Daily Blague

The other day, at Barnes & Noble in Union Square, following another great brunch at Blue Water Grill with Ms G and her Beau, I found a recording of Così fan tutte that I didn't know existed. (Or, if I knew, once upon a time, it was long ago, and I'd completely forgotten it.) Recorded in Berlin in 1962, it features a great cast under the direction of Eugen Jochum, who in my opinion didn't record nearly enough of the Viennese classics. (Or, if he did, they weren't released here.) Here's the cast:

Fiordiligi	Irmgard Seefried
Dorabella	Nan Merriman
Despina	Erika Köth
Ferrando	Ernst Haefliger
Guglielmo	Hermann Prey
Don Alfonso	Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

I've only listened to the recording once, so I won't characterize it, but it struck me as musical, as if Jochum had set out to make the most beautiful recording of the opera. Così is generally regarded as one of Mozart's very best scores, and the arias are indeed wonderfully colored by instrumental flashes. But Così is above all a sublimely funny opera, and in comedy timing is everything.

How would I rank this recording alongside the ten others in my library? (Yes, ten - I counted.) Ranking will have to wait - maybe forever. I don't have a favorite Così. I grew up thinking that the Schwarzkopf/Böhm recording was the apex, even though I knew that most music lovers preferred Schwarzkopf/Karajan. My first recording was the very heavily cut della Casa/Böhm. Until Sunday, my most recent acquisition was the surprisingly satisfying Fleming/Solti live recording.

What will I listen to next? I think it's time to haul out the 1952 Metropolitan Opera recording, Steber/Stiedry - in English. The translation by Ruth and Thomas P Martin is spry enough to be bearable. The great Richard Tucker sings Ferrando.