Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - COSÌ FAN TUTTE

Ferrando - Topi Lehtipuu
Guglielmo - Luca Pisaroni
Don Alfonso - Nicolas Rivenq
Fiordiligi - Miah Persson
Dorabella - Anke Vondung
Despina - Ainhoa Garmendia

The Glyndebourne Chorus
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Iván Fischer, Conductor

Nicholas Hytner, Stage Director

Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in June and July 2006

Bonus Material:
Interviews with Ivan Fischer, Nicholas Hytner and members of the cast / Illustrated Synopsis / Cast Gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 Anamorphic
Sound format: DTS Surround / LPCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (All Regions)
Menu Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian
Running time: 210 minutes
No. of DVDs: 2

* Mozart's genius in setting to music Da Ponte's comic play of love, infidelity and forgiveness marks Così fan tutte as one of the great works of art from the Age of Enlightenment. Nicholas Hytner's beautiful new production, with its sure touch and theatrical know-how, lives up to its promise to be 'shockingly traditional', while Iván Fischer teases artful performances from an outstanding international cast of convincing young lovers. Recorded using High Definition cameras and with true surround sound.

R E V I E W S

"Dressed in shades of sand and stone by Vicki Mortimer, and bathed in summer light by Paule Constable, Hytner's period production marries elegance, farce and psychological acuity." -- The Independent

"…an evening of Mozartian magic… a staging that cries out to be revisited." -- Sunday Times

"I had to search long and hard down memory lane to recall a Così that so vividly revealed both the pleasure and the overwhelming pain of this evermore disturbing masterpiece, and I failed." -- Opera

MOZART, W.A.: Magic Flute (The) [Opera]

Mozart, W.A.: Serenade No. 9, "Posthorn" / Symphony No. 32

Classical Music

Mozart’s Requiem is a supreme masterpiece of the history of music and a work inextricably bound up with the Mozartian legend. Now Alpha’s recording of it under the direction of Teodor Currentzis is given a new lease of life in a vinyl reissue. A fascinating, gripping reading, served by a magnificent line-up of soloists – Simone Kermes, Stephanie Houtzeel, Markus Brutscher and Arnaud Richard – and the excellence of the Siberian chorus and orchestra MusicAeterna. This was one of the first recordings of the Greek conductor, based in Russia since the 1990s, who is now an emblematic and iconoclastic figure in the interpretation of Mozart and of classical music in general.

For the seventh volume in this collection devoted to Mozart by the younger generation of soloists, the award-winning Austrian pianist Aaron Pilsan records the concerto K.459 with the ORF Radio Symphonieorchester in Vienna. French horn player Nicolas Ramez records one of his favourite concertos, the first of Mozart's four horn concertos. Finally, the young flutist Diren Duran performs the Andante for flute and orchestra K.315 before accompanying the harpist Elisabeth Plank for the divine concerto for flute, harp and orchestra K.299. The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for over thirty years, has teamed up with Alpha Classics for a series of recordings devoted to Mozart's concertos on all instruments. The best soloists of the younger generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor who believes that playing his music is like "looking in a mirror: you hear whether everything is in place, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing" …

Mozart's flute concertos are of course a Holy Grail for flutist Francois Lazarevitch, one that he has decided to tackle together with his ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien in connection with their work on sources of interpretation. He has recorded the two concertos for flute and orchestra on a one-keyed flute, a copy of an instrument made in Mozart's time, and the concerto in C for flute and harp on an eight-keyed flute - a flute with a C foot - with Sandrine Chatron playing a period harp by Francois-Joseph Naderman. As Mozart left no original cadenzas for the flute concertos, Francois Lazarevitch has here created his own, drawing inspiration from the cadenzas Mozart composed for his piano concertos. The Menuets and Gavottes in the final movements are particularly highlighted by the ensemble's expertise in music for dancing: "after a first movement that is a little solemn and a second that is more lyrical, the final movements are often a moment for release in dance," concludes Lazarevitch.

This Mozart flute quartets recording is the result of a fruitful encounter between the great flautist Juliette Hurel and the Voce Quartet, named Rising Stars for the 2013-14 season by the European Chamber Hall Organization (ECHO). • Composed in Mannheim in the late 1770s, K285/285a are steeped in the concertante, galant style characteristic of the tastes of the Mannheim court at the time. • Some of the quartets would be composed later, in Munich in 1781 (K285b) and Vienna in 1786-7 (the jovial K298), a work in which each movement takes up a familiar tune, which Mozart then either varies or parodies.

