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Review by Roo.Bookaroo:

This set of the best vocal music created by an incomparable genius is a feast for the ear, if there ever was one. This is an epoch-making compilation that is going to revolutionize the public perception, knowledge and appreciation of Mozart’s phenomenal opera production.

Contrary to many reviewers’ claim, one of the exciting features of this superb collection and its sensational contribution to the discography is that it includes complete and brilliant performances of Mozart’s early operas: the delightful German opera Bastien und Bastienne, K 50 (by a boy Mozart of 12); plus the seven “early Italian Operas”: La Finta Semplice, K 51, Mitridate, K 87, Ascanio in Alba, K 111, Il Sogno di Scipione, K 126, Lucio Silla, K 135, Il Re Pastore, K 208, and the extraordinary La Finta Giardiniera, K 196.

All of them have until recently been universally ignored by the contemporary music world.

What’s missing in this set of “Complete Operas” is the Latin opera Apollo & Hyacinthus, K 38, and the German cantata Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebotes, K 35. From age 11 to 19, Mozart wrote no fewer than nine operas, plus a magnificent, gripping, “oratorio”, La Betulia Liberata, K 118, which, musically, must be included in his operatic productions.

These three missing operas are rightly included in the Deutsche Grammophon DVD set of Mozart-22 Complete Operas (33 disks in all. A lot of time and leisure is needed to get to know Mozart in depth!). These three early operas can be found in the Philips audio box No.11 of the Compact edition of 2000, called “Litanies, Vespers, Oratorios, Cantatas, Masonic Music”, which includes as a bonus, Davide Penitente, K 469. All these recordings are otherwise very difficult to find.

Also missing in the Decca set is stage music such as Thamos, King of Egypt, and ballet music, which is included in another Philips Box set entitled “Theater & Ballet Music”.

Finally, the Decca set also fails to include Acis & Galatea, K 566, which is a 1788 arrangement of the original Haendel’s 1718 English opera, a charming “pastoral” opera, in a genre already explored by Mozart in Bastien & Bastienne, K 50, Ascanio in Alba, K 111, and Il Re Pastore, K 208. Although called again “oratorio”, Acis & Galatea is a full-fledged stageable opera, and the first entry in the New Grove Book of Operas, by the much regretted expert Stanley Sadie. But Mozart’s re-arrangement is in German, no longer in the original English, and completely re-orchestrated. It does belong to a complete set of Mozart’s German operas. Peter Schreier’s 1983 version of this charming pastoral opera on Orfeo is highly recommended as an adjunct to the Decca set to make it more complete.

Many of the recordings appearing in the Decca set, especially the early operas, are musically complete – unlike the furious cuts in arias and recitatives perpetrated by, for instance, somebody like Harnoncourt & Co. – and have become de facto reference recordings.

Also remarkable: This is the only set where we can find together the two versions of the magnificent La Finta Giardiniera, in Italian and in German (Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe), both K 196, and most of the music of the monumental Idomeneo, K 366.

A note of caution: The Decca set gives us the music, but not the libretti, in order to keep the price at a democratic level. Libretti are indispensable to fully appreciate the music which follows the action on the stage and the feelings expressed by the beautiful arias. Synopses of action and indexes of tracks and arias are a great help, but not enough.

The missing libretti for the Decca set can be found online through Google: Karadar has been showing complete libretti of all operas, but only in the original language (Latin, Italian, or German), which is a good beginning.

Translations can be found in the libretti usually offered in the booklets of CD boxes published separately (which often means buying an additional version of a given opera, and expanding one’s library of CDs. This enables us to start enjoying the fun game of comparing versions and singers, an entertainment which can last a lifetime).

A very good companion to this excellent Decca set is the series of the articles published in Wikipedia on each opera, and on “The List of Operas by Mozart”, offering excellent synopses, analyses of the operas, and invaluable background information, including very valuable links to scores and libretti available on the Web, and to key books and commentaries.

There are some books as well: for instance, the Metropolitan Opera Book of Mozart Operas, covering only seven late operas, with original libretti and English translations. Hopefully, with the release of this Decca set, the Metropolitan Opera Guild will now decide that the time is ripe to publish a book of the complete libretti with English translations of all of Mozart’s operas (and please, please, make sure to include the libretti of Apollo & Hyacinthus, Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebotes, La Betulia Liberata and Acis und Galatea.)

Note also that all the full scores of the operas can be found at the Web site of DME, the Digital Mozart Edition, which has put online all the works published by NMA, the famous and indispensable Neue Mozart Ausgabe (New Mozart Edition). This comprehensive site contains very interesting photocopies of original documents and pages of Mozart’s autograph scores. The DME is the precious, fundamental source of research for any study of Mozart’ life and works. The Wikipedia article on NMA shows the vital link to the DME site. No separate texts of the libretti are offered on the DME site. They’re all shown integrated within the scores themselves.

