Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart专辑介绍：The Philips Complete Mozart Edition has arrived at Mozart's first great opera seria and makes a brave enough showing with this 1977 Salzburg recording, originally made for DG. Here is the start of the unfurling of the great themes of loyalty and mercy which reach their apotheosis in ldomeneo and La clemenza di Tito; here, too, are the embryos of the highly-charged accompanied recitatives which are their glory. Here there are simply yards of the most secco of recitative before a single aria appears. Yet such is the skill in casting that it matters little. As Arbate (Christine Weidinger), Sifare (Edita Gruberova) and Aspasia (Arleen Auger) sort out just who fancies whom, their complementary qualities are revealed, qualities which are later to combine richly in the single duet and the final quintet with which Mozart cautiously approaches ensemble writing. To Weidinger's bright vigour of enunciation, Gruberova, as the good son Sifare, responds with a flicker of something else besides: a sense of both steadfastness and yearning which hovers in the very first moments of her wonderfully sentient recitative. The smooth sheen which clothes the flames at the core of her voice shows itself beautifully in one of Mozart's first great "Parto" arias, "Parto, nel gran cimento". Gruberovâ enjoys, too, her "Lungi date, mio bene", the highest register of the voice the more affecting for being played off against the solo horn over the aria's wide spaces and slow-changing harmonies. Agnes Baltsa re-creates scarcely less powerfully the agility and range of the other castrato role, that of the baddie (initially) Farnace. She uses her distinctive, grapey low register to give a dark, glowering patina to Farnace's penchant for deceit and ambition, redoubling her energies as his conscience wins the day in a triumphant final aria, "Gid degli occhi". As for Mitridate himself, Mozart wrote the role bearing in mind both the strengths and limitations of the singer on hand. What the part lacks in athleticfioriture it makes up for in tortuous leaps which test the tenor's range to the very limits. Werner Hollweg's voice is not at its most attractive in its extremes, and there are times when the larynx aches vicariously as notes are hurled up to vault over the stave. And he is rather more tremulous here than either his son's or his fiancee's disloyalty warrants. He fares better, though, in recitative, especially in what was one of Mozart's finest accompanied ones to date. It is in these recitatives, by the way, as much as in the arias, that one could wish for a little more from the Salzburg Mozarteum. Their playing, under Leopold Hager, is true, alert and musicianly, but just a little dull: one longs at times for more ventilation of the wind writing, sharper attack, more penetrating phrasing. There is nothing but pleasure for the listener when Ismene appears, in the melting tones of Ileana Cotrubas; but her arias rarely exploit the expressive qualities of her voice to the full. She is something of a passive exemplar in this libretto, and Mozart knew it. He wrote a lively ditty or two, though, for the Roman tribune, Marzio, and David Kuebler rises to his brief moments of heroism with strength and sensitivity. -- Gramophone [2/1992]