chickenfeet

As time passes I find more and more that voices, however good, do not suffice to make an opera; I find the overall conception & vision matter more. What I loveloveLOVE in this one is how joyous, how warm, how tender, how light-hearted and sure-footed it is. I played the comparison game at Amazon (really, those "Review All" things are a marvel) and it kicked Boehm out of the water, exposed Solti as ponderous and wordy (I know, I know), made mincemeat of that fraud, Gardiner, and really only saved (of the recordings available to sample) Giulini (which is of course magnificent, but there's a dramatic element I worship in Don Giovanni, and which I think is overkill in Figaro), René Jacobs (again after his Cosi, even though I was instinctively prejudiced against it and naturally Fritz Busch.) Karajan's 1950 Philharmonia version is interesting but nowhere as evenly good as his Cosi of the same period.

But Kleiber's genius is the Viennese ensemble spirit; this is such a happy production!