It is so easy and fashionable to pooh-pooh Mozart’s early operas and dismiss them as “immature” works, and claim that nobody would find any pleasure listening to such embryonic juvenilia. I have to utterly disagree with this glib dismissing (and of his other early music, totally ignored as well).

Can we listen all our lives only to Don Giovanni, K 527, or Die Zauberflöte, K 620, over and over again – although we could imagine worse fates – and never explore the vast range of Mozart’s production? Overexposure can kill the strongest affection. Most people know only the four “famous”, the so-called “mature”, operas of the last five years of Mozart’s life (1786-1791) — Le Nozze di Figaro, K 492; Don Giovanni, K 527; Cosi Fan Tutte, K 588; Die Zauberflöte, K 620 — and nothing else. La Clemenza di Tito, K 621, is royally ignored, as an anachronistic backward return to obsolete, dead and buried, and boring opera seria.

But after an overdose of Sarastro in the Flute, it is a delightful refreshing experience to reconnect with Bastien & Bastienne, K 50, and Colas’s entrancing “Diggy, Daggy” spoof on magical incantation.

Mozart did become even more serious, grandiose and complex in the second half of the 1780s, (although never losing his sense of fun, whimsy, and irrepressible gaiety, without which Mozart would no longer be Mozart) but, more vitally, his luck was that he was able to use taut, exciting, satirical, even cynical, and stage-worthy libretti, mostly by Da Ponte, on contemporary subjects. All which made them extremely popular with modern audiences. This is through these four works that most people encounter Mozart’s opera music.

But we’re not on a desert island, stranded with these four recordings. The earlier operas of his youth are unknown and grossly undervalued, as they have not become popular mostly because of their stodgy, conventional librettos of 18th-century formal court entertainment. They pose quite a challenge to effective staging able to excite the interest of a modern popular audience. DVDs can succeed in rendering these stilted librettos alive.

Mind you, the same thing happened to Handel’s operas, which got buried for good after their initial production. In the 18th century, opera goers and music lovers always craved for novelty – not unlike our taste for movies nowadays. Previous operas were immediately forgotten and replaced with new works. The composer was the only one who knew and could remember his previous operas.

It’s only in the 20th century, with a new sense of historicity and the magical power of recording that an interest reappeared in the old forgotten operas of Handel and Mozart. Gradually Mozart’s youth operas are finally being dusted off and resurrected, as well as Handel’s operas, and their magnificent music rediscovered and appreciated.

The modern tendency to pile disdain on what is now called “opera seria” – “dramma per musica” on noble heroic subjects mostly drawn from classical antiquity (Ancient Greece and Rome) or biblical stories, and “festa teatrale” suitable for a royal or aristocratic audience, – didn’t improve matters.

Even a grandiose opera such as Idomeneo, K 366, was ignored for two centuries and re-exhumed only very recently when Pavarotti and Domingo proved it could make a superlative audience-pleaser, and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle dared to dress up the Homeric heroes in French Louis XIV costumes and wigs.

From Idomeneo, it’s an easy step to give a new fresh listen to the earlier grand opera serias of Mozart and rediscover the enchanting music in the powerful Lucio Silla, K 135, and the remarkable Mitridate, K 87.

Opera is about singing. Mozart’s music requires the very best voices to shine in its unique glow. And, in the Decca set, Hager, Schreier & Co do deliver world-class singers. For instance, Hager couldn’t have found a better tenor than the superbly virile Werner Hollweg in the title role of Mitridate, facing five supreme sopranos: Auger, Gruberova, Baltsa, Cotrubas, Weidinger. In each one of the recordings, these magnificent voices make the whole difference.

When Mozart conducted the premiere of Mitridate, re di Ponto, K 87, in Milan on Dec. 26, 1770, just short of 15, a performance that lasted six hours (with ballet), music-loving Milanese erupted in shouts of “Evviva il maestrino!” The opera was performed a total of 22 times, a prodigious success for a new opera, rarely achieved in those days when Italy was flooded by an overabundance of new works.

Lucio Silla, K 135, opened again in Milan, exactly two years after Mitridate, on Dec. 26, 1772, Mozart being close to 17, with no less magnificent music, and was performed an astounding 26 times. Only Idomeneo, K 366, reached later the same summits of musical grandeur.

Mozart always remembered those marvelous successes of his early Italian operas, and dreamt of Italy for the rest of his life. Listening to the sensational performances of these operas in the Decca versions, we can only repeat :”Bravo, Maestrino.”

Ponnelle found Mitridate worthy of his DVD-making talent, and it is only a shame that his early death prevented him from tackling Lucio Silla.

