Editorial Reviews

This collection of Mozart operatic arias, performed by stars of the last generation, has gone through several reissues and appears now on the budget Classics for Pleasure line. Don't be discouraged by that -- the selections were chosen in the first place by someone who cared about Mozart singing, and this remains an ideal one-disc program of Mozart arias for the car or beach house. The recordings date from between 1961 and 1987, but they have been remastered into a clear and coherent whole. Each track features a different singer, so the album could just as easily be a sampler of singers as one of Mozart; the arias are grouped into sets of three or four each from "Don Giovanni," "Così fan tutte," "The Marriage of Figaro," and "The Magic Flute." The individual performances are consistently good. Listeners may well have their own favorites, but a few highlights are the languorously seductive "Là ci darem la mano" from Roger Soyer and Helen Donath (track 2), a "Voi che sapete" from Fiorenza Cossotto (track 12) that plays on the ambiguity of the pants role, and a radiant "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön" from Siegfried Jerusalem (track 16). There are too few arias to give a sense of dramatic continuity to any of the selections, but they nevertheless flow naturally from one to another, and the listener is left not only with Mozart's melodies ringing in the ears but with a good sense for how some big operatic voices have treated the task of slimming down for Mozart's smaller dimensions. Consistently lovely, and a worthy expenditure for the budget-minded newcomer to opera. James Manheim, All Music Guide

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