After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink collections (a total of 56 reissues), which brought the pearls from the Baroque catalogues of the house labels back into the spotlight, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to rediscover more Baroque treasures and rarities. Like the last series, this fifth installment also opens up to the Classical (Mozart) or Renaissance (Dufay) repertories - recordings that are an integral part of Alpha's identity and history. This series' reissues are performed by the finest musicians in the field; most of these recordings received one or more awards on their first release. The albums come with proper booklets, including notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from many different backgrounds illustrate the covers of the series with their works: this time the main theme is the color white. The present album features WA Mozart's Quintet for clarinet K 581 and Quartets K 380 and K 378 performed by Florent Heau and the Manfred Quartet.

This album combines a well known pianist who has already recorded multiple successful albums and a conductor whose ventures into Mozart are always equally successful. Olivier Cave was a student of Nelson Goerner, Maria Tipo, and Aldo Ciccolini. His playing is refined and virtuosic, and his recordings of Clementi, Haydn, and Scarlatti have all been praised by audiences and critics alike. Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini formed this orchestra specifically for this recording. He and the ensemble Divertissement will embark on a European tour centered around this program me along with Mozart’s symphonies. This program me follow’s the composer from his youth to his maturity, from Concerto no. 5 was written when Mozart was only 17, all the way to No. 25 which was written at his peak in the same year as Le Nozze di Figaro. All of these works are stylishly performed by all musicians involved.

Mozart wrote the Divertimento K247 in June 1776 for the name-day of Countess Maria Antonia Lodron, a family friend whose two daughters were pupils of the composer. He went on to write the Concerto for Three Pianos with the countess and her daughters as the intended soloists. Meanwhile K247 displays the 19-year-old composer's lyrical gifts but also his structural sophistication and his unerring feel for instrumental sonorities. K287 followed in 1777 as a direct sequel, composed for the same occasion and the same forces, and cast in comparably expansive terms across six movements. The intervening year seems to bring a refinement of both craft and humour, for K287 is one of the miracles of Mozart's lighter music, touched with high contrasts, memorable themes and sturdy developments. The second movement is a genial Andante and Variations which instantly transcends it's 'occasional' context. The heart of the work is the Adagio, placed fourth, where the solo violin outlines a melody cast from the same mould as the slow movement of the G major Violin Concerto K216 from two years earlier. But then Mozart comes up with a genuinely funny musical joke at the start of the finale, where the strings paint a recitative without words, like a virtual soprano on an empty stage. Testifying to their adaptability, these divertimenti have attracted performances and recordings by forces ranging from the one-per-part Vienna Octet to Karajan's Berlin Philharmonic. This new recording presents an attractive middle way, infused with vigour and charm by the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of Pardubice under the baton of the Armenian conductor Vahan Mardirossian. Mardirossian and his Czech colleagues have made several successful albums together, including the serenades by Dvor�k on Brilliant Classics (97030). Their recording of these perennially appealing early-Mozart works is accompanied by a new essay from Mark Viner.

This is a physical only re-issue of a former ORFEO bestseller. Herbert von Karajan's relationship with the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was quite ambivalent, especially in his early years. Later, however, he increasingly turned to these works and conducted Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival in a total of three different productions. This recording from 1970 follows the 1968 production. The top-class cast of singers also remained similar, with only two roles being recast. However, while the Festival audience was impressed, the critical response was mixed. From today's perspective, the live recording from 1970 presents a Don Giovanni which takes it's place among the legendary performances of the Salzburg Festival. The title role is sung by the Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, who, between the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Sofia Opera and La Scala in Milanm has grown into a great dramatic singer. His Leporello was the equally strongly outlined Geraint Evans. The Welsh baritone had already proven his extraordinary abilities as a character actor at the Festival in 1962-67 as Mozart's Figaro. As Donna Anna, Gundula Janowitz is at the zenith of her development, which was largely promoted by Karajan. Polish-born Teresa Zylis-Gara, successful as a Mozart singer at Glyndebourne and elsewhere, also fitted perfectly as Dona Elivra into Karajan's concept of the role: sensitive, wavering between her pain and the feelings for Don Giovanni, which surface again and again.

Flautist Ana de la Vega made a sensation in 2018 with her debut recording of Mozart and Myslivecek flute concertos, now returning in an affordable stereo re-issue. With sensuous melodies and elegant virtuosity, Mozart's Flute Concertos in G major (K. 313) and D major (K. 314) are the most cherished pieces composed for the instrument. Here they are brought together with the recently rediscovered Flute Concerto in D major by Josef Myslivecek, de la Vega works together with the English Chamber Orchestra on this acclaimed album.

Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 19 and 20 & Piano Sonatas Nos.