Mozart

La finta semplice,K51/K46a
Helen Donath Rosina ; Anthony Rolfe Johnson Polidoro ; Teresa Berganza Giacinta ; Robert Holl Cassandro ; Jutta-Renate Ihloff Ninetta ; Thomas Moser Fracasso ; Robert Lloyd Simone

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra/Leopold Hager

Orfeo C085843F (166 minutes : DDD)

Notes, text and translation included.
Reviewed: Gramophone (8/1989)

La finta semplice may be no Nozze di Figaro; but compared with other opere buffe of the late 1760s you don't have to make many allowances for the fact that it is the work of a 12-year-old. It never achieved, for reasons we are unlikely to discover, the premiere Leopold Mozart had sought at the court opera house in Vienna; and perhaps it would not have gone down there as well as the native Italian fare then in favour, for it lacks something of the sense of pace of the best Italian comic operas of the time. Listening to this performance, I was struck by the graceful charm of the slower and medium-paced arias, and by the often felicitious scoring (several numbers have flutes to add a soft halo to the texture, one uses english horns with an oboe, another achieves an exquisite effect with bassoons and divided violas all these aptly keyed to the expressive context). The quicker arias are more ordinary, and some of the heroic ones—for example the penultimate number, for the tenor—are over-extended for what they have to say. And Mozart had not yet acquired his later skills in the management of rhythmic variety, so that the effect is liable to be rather four-square. I do not think that Leopold Hager does as much as he might have done to overcome this in what is perfectly competent but not specially imaginative direction. I wish, too, that he had had the recitative move more rapidly, more conversationally—and with the correct obligatory appoggiaturas that give the Italian language its proper musical support. I am as tired of having to write this as you, dear readers, must by now be of reading it.
This cast is excellent. I find the two basses a shade on the heavy side, though they are cleverly chosen for their roles, Holl as the rich misogynist (caught in the end by the feigned simpleton of the title) and Lloyd as the Sergeant. Moser does the main tenor role plainly but very decently while Rolfe Johnson brings a touch of distinction and elegance to the real simpleton, the misogynist's younger brother. A lively and pert maid is provided by Jutta-Renate Ilhoff. The best contributions come from Teresa Berganza, tasteful, beautifully focused and spirited in the role of Giacinta, and Helen Donath, whose appealing and musical voice, in the title-role, is used with such intelligence in a number of arias of widely differing character and whose touches of shapely phrasing give much pleasure. The well balanced recording comes over with increased clarity in this CD reissue.