Customer Reviews

Mozart - L'oca del Cairo / Fischer-Dieskau, Wiens, P. Schreier, D. Johnson, Coburn, P. Schreier ~ Lo Sposo deluso / Grant, Palmer, Rolfe Johnson, Tear, Cotrubas, C. Davis

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The value in owning lesser know and fragmentary works of the great composers is to view their artistic development and judgements. Mozart abandoned composing L'oca del Cairo because, as he states in a letter to his father Leopold, it was just plain dumb. And listening to this fragment, we can see that Mozart's heart just wasn't into it.

I give this disc four stars for the second fragment, Lo Sposo deluso, which is absolutely brilliant and makes me wish he completed the opera.

L'Oca del Cairo (The Cairo Goose) and Lo Sposo Deluso (The Disappointed Bridegroom)

If you're not ready for a full length Mozart opera then try these two extensive fragments of opera buffa (comic opera). Light and airy I enjoyed both. Both are very much Mozart in his early opera period, three years before Figaro. Wonderful music.

db

No "Don Giovanni's" here, but utterly charming music nonetheless from a young Mozart. Superb performances too.

This "L'oca del Cairo" is all but a great opera. Actually one wonders how was that in a few years, Mozart would write such masterpieces as "Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and the "Zauberflote". Music is pretty boring, with all the stereotypes of Opera Buffa, but without that sort of 'wit' Mozart's music is famous for. However, recommended not for its inner quality, but for a more complete picture of Mozart, who wrote more than forty operas, although you have probably listened only to for or five of them.