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A dying former Soviet factory town in the foothills of the Urals, at the edge of Siberia, some 2,000 km east of St. Petersburg got itself a "liberal governor", who decided to turn the place into a cultural center. Somehow Teodor Currentzis, a young conductor with some rather outlandish ideas, got the governor's attention and the latter invited Currentzis to take the reins of the local opera. Currentzis (who looks about 14 in the photos provided, but is actually in his early 40s per the Internet) made outrageous demands, including bringing his own orchestra, the Music-Aeterna, and creating a sort of music camp where everyone sleeps all day and stays up all night practicing and recording and being generally intense. Somehow, the liberal governor got him everything he wanted. Whereupon TC established something on the order of a "musical commune" in the easternmost city in Europe. This studio recording, the final product of a decade's worth of planning, according to the conductor is among the first fruits of this project.
As is demonstrated by the other reviewers, the response has been somewhat bipolar. The truth, it seems to me, lies somewhere in the middle. First of all, I'd like to argue that this is NOT and *HIP* performance as that term is generally understood. To be sure, Currentzis claims that it was his goal to restore Mozart's authentic ideas to a public who had been blinded by the performance practice of the bad old twentieth century. But he also admits that many of his choices are "distortions" that Mozart wouldn't have recognized. He uses instruments, (a lute, a guitar, a hurdy-gurdy) that Mozart would not have used, to create effects. The lute, for example, according to TC, is largely inaudible, but when it is added to sforzandi chords, it adds an emphasis that TC finds convincing. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing that Mozart would have *necessarily* vetoed, at least not in principle. But it isn't *authentic*; i.e., "because it sounds good" isn't a generally accepted raison-d'etre in HIP circles to base performance decisions on. Tellingly, the passionate auteur - and this production is nothing if not a product of Teodor Currentzis's musical passions and obsessions - allows that, although the musicians all use period or copies of period instruments and employ what, by description, could be described as historically informed performance practice (I would quarrel with that description, but...), it isn't to fulfill some historical ideal; on the contrary, it's because that's what sounds best to him. He further claims that if he thought that it would sound better on electric guitars, he'd play it on electric guitars. René Jacobs he's not.
Secondly, it seems to me that in order adequately to evaluate the merits of this artifact, the listener has to be first willing to accept Currentzis's program and decide to what degree he succeeds with that program in communicating the wonder and delight that Figaro is capable of delivering. If you aren't the experimental type, you're probably well warned to stay away from this. If you do spend, at the very least, time listening here, I guarantee you will hear things you've never heard before, of questionable "authenticity" as that term has been traditionally used, and reflective of a distinctively youthful and large personality at the helm. If you are okay with this, I think you will mostly like this recording, with some noteworthy flaws that subtract from a perfect score. I say it that way because I want to emphasize that my overall response to this recording is positive, but I do believe there's something of the charlatan about Currentzis and it is his audacity that not only makes for some wondrous, effervescent, at times even visionary music making; it also raises questions about the wisdom of what turns out to be a rather idiosyncratic approach on Currentzis's part to making music in general. (See, for instance his recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14 and the Santa Fe Listener's excellent review).
Although I am not as enthusiastic about this as the lead 5-star reviewer here, I do generally think Currentzis and friends have breathed life into this great opera. This is, however, something that, and here's where TC and I part company, wasn't really as necessary as Currentzis makes it out to be in the interview included with these CDs. The world is full of wonderful performances, both recorded and otherwise, of K. 492, some even from the 20th century! Although you may not have heard of these singers, that is of no significance: now you have. Although Currentzis's charge that the twentieth century created a perverse kind of opera singing that stressed the use of excessive vibrato is patently absurd, what really counts is the result. As it happens, but for Simone Kermes, who is the weak link (if not the sore thumb) of this cast, all the singers employ a technique that uses vibrato, albeit judiciously, and the result is, for the most part, lovely. Fannie Antonelou's Susanna and Mar-Ellen Nesi's Cherubino are both noteworthy for their lively and appropriately soulful sounds. Andre Bondarenko is alternately menacing and pathetic in a nuanced and carefully sung Count Almaviva, and bass Christian van Horn is convincing, if somewhat pedestrian, in the eponymous role.
As I said, I didn't like Kermes, but she's better in ensembles than in her solo numbers, and her voice isn't unpleasant in any case. It turns out that and ideal soprano for Currentzis is someone whose voice sounds more like a clarinet than like a person of flesh and blood, and to tell the truth, I'd rather hear that many some of the spintos I've heard over a lifetime of hearing this both on record and in the theater. Another intervention, the importance Currentzis et al. place on the role of the fortepiano, both in the recitatives and throughout. Extensive improvisation is the order of the day and it gives the whole recording a unique sound that I found refreshing, but others may have a different reaction. The sonics are excellent, as has been repeatedly pointed out, but it isn't flawless. I have listened to the CDs 3 times now, through headphones, through very high end computer speakers, and through full sized stereo speakers. There are moments when it sounds like microphones are jostled (the end of "Voi che sapete" for instance) and, sometimes, the fortepiano seems a bit too much in the foreground, but this last is very minor, and it may just be the novelty of the very individual character of the continuo playing in this recording that I'm hearing.
Since this review got long-winded a while back, let me conclude by saying that this would be an odd choice, I think, for a desert-island Figaro, but, if you're willing to open your ears and heart to a sometimes brash, but undeniably devoted and brilliant group of young musicians, I think you'll be glad you did.
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