However, Harnoncourt’s exciting and energetic versions of Lucio Silla, K 135, Il Re Pastore, K 208, and La Finta Giardiniera, K 196, all on Teldec/Das Alte Werk, are also worth comparing and even adding to those in the Decca set.

From the beginning Mozart, a true musical chameleon, could provide exciting and fitting music well adapted to the emotions portrayed by the characters of his libretti.

But he was handicapped and strictly limited at first by the fact that he could not choose his libretti, the more so that he had to surmount doubts that, as a young musician, he could write an entire opera equal in appeal to the works of the established composers of his time.

Those libretti were imposed on him by court administrators, with the “noble” subjects deemed fit for the royal and aristocratic European courts of the 18th century. Young Mozart was already grateful enough to be trusted and invited to write for the great European courts of Milan or Munich, at a time when the teenager was not established enough to refuse or modify any text. Later on, Mozart developed the confidence and sureness of theatrical taste to start refusing idiotic or uninspiring libretti and obliging the “poets” to modify their text to fit his own superbly trained sense of stage effectiveness.

But from his early teens on his music was already scintillating, sparkling with tremendous, nearly manic, energy, and a huge, astounding, bewildering reservoir of exuberant invention and vitality. He was in music the equivalent of an inexhaustible geyser such as exists in Yellowstone, not a volcano, but fuelled and heated by the inner burning volcano of his passion for music and for singing, exquisite sensitivity, and unique ability to write in the style requested on the stage.

Already at age twelve he had amassed an extensive experience of the stage and voices, knew what kind of music was expected from singers in given adult, and sexual, situations, and he could produce the kind of music required. All the standard styles of the age were continuously and thoroughly absorbed by him from all the operatic music to which he was continuously exposed during his extensive European travels. His personal familiarity with the best musicians, singers and composers of the time in the major musical centers of Europe was unrivalled.

He was endowed with an exceptional memory, now legendary, and a fabulous speed of writing down his compositions. Everywhere, with Leopold or alone, he would attend all the theater plays and operas available, which provided him with his mental library of contemporary styles. He could immediately imitate any genre in his own style and vastly improve on it.

As soon as he had completed in 1768, at age twelve, the 558 pages of charming music of La Finta Semplice, K 51 – all rendering the delicate feelings of romantic love that he himself had not yet experienced, but knew exactly what they should sound like – he proved he was able to express all emotions and feelings in music with a richness unequalled by any other musician.

This was an epochal moment in the history of Western opera, not noticed at the time by anybody (except his father Leopold, his unshakable fan and manager): The sign that an extraordinary phenomenon had appeared in the sky of opera and music.

This was immediately and unreservedly recognized by all the musical experts of Europe, and Mozart became trusted as a true opera composer since his early teens – the Young Faithful musical geyser of Europe, who could always deliver on time and with extreme quality.

Leopold Hager remains the undisputed champion in the cause of resurrecting Mozart’s Early Operas. And you can find his exciting version of La Finta Semplice with a superb cast of unequalled loveliness on Brilliant Classics. And then have the pleasure of comparing it with the Schreier version in our Decca set. It is an intriguing question as to why Hager figures in most of the Early Italian Operas in this Decca set, but not his Finta Semplice.

Before reaching twenty, Mozart had already produced an incredibly extensive body of work. During this period, beside his nine operas and the Betulia, Mozart had been writing non-stop concert arias and a huge quantity of sacred music for the voice — countless masses, cantatas, kyries, litanies, vespers, motets, and offertories.

Mozart was always in his element when commissioned to deliver enchanting music for great singers. He was in love with beautiful voices, like all opera composers. As a boy, he had a lovely soprano voice, and was able to sing his own compositions until his voice broke at puberty. Along the way, during his European travels, he received singing lessons from the best Italian singers, who took a shine to this prodigy. And when he married, it was in the Weber family, whose daughters were superlative singers.

His special love for winds, which perplexed or delighted most conductors of his works, could be linked to his natural excitement at sounds that resembled the human voice. In Mozart, music always seems to sing.

Mozart was, first and above all, a born opera composer. He always repeated in his letters how he loved writing opera music above everything else, and that this put him in a sort of physical and emotional trance where his most creative talent was inspired. An intensely insightful and sensitive person, Mozart fully lived in the stories of his operas, and gave each one his all, from the very beginning to the end of his life.

A master of the human voice, Mozart, in operatic music, was able to join his passion for extraordinarily beautiful singing to most inventive and brilliant orchestration. He loved bizarre and unusual sound effects and his operas are brimming with strange, unexpected, even puzzling, but always exciting orchestral accompaniments, if you care to listen attentively. It’s worth paying close attention to the amazing orchestration, the inexhaustible torrent of surprising ideas — and always great fun.

