Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

This is undoubtedly the greatest Italian opera buffa ever written. It goes beyond the genre of the buffa to something more profound, a dimension of lyric comedy that only a genius like Mozart could break into. I have broadcast various recordings of this amazing dramma giocoso over a period of several decades. This Sunday I return to one I last broadcast on Sunday, October 10, 2004, a Harmonia Mundi compact disc release from that same year with Rene Jacobs conducting the period instrumentalists of the Concerto Köln and the choral group Collegium Vocale Ghent.

Jacobs himself was a professional singer, a countertenor, his voice much recorded in the repertoire of "early music" and the baroque. A distinguished career in conducting "period" musical interpretations of eighteenth-century classical music was soon to follow. Early in the twenty-first century Harmonia Mundi released a series of studio recordings of Rene Jacobs's interpretations of the canon of the operas of the mature Mozart. Jacobs makes these famous Mozart operas sound fresh again. Joining him in his endeavor to rediscover the dramatic power of "The Marriage of Figaro" are remarkable voices like that of soprano Véronique Gens, who in this recording is heard in the role of the Countess Almaviva. Those knowledgeable about singers who specialize in the eighteenth century singing style will recognize her name.