ana with a purely lyric voice, not the dramatic voice originally called for. The Mozart style does call for beautiful singing but Donna Ana is a dramatic heroine, demanding blood and justice/vengeance for the death of her father, and she must be screaming for it. She is cold and majestic, and it's actually the most difficult role for a soprano Mozart ever wrote. Only a very few number of sopranos have ever truly mastered the role and in the past I have enjoyed sopranos like Leontyne Price, Sena Jurinac, Edda Moser and Anna Tomowa Sintow in the role. Pasichnyk has fine moments and does nice things with the singing but it's not the way Anna ought to be sung. The soprano in the part of Zerlina is only serviceable and does nothing with the part. Again, don't make this your first Don Giovanni. It's all wrong, with an entirely different take on it and musically too Baroque and too "opera seria" than Mozart's mid-career masterpiece. This is really not all that good. Here are some recordings you ought to turn to instead:
Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic (2 recordings)1963, Salburg Festival live recording with Eberhard Wachter, Leontyne Price, Hilde Gueden, Elisabeth Schwarkopf and Cesare Valletti ...AND 1986, Vienna Philharmonic with Samuel Ramey, Anna Tomowa Sintow, Agnes Baltsa, Kathleen Battle and Ferrucio Furlanetto....both recording are wonderful, but the early 1963 Salzburg Festival performance is hard to find and in need of remastering. The second recording from the 1980's is masterfully done in every way with Ramey as a very sexy Don Giovanni and oozing wickedness and Anna Tomowa Sintow as a supremely dramatic Anna.
Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic, Thomas Allen, Carol Vaness, Maria Ewing, Richard Van Allen...this one is also very admired by critics and opera fans. It has wonderful moments of great musicality with the London forces bringing out rich textures and exquisite drama, Thomas Allen singing the heck out of the Don, Vaness and Ewing doing fine Anna and Elvira.
Ferenc Fricsay, Conductor, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Sena Jurinac, Maria Stader....A really dramatically alert and lively Don Giovanni, with intense pacing and dramatic qualities. Dieskau is a marvelous Don, Jurinac a very fine Anna and Stader the best Elvira on record. This is a very Germanic Don but it's one of the better ones on record, and the orchestra and singers are magical.
Karl Bohm conductor, Vienna Philharmonic, Sherill Milnes, Anna Tomowa Sintow, Walter Berry, Teresa Zylis Gara, Peter Schreier, Edith Mathis, John Macurdy...A live performance from 1977 Salburg Festival with American baritone Milnes as the Don. This is a really great Don Giovanni, with great theatricality. All the singers really do an outstanding job and sing with dramatic flair. And the Vienna Phil is always a first class orchestra.
Lorin Maazel, conductor, Ruggero Raimondi, Edda Moser, Kiri Te Kenawa Jose Van Dam, John Macurdy, Teresa Berganza, Malcolm King...A soundtrack to the 1978 Joseph Losey film (first came the LP/recording, then the film) this is a very dark and fatalistic Don Giovanni with the right touch of strangeness, dramatic power and beautiful and I mean beautiful singing. Kiri Te Kenawa makes a beautiful Elvira with a touch of sadness in the voice, Edda Moser's Donna Ana by contrast is so majestic and dramatic that she sets the bar very high for any dramatic soprano taking on Anna. No one can sing Donna Anna like Edda Moser did. Ruggero Raimondi is a dark and mysterious Don Giovanni, with a very good lyric voice.
Ok, I warn you, don't get this awful Don Giovanni. It has beauty, no doubt, but of the Baroque kind, not the Mozart kind. This is not nor ever will be the best Don Giovanni. Rene Jacobs did his own thing here and ignored the fact Mozart never wanted it to sound remotely like this. It's only a conductor's Don Giovanni.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Love it and hate it 2008-03-13
Comment: Conductor René Jacobs is trying to restore some of the comic elements of this "dramma giocoso." His objective is a sleaker, nimbler Don Giovanni. I applaud his effort but not its execution. The classical structure of Mozart's score allows the action to unfold within the pace of the music. Too often Jacobs brings all the horses to a full halt, only to immediately set them off at full gallop again. Kenneth Tarver is a superior Ottavio; one wishes a less active baton had allowed the man to just sing.
The trend over the past few decades has been increasingly to ornament the vocal line, much as singers of Mozart's day would have done. The forces here sing as if conscious of other recent recordings and make an effort to come up with innovative ornamentation. The results are often klunky. Johannes Wiesser's turn with Giovanni's "Deh vieni" is atrocious, with some of the most awkward melismas ever conceived.
There is a sound gag (hoo, hoo) in the finale when the Stone Guest's arrival is heralded by a timid "tap, tap, tap" at the door. Again "tap, tap" before the pounding begins. This might play on stage, but it was baffling on first listening, tedious on second, and I dread suffering through it again. Give me a splintering crash to make me jump out of my chair. There is much in this set that is a refreshing take on an often bloated classic, but Jacobs's reading is too idiosyncratic for me to want to make this my go-to recording.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mozart... not as we are used to it... better!!! 2008-01-02
Comment: Over recent years there have been several releases of Don Giovanni on CD... Keenlyside with Abbado, Gilfry with Gardiner, Terfel with Solti, the list goes on... but none compared with the greatest of all... the classic Guilini set with Sutherland, Schwarzkopf and Wachter. This recording had life, drama and amazing voices all around. Very few people thought a rival would come along... well it has... and as a rival in some ways it out does it's competition.
I am a collector of Don Giovanni recordings with over 50 in my collection. After one hearing, I knew this was my new favourite, now after at least 10 hearings I am convinced this is a masterpiece recording.
The conductor, Rene Jacobs, takes a fresh look at a well known opera. the tempos are different, the recitatives accompanied in a way that I have never heard and every little change seems to bring life to this great opera. The singers are outstanding. The greatest performances come from the two lead men, Lorenzo Ragazzo as Leporello is incredible, a true virtuoso singer, and an incredible singer actor. His voice is dark but always full of life with a full palate of colours at his disposal. Johannes Weisser, the 26 year old Norwegian baritone, as Don Giovanni is perfect for the role. His voice is yet to develop fully, and although there are times were he doesn't sound entirely suited to the part, his youthful energy, and his vocal acting, really bring something interesting to the character. His voice at times, has a tenorish timbre, which is expected of such as young baritone, and his sections with Regazzo sound fantastic with the blend of light and dark. Hearing a young man singing this role is great, instead of the older singers who take on the role, you believe that this young man could actually be this 'licentious young nobleman'... a sex crazed, socialite who will woo any woman, just to add them to his list. Other great performances come from Kenneth Tarver as Ottavio and Pendatchanska as Elvira.
This recording is a must for anyone who loves Mozart, or wants to experience this great opera for the first time.
|
Music 
Enlarge View