In opera music and his arias he was able to give full rein to all the fascinating facets of his complex character – from playful, wanton, facetious, to serious, solemn, pathos-suffused, melancholic, and grandiose or majestic, when called for – and to his unbridled talent for invention and experimentation. “Il était toujours si gai”, (he was always so gay) reminisced Constanza in 1829. It is striking that this is reflected in Mozart’s letters, where he indulged in the same sense of whimsy, love of nonsense and facetiousness, then, without missing a beat, his playfulness switched to the most serious and grave tone to announce disasters.

For he never went to school, was never punished by his parents, and had never been molded in a straightjacket by the rules of any Music Conservatory. He truly was his own self-made man and composer.

We owe principally to Leopold Hager — but also to Neville Marriner for Il Re Pastore, K 208, Peter Schreier for La Finta Semplice, K 51, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt for Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe, K 196, and Uwe Christian Harrer for Bastien und Bastienne, K 50 — the wonderful productions included in this Decca set of these youthful operas full of extraordinary music sung by some of the best voices in the world.

The enthusiasm, supervoltage electric energy and unfailing beauty of this music are astonishing, and this will be a surprising discovery for most buyers of the Decca set.

Leopold Hager, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Peter Schreier, and a few other conductors have provided in recent years a unique service with their systematic devotion to restoring these great unknown works to the level of attention and love they deserve from opera enthusiasts.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle did his own bit by turning some into spectacular DVDs.

And this bargain-priced Decca set is going to add immeasurably to the success and the popularization of this historical recovery of lost treasures. Bastien und Bastienne, K 50, plus the seven “Early Italian Operas,” – La Finta Semplice, K 51, Mitridate, K 87, Ascanio in Alba, K 111, Il Sogno di Scipione, K 126, Lucio Silla, K 135, Il Re Pastore, K 208, and the extraordinary La Finta Giardiniera, K 196 – are all perfect, shining works full of youthful exuberant music and enchanting, unforgettable singing.

The level of popular response to them — that is, in the past and even now, the lack of it — is no measure of their outstanding quality.

Whoever would not take the time to listen to them carefully, and make the mistake of keeping the sleeves of the early operas unopened on their shelves, would miss the opportunity to get acquainted with such brilliant music. Each of these operas deserves many listens in succession to be fully appreciated.

This was a comment already made by the Austrian emperor Joseph II, who had remarked that the difference between Haydn and Mozart was that Haydn delivered his beauties on first hearing, while with Mozart, one needed repeated hearings to perceive his unique beauties. The emperor even feared that Mozart’s opera music was too beautiful for the Viennese, even when it generated wild enthusiasm in Prague. Haendel had known the same problem in London.

Most of the time, this is very complex music, which does not easily become popular — especially in our impatient age, eager for immediate satisfaction — and is carried by an inexhaustible and extremely fast torrent of “little notes” that makes remembering and humming the music extremely difficult.

Remember the famous “too many notes” quote, also attributed to Emperor Joseph II — however now considered suspect by scholars — about the Entführung aus dem Serail, with Mozart’s witty rejoinder: “just as many as needed”?

Mozart’s unique style involved writing such a huge quantity of little notes that, in his early teens, his hand would hurt at the end of the day. (A computer alone will one day be able to count all the notes written by Mozart!)

Leopold, Mozart’s father, continually reminded his son of the need to curb his unbridled imagination and to take into account in his writing that, in his audience, there were 90% ordinary musical amateurs – versus 10% (and nowadays way fewer than 10%) musical “connoisseurs” capable of appreciating his sophisticated complexities.

The top singers of the age were usually delighted with his arias, often asking for more. But sometimes, they would complain their arias were too difficult, and could he please rewrite the music more simply? Mozart was careful to treat his singers well and eager to keep them happy, always writing to fit their particular voices and technical abilities, whatever their age, lack of experience or declining age, and so obliged.

Handel had already met with the same vexing problem – music too complex and too beautiful for its popular audience. Occasionally some of Handel’s top singers had similarly rebelled against the difficulty and asked for a rewrite.

To call the operas of Mozart’s youthful decade “immature” works is absurd nonsense – simply repeating a canard established in a certain genre of glib writing about Mozart, which likes to distinguish the “immature” works from the “mature” works, as if they came from two different composers (without ever defining the cut-off date between both periods). Such superficial critics never explain clearly why it’s enough to slap the single adjective “immature” to be entitled to dismiss the early operas without further acquaintance.

Gilbert & Sullivan would have loved to write a whole operetta of their own, where the boy Mozart comes along dragging an enormous stack of music sheets marked “My Opera of the Year” while the musical critics screw up their faces, looking down their noses and making faces, and walk away from him, all singing in unison, “Immature, boy, immature!”

