Lorenzo Da PonteCritiques

This libretto, a comedy, is a little complex- but I still found it to be appealing. There are many twists and turns to it and, for a modern reader, it offers a glimpse into the aristocratic intrigues that revolved around the heights of the time that this was composed. I read an edition that had the original Italian libretto next to it, so it was also useful in teaching me a few Italian words at the same time.

Worth it! 3.5 stars.½

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CD and accompanying book. Excellent performance, plus an informative short book with archive illustrations of famous performances/performers.

Not sure if it's my familiarity with the material or that Tatiana Troyanos can enunciate the hell out of her part. Her tone is just a bit too mellow for a very young man, but ee-by-gum you can understand everything she says. Fischer-Dieskaw as the Conte comes off dark throughout. Surely there's room for some lightness. Delightful recording that includes some arias often left out of staged productions.

This is a Musical Heritage Society reissue of a vintage recording, quite good. I've been listening to these in the car, so the impressions I get are not from the best fidelity and have added road noise. Still, it's quite good. For a while I thought it was the car system making donna Ana sound great but muffled but when I picked up the box to look at it, saw that it was Joan Sutherland. Ah. Beautiful voice but ...
Schwarzkopf makes an excellent donna Elvira with her slight shrillness. I thought Sciutti's Zerlina was a bit weak, but all in all good job all around. Totally worth the membership thingie with MHS. I don't regret doing that at all.

This is a very poor quality recording of a live performance in 1963. The strings sound squonky, but the singers are singing their respective asses off. Leontyne Price is especially good, as you can tell by the mushy and prolonged ovations, especially after her last aria. It got two stars because the singing is pretty darn good and I hadn't listened to any of my other "Don Giovanni" recordings so I couldn't make the comparison with the better quality. There are some of us who aren't audiophiles that can tolerate a certain amount of background noise on poor recordings on vinyl or the squeaking of cassettes being played, but there's no excuse for this. It seems absolutely no effort was made to improve the sound quality while digitizing. Might have been something originally pirated off the radio.
Contains a libretto in English and Italian - with no notes or any other information. I hope I didn't pay a lot for it. Probably just wanted the Leontyne Price singing.

Interesting as far as opera goes, which is sort of a backhanded insult, but I did enjoy the main character's ruthlessness in getting what (or who) he wanted.

The memoirs give interesting insights into the world of music and patronage in eighteenth century Europe. Da Ponte comes across as a sincere but naïve person. He was undoubtedly a gifted librettist but he was probably very bad at the business of music or in fact any business. I had been hoping to learn about his collaboration with Mozart but there is very little information. Overall an interesting autobiography.

best recording ever imo
pinza, bidu sayao, baccaloni, melton, zinka milanov,jarmila novotna, alexander kipnis, bruno walter, metropolitan opera
1943

The story in outline: randy husband with roving eye chases reluctant young woman while neglected wife schemes to rewin husband’s affections. Meanwhile, woman’s fiancé struggles with issues of trust as youthful neighbour comes to terms with coming of age.
Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" embodied the spirit of the French Revolution when it premiered in 1786, portraying the comic triumph of skilled and quick-witted middle-class servants over their pompous and decadent royal masters. The Beaumarchais play from which this opera drew inspiration had been banned in Paris for its volatile political content: finding dark humour in class power struggles was dangerous business in pre-Revolutionary France. For the many fans of the effervescent masterpiece today, its revolutionary overtones are all but lost. Yet it endures because Mozart went beyond the class struggles of his day to weave many of life's timeless themes into the opera: love and betrothal, betrayal and justice, greed and vengence, innocent youth and jaded old age. Characters who Beaumarchais sketched as ideologically shaded silhouettes gain through Mozart’s music the hearts and souls of persons one might embrace. A youth trembling with new passions. A young man confident of his cleverness. A loving wife, forlorn, her husband estranged. Couples that, like real couples, can both quarrel and forgive.

This is a great opera, although it does get long at times. Still, there is some good humor (once you get past the ridiculousness of parts of the action).

I love this opera. Dark and ominous, but great. Probably my favorite part is the trio, "Ah! Chi me dice mai, quel barbaro dove?" Heh. Tearing their hearts out. I love it.½

Lorenzo da Ponte was the librettist of three of Mozart's greatest operas, Il Nozze di Figaro, Cosí fan Tutte, and what is probably my favorite opera of all time, Don Giovanni. A converted Jew who was at various times a priest, a gambler and the proprietor of a bordello, among many other occupations, Da Ponte was a friend of Casanova and the protegé of Clement Moore. The memoirs end a few months after he has opened a bookstore in New York.

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MISSING

"In this finale [at the end of the second act], as well as in other parts of the opera, Mozart composed the idea of a 'folle journée'."

From the afterword by Dietrich Klose.