Mozart Johannes Chrysostomos Wolfgang Theaphilus Amadeus b Salzburg 1756-1792 d

Presenting an extract from the DGG 225 year celebration of the complete 22+oratorio and Opera Presentations at the Salzburger Festival – every Singspiele from his youthful first to last composition. The entry below is an example from this holistic Mozart Video Salzburger Singspiele Production.

The Marriage of Figaro continues the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single “day of madness” in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to exercise his droit du seigneur – his right to bed a servant girl on her wedding night – with Figaro’s bride-to-be, Susanna, who is the Countess’s maid. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He retaliates by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through Figaro’s and Susanna’s clever manipulations, the Count’s love for his Countess is finally restored.

Overture ‘Le Nozze Di Figaro’ Opera Buffa in Four acts.K.492.

SETTING – Count Almaviva’s estate, Aguas-Frescas, three leagues outside Seville, Spain. A partly furnished room, with a chair in the centre.

Act1 No.1-Introduction: Duet & Recitative ‘Today is the day when Figaro and Susanna will be married’

Figaro happily measures the space where the bridal bed will fit while Susanna tries on her wedding bonnet in front of a mirror (in the present day, a more traditional French floral wreath or a modern veil are often substituted, often in combination with a bonnet, so as to accommodate what Susanna happily describes as her wedding cappellino). (Duet: Cinque, dieci, venti – “Five, ten, twenty”). Figaro is quite pleased with their new room; Susanna far less so (Duettino: Se a caso madama la notte ti chiama – “If the Countess should call you during the night”). She is bothered by its proximity to the Count’s chambers: it seems he has been making advances toward her and plans on exercising his droit du seigneur, the purported feudal right of a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband can sleep with her. The Count had the right abolished when he married Rosina, but he now wants to reinstate it. Figaro is livid and plans to outwit the Count (Cavatina: Se vuol ballare signor contino – “If you want to dance, sir count”).
Figaro departs, and Dr. Bartolo arrives with Marcellina, his old housekeeper. Marcellina has hired Bartolo as legal counsel, since Figaro had once promised to marry her if he should default on a loan she had made to him, and she intends to enforce that promise. Bartolo, still irked at Figaro for having facilitated the union of the Count and Rosina (in The Barber of Seville), promises, in comical lawyer-speak, to help Marcellina (aria: La vendetta – “Vengeance”).

Wiener Staatsoperachor & Philharmoniker / Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Recorded at the Teatro Massimo, Palermo, 1st May 2002.

Brahms Johannes b Hamburg 1833-1897.

Brahm‘s Violin Concerto received its first performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 1st January 1879. The composer himself conducted, and the soloist was his long-standing friend, Joseph Joachim, one the greatest violinists of his day. While working on the solo part, Brahms had repeatedly sought Joseph’s advice: “Of course, I meant to ask you to correct it, I’ll be content if you say the odd word and perhaps write odd comments in the score; difficult, awkward, impossible, etc.” Thus we read in a letter written in the idyllic setting of Portschach on the Wortersee, where the concerto was composed during the summer of 1878.

Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra Op.77.

• 1st mvt. Allegro non troppo.
• 2nd mvt. Adagio.
• 3rd mvt. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace.

Gil Shaham Violin.

Berliner Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado

Dvorak Antonin Leopold b Prague, Bohemia 1841-1904.

Dvorak went to America in 1892 in order to spend the next three years running the newly founded National Conservatory of Music. His Ninth Symphony was written a year after his arrival in New York – it is said that only on completion of the work did he spontaneously add the subtitle, From the New World. The first performance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the 16th of December, 1893 was a great success, as Dvorak wrote to tell his publisher: “the newspapers say that never has a composer had such triumph”. I was in a box, the hall was full of the cream of New York society, people clapped so much that I had to thank them from my box, like a king!? alla Mascagni in Vienna – (don‘t laugh.)” ———– The work

Symphony in E minor Op.95 No.9 ‘From The New World’.

• 1st mvt. Adagio – Allegro molto.
• 2nd mvt. Largo.
• 3rd mvt. Scherzo; Molto vivace.
• 4th mvt. Allegro con fuco. See video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10u2l8

Berliner Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Fancesco b Busseto Parma 1813-1901

Overture ‘The Sicilian Vespers’.

Verdi’s first French opera, Les Vepres Siciliennes, received its first performance in 1855 within the framework of the Paris World Exhibition and proved so triumphantly successful that it had to be repeated no fewer than sixty-two times. It describes the uprising of the Sicilians against the French occupying forces in and around Palermo in 1282, an uprising known to history as the Sicilian Vespers. Today the opera is rarely performed in its entirety, BUT The Gramophone Room Radio plays the work at least twice a year including the utterly complete and unique first opera production performed and vividly recorded on BBC CDs. It is the only recording in the world! The overture is magnificent, which Verdi numbered among his favourite pieces on account of its drama and highly effective music. Following his death, it was also one of the works that Toscanini conducted at the composer’s memorial concert at La Scala on the 1st of February 1901.