This genre of historical description also likes to oppose “opera seria”, in reality “dramma per musica” in the original sense (that is, dramatic opera), to “opera buffa”, originally known as “dramma giocosa per musica” (that is, comic opera) , as if they were two different, antagonistic, styles of music in Mozart, when in fact they were for him mostly adapted to different kinds of libretti or different characters. Both of them could easily co-exist in his operas and even in the same character.

The opera seria served as “grand” entertainment for the aristocracy and royalty, especially in solemn occasions, where the sense of sublime was an expected ingredient. While the opera buffa was entertainment for the educated middle class, without serious pretensions at “grandeur”. The distinction was, in essence, a difference of class in the audience, reflected in the difference of class in the characters on stage.

However, in Mozart’s music, “opera seria” style and “opera buffa” style were intimately intertwined, and in his mind and sensitivity, they were not two different kinds of style, but different ways of expressing different emotions and feelings in music adapted to different characters.

Contrary to the then prevailing practice, and most surprising at the time (and ultimately revolutionary), the music and arias for secondary characters in Mozart’s operas were from the very start always as beautiful as the arias and music for the principal, usually noble, characters of the “primo uomo” and “prima donna”. Mozart was incapable of writing down. And so, whatever the libretto, a sense of “grandeur” and nobility is always ready to emerge and suffuse the music to express authenticity, intensity and depth.

In none of his letters does Mozart state that he is composing in a given style, seria or buffa. This distinction is inapplicable as such to his music. The situation on the stage may be to the spectator truly comical, but if the buffo character does genuinely indicate intense emotion or feeling, the music immediately takes off in a soaring or furious flight of love, pain, anger, sarcasm or rage. In his best “opera buffa” works, you’ll find lofty, dazzling, passages and arias that would not be out of place in any opera seria (better named “heroic dramatic opera”).

This is what Salieri remarked, after watching Die Zauberflöte with Mozart, that this opera was worthy of being presented to any court in Europe. In spite of its buffo characters, the grandeur of the music for the noble characters was truly equal to that of a genuine opera seria. Same thing in the other operas buffas. In truth, the label “serio” or “buffo” applies only to the libretto, and the distinction if of little relevance to the music – for the music is neither, the music is and remains Mozart.

This Decca set is even the more valuable – thanks to Hager & Co. ‘s unfailing passion and remarkable contribution – for including first-class performances of these relatively unknown early operas (most deliciously uncut), which are bound, as a result, to become better known and appreciated and standard references.

As already mentioned, one important work is sadly missing, which does belong to the flow of ardent music of the period of these “early Italian operas,”: La Betulia Liberata, K. 118 of 1771. It is classified as an “oratorio”, with Hager’s complete version figuring in another collections of Philips’s monumental COMPLETE COMPACT MOZART EDITION, the 13-disk box set called “Litanies, Vespers, Oratorios, Cantatas & Masonic Music” (March 2006). Hager’s version is 2h 12′ long, and uses his favorite Mozartian singers of the time: Ileana Cotrubas, Hanna Schwarz, Peter Schreier, Walter Berry.

Make no mistake: La Betulia Liberata, K 118, is an indispensable must have for any owner of the Decca set of “Complete” operas. You cannot get to know Mozart’s opera music without it.

It would have made much more sense, historically and musically, to include Hager’s production of this “oratorio” in the Decca set along with all the other “Early Italian operas”. Which is exactly done in the Deutsche Grammophon DVD set of The Complete Operas, where, in spite of “deutsche Gründlichkeit” (German thoroughness) or perhaps because of it, nobody felt ashamed to include 23 operas in this “Mozart-22″ set.

The title of La Betulia Liberata is deceptive. This is the famous story of Judith beheading Holophernes in his tent at night, to save the Israelites besieged in Betulia. The beheading is not shown on stage, but only narrated by Judith once she has returned behind the walls of Betulia, carrying the famous head of Holophernes in a basket. She is heard before leaving the city, and after returning. No action under the tent is shown on stage, so Judith’s arias deliver a report after the fact, which makes this work, technically, but not musically, an “oratorio” instead of an opera.

This story of Judith has obsessed Western culture and art for a long time, and has been portrayed by the best European painters up to Gustav Klimt.

A Mozart enthusiast will not balk at the prospect of adding 13 disks of Philips to the 44 of the Decca set to get the three early operas missing in the Decca set: Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots, K 35 (Sir Neville Marriner), Apollo & Hyacinthus, K 38 (Leopold Hager) and of course the powerful and riveting “oratorio-opera” La Betulia Liberata, K 118 (Leopold Hager)

Another good solution is the terrific recording of Mario Rossi conducting in 1952 the famous Italian RAI Orchestra of Turin with four marvelous singers whom very few of us now know any more (Cesare Valletti, tenor, Boris Christoff, bass, Myriam Pirazzini, mezzo soprano, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano). Many will flip at the seductive sound of this recording and the beautiful voices, especially Cesare Valletti (much more mellifluous than Peter Schreier in the Hager cast) , and Miriam Pirazzini. It is not complete, unlike Hager’s, and is heavily cut (in arias and recitatives) to 1h 12′, against 2h 12′ for Hager, but it is a powerful and most beautiful recording.

The entrancing, visceral, Mario Rossi version is listed in two CD versions on Amazon: First, on Opera d’Oro, at , a live performance recorded in mono (a fact not mentioned by Amazon) in April 1952. Its cover is a powerful gruesome image of Judith beheading Holophernes, by the great female painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

The second version is on IDIS, at , and dates from one month later, May 1952, as a radio recording. I also bought it as I was misled into believing it was a stereo version (no mention by Amazon again, and no cover shown, a marketing trick), but it is in fact another mono, however with “restoration to 24 bit and 96 KHz”, and to my ears sounds practically the same as the Opera D’Oro.

Note the trickery of CD producers’s marketing: The IDIS version says on the cover “original libretto enclosed”, which would have made it a valuable acquisition. Alas, the “original libretto enclosed” is only that part used in the recording — half of the total original libretto.

According to my thorough search, of all Mozart libretti, the complete text of the libretto of La Betulia Liberata is the only one not to be found on the Web as a separate text. Many Mozart fanatics are looking for it. They should be aware that this libretto can be extracted by copying it from the complete score published online by the “DME”, the complete Digital Mozart Edition, produced by the famous Neue Mozart Edition (itself very well documented on its Wikipedia article).

So, if you should wish to acquire the Mario Rossi version, don’t hesitate to buy the IDIS version, although the Opera d’Oro recording is very acceptable (in case the IDIS is shown as not available). This Mario Rossi version is unique. Well, I own both, plus the Hager version on Philips.

Mozart had a much higher esteem of La Betulia and of his youthful music than some commentators. He often referred to it during his Vienna decade, and regarded it worthy of his talent, and never pooh-poohed it à la Angus Grant. And who are we not to trust Mozart’s judgment of his own music?

Let’s remember Richard Strauss’s special love for Mozart’s operas, often covering the same terrain and selecting stories very similar to Mozart’s early operas. While Mozart had tackled Judith in La Betulia, Strauss handled the second famous biblical female beheader, Salomé.

Not only did Strauss try in Der Rosenkavalier to recapture the atmosphere of Le Nozze di Figaro, but he also tried his hand at arranging and adapting one of Mozart’s operas. For that brave attempt, he selected none other than the epitome of “opera seria,” Idomeneo. This rewrite of Idomeneo by Strauss is a curious product, worth listening to — at least once — for any Mozart enthusiast.

We can hear Strauss softly chuckling in his grave at the mere mention of Mozart’s “immature” operas.

ROO.BOOKAROO

Jan 31, 2010

Review by Angus W. Grant:

These dirt cheap box sets continue to be released at an alarming rate and provide incredible bargains but are not necessarily essential purchases.

This set contains recordings that were all part of the Phillips Complete Mozart Edition (which was about the price of a small car I seem to remember) and they have appeared in several guises since. The backbone of the set is Davis’ wonderful recordings of the mature operas which have stood the test of time excedingly well. The set is worth purchasing for these operas alone and will complement any recordings you already own. The list of tremendous singers from the 70′s and 80′s gives the set another bonus of being a fascinating record of Mozart singing during this period (things are very different now are they not?).

In that sense you can’t go wrong but you need to consider that the early operas, while perhaps interesting as a demonstration of his developmentt as a dramatic composer, are not music you will be turning to frequently for enjoyment. Add this the problem that the set will not contain a printed libretto or essays to help you follow these immature works so they will probably sit in their cardborad sleeves for most of their life.

If that doesn’t bother you you certainly won’t regret gaining so many fine recordings at such a reasonable price.

Review by Timothy R. Carpenter:

These are the classic Mozart operas recorded by Decca in 1954/55. They are wonderful performances featuring some of the best Mozart conductors and singers of the time: Cosi: Böhm / della Casa, Ludwig, Dermota, Kunz, Schoeffler; Figaro: E. Kleiber / Gueden, della Casa, Danco, Siepi, Corena; Don Giovanni: Krips / Danco, della Casa, Gueden, Dermota, Siepi, Corena, Berry, Böhme; Flute: Fricsay / Streich, Stader , Otto, Haefliger, Fischer-Dieskau, Greindl. All but Magic Flute are with the Vienna Philharmonic. I haven’t compared the sound with the Decca masterings, but the sound is good 50′s mono. No librettos but individual track listings are provided. At under this is a steal. If you don’t already have these performances, BUY THIS!

Review by Ralph Moore:

While none of these four performances might necessarily be a first choice for an individual recording, as a super-bargain box set this is self-recommending, featuring as it does an array of the finest German singers to be found in the mid 1950′s conducted by four master-Mozartian conductors in Böhm, Kleiber, Krips and Fricsay respectively. The sound is remarkably clear and the packaging attractive, being the by now conventional format of a sturdy box containing cardboard slipcases. The only obstacle to acquiring this as, or for, a Mozart novice, is the lack of libretto or even synopses; it is obviously assumed that the collector already has them, so if you do decide to give this to a Mozart tyro, remedy the omission. At this price – even cheaper on Marketplace – it is absurd to complain. It is true that some individual performances are less than ideal; Poell’s Count Almaviva is blustery and dry of voice, his Italian intermittently Teutonic – a flaw occasionally apparent in other singers, too; in “Die Zauberflöte” Greindl’s Sarastro is a little lugubrious and Stader not ideally pure as Pamina but you do get dialogue unlike some contemporaneous versions and there is a sense of ensemble about each opera rather than that impression some more modern recordings give of a random gathering of star singers. But talking of stars, just look at some of the names here: Lisa della Casa, Christa Ludwig, Cesare Siepi, Hilde Gueden, Rita Streich, Suzanne Danco, Anton Dermota; so many great singers sounding as fresh as you could wish. (Here, to select an example at random, Dermota shows off his breath control by delivering the long phrase of “cercate” in “Il mio tesoro” in one breath unlike in other recordings.) The quality of performance, interpretation and sound is high throughout all four operas and this set represents a supreme bargain.

Review by J Scott Morrison:

Each of these 1970s Glyndebourne Opera productions of the six best-known Mozart operas has been issued singly previously. Now they are boxed together (each in its own case and with booklets that are unchanged from the single issues) and marketed at a price break for the Mozart fan. I’ve reviewed each of them before and will refer in this review to my earlier reviews here at Amazon.

They rank, in my opinion, from simply wonderful to disappointing, but on the whole they are really quite good. They are Così fan tutte (1975), Don Giovanni (1977), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio, 1980), Idomeneo (1974), Le Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro, 1973), and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1978). I will make a few comments about each but suggest you look up my reviews of the single releases. (For each individual review go to Amazon’s search function and plug in ‘Glyndebourne’ and a keyword from the title of the opera.)

Così fan tutte: 4 stars. With a cast of mostly young unknowns but with a young Thomas Allen as Guglielmo. The young cast move well and sing beautifully. A traditional production (as all of these productions are – and all the better for that!). Highlight: Tenor Anson Austin, an Aussie, as Ferrando — his ‘Un aura amorosa’ is honeyed and gorgeous.

Don Giovanni: 3 stars. Benjamin Luxon a bit wooden as the Don, although he sings wonderfully. Bernard Haitink in the pit. Less than wonderful sound. High point: Horiana Branisteanu as Donna Anna.

Die Entführung: 4 stars. A very nice production. Valerie Masterson as Constanze. The wonderful Willard White as Osmin. His singing and acting are fabulous. Ryland Davies, whose tenor voice has always been exceptionally beautiful, is the Belmonte. The orchestral playing under the exceptionally sensitive direction of Gustav Kuhn is sensational. Whatever happened to Kuhn?

Idomeneo: 2 stars. This is the clunker in the group. The opera is given incomplete — the first scene is cut, for instance. And the sound is glassy. Richard Lewis as the King is past his prime. What a shame his portrayal hadn’t been captured ten years earlier. Josephine Barstow’s Elettra is the vocal and dramatic standout.

Le Nozze di Figaro: 5 stars. I titled my earlier review ‘As Near to Perfection as I’m Ever Likely to See.’ A sensational cast (te Kanawa as the Countess, Luxon as the Count, Ileana Cotrubas as Susanna, Frederica von Stade as Cherubino, and the marvelous Norwegian baritone Knut Skram as Figaro). The only fault I can find with this production is that it is of its time and the video and audio reflect that, although they are more than acceptable. Musically this one is extraordinarily satisfying.

Die Zauberflöte: 5 stars. A wonderful production with Felicity Lott as Pamina, tenor Leo Goeke as Tamino, Luxon as an excellent Papageno, Elizabeth Couquet a terrific Papagena (she actually gives the character some depth), and May Sandoz as Queen of the Night. Thomas Thomaschke is a fine Sarastro but he’s a bit too young for the part. Bernard Haitink in the pit.

Scott Morrison

Review by D. Miller:

This is a pretty good deal for what it is. Bear in mind that the productions were filmed in the 70′s and 80′s so they obviously didn’t have DVD in mind back then, and some weren’t high budget to begin with. The Idomeneo has some problems, so i wouldn’t buy that one seperately. The others are mostly standard productions. The particular production of Die Zauberflote included here was staged years later by the Met and did quite well there. This one features Felicity Lott as Pamina which i’d say was worth the price of admission. Not every production has big names in it, tho there are a few. These were filmed live, with polite British audiences.

Benjamin Luxon performs a few of the lead baritone roles very well, and Jamaican bass Willard White is interesting in an otherwise mostly waspy lineup of performers. The various conductors featured are all excellent. This box set is a good introduction to become familiar with Mozart’s most popular operas, if that is what you’re out to do. Good homework if you plan to see them live (which you really must do!)

Review by Santa Barbara:

In response to the question in T.J.Murphy’s review , this indeed seams identical to the earlier box set release. Since NONE of the performances are the best available and some are really bad–in both my opinion and that of those who reviewed the individual dvds, a price reduction was probably necessary.

Review by J Scott Morrison:

This 1973 production from the old Glyndebourne Festival theatre has as starry a cast as one could possibly put together at the time and strikes me as well above what passes for top-drawer these days. The cast is simply marvelous. Oddly, it includes a singer as Figaro that I’d never heard of before, one Knut Skram, and I was a little apprehensive about that. I needn’t have been. He is a tall handsome 36-year old Norwegian whose bass-baritone is rich and whose acting is superb. He looks the part better and moves more nimbly than any Figaro I’ve ever seen. And he sings in his arias and ensembles with dash and musicality. As the for the rest of the cast just look who is in it. Kiri te Kanawa, in the first flush of her international stardom, as a Countess who is ravishing both in sound and in looks. Her ‘Porgi amor’ and ‘Dove sono’ are radiantly beautiful. Her resistance to the Count’s bulldozing is both feminine and strong (not that those are contradictory qualities, of course). Her conspiring with Susanna is delicious. In the final scene, where she forgives the Count, she is noble. Indeed in that scene the entire ensemble right through to ‘Corriam tutti’ is splendid. Benjamin Luxon is a proper Count who is more than a bit of a rascal. He plays the bullying Lord believably but does not come across as an unlikable heel, and one feels there is the chance that he may indeed change his ways. He is in marvelous voice and acts well both physically and vocally. Mezzo Frederica von Stade has made a specialty of the role of Cherubino, and with good reason. She has both the figure and the voice for it. Add to that the ability to seem both callow and devilish and you have a combination perfect for the role. Her ‘Voi che sapete’ is perfection. The secondary roles are well cast, well acted, and very well sung. One couldn’t ask for a better Don Basilio (John Fryatt) or Don Bartolo (Marius Rintzler of the cavernous bass and the wicked buffo ways; his ‘La vendetta’ is choice). Nucci Bondo makes a likeable Marcellina and she sounds good, too. Even the Barbarina and Antonio are well-done.

The singer who should come in for the most praise, though, is the young Ileana Cotrubas, who of course went on to major international stardom (she was one of the best Violettas I ever saw), and in this performance she not only sings like an angel, but her comic acting (and think of the timing that’s required for the part) is in a league with a Carol Burnett or a Tracy Ullman. Her Act III duet with the count, ‘Crudel! Perché finora,’ demonstrates not only her superb singing (and Luxon’s) but also her teasing way with him. Delicious!

In the pit is the ever-trustworthy John Pritchard conducting the London Philharmonic. The stage production was directed by the legendary Peter Hall. The video production was done by Humphrey Burton, a stalwart of these sorts of television specials, and it was directed with expertise by Dave Heather. The rather traditional, but quite beautiful, production design was by John Bury.

I do not own any other DVDs of ‘Marriage of Figaro’ and cannot compare this one with the ones available. I find myself not impelled to obtain any others, however. I must comment that the color and stereo sound are of their time, the early 1970s. These are certainly not a hindrance, but one does recognize that this is a classic production.

I predict I will be returning to this performance many times over the years.

1 DVD, TT=185 mins, no extras, subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian.

Scott Morrison

Review by David Cady:

This is a truly lovely jewel-box of a production that is a triumph of simplicity and traditionalism. “Concept” opera can work, don’t get me wrong, but what a treat it is to sit back and wallow in the pleasures of a beautifully staged, designed and — most importantly — sung performance as this. There isn’t a weak link in the cast. Particularly, Cotrubas may be the best Susanna ever, shining with an inner radiance that brings a smile to your face whenever she’s on stage. And Te Kanawa is as beautiful as ever, her customary richness of tone and heartbreaking expressiveness solidly on display. The director has given the perfomance terrific pace and momentum (as does Pritchard in the pit) and has gotten his singers to be terrific actors as well. I was concerned that the picture quality would not be the best (given that this is 30 year old video), but it’s clear as can be. The audio is less than wonderful at times (not too bad and not for too long), but that may simply be my copy. In any event, look no further if you want a “Figaro” for the ages, one that honors the intent and brilliance of its creators.