モーツァルト: 歌劇「魔笛」

ネゼ=セガン&ビリャソンによる「モーツァルト・オペラ・シリーズ」第6弾は待望の『魔笛』

バーデン=バーデン音楽祭におけるライヴ録音によるネゼ=セガンのモーツァルト:オペラ録音第6弾となる今作は大好評を博した『魔笛』。ビリャソンのパパゲーノのみならず、タミーノにはフロリアン=フォークトを迎え、現在最高のキャストで繰り広げられた舞台のライヴ録音です。
ユニバーサル・ミュージック/IMS

This 2019 recording was the sixth in the series of Mozart operas undertaken by tenor Rolando Villazon and conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, a hot property in the operatic world at the time. It has sold well out of the gate. Perhaps this is because Die Zauberflote, even more than other Mozart operas, was ripe for a fresh interpretation. It gets one in this production from the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, with Villazon taking for himself not the tenor role of Tamino, which you might expect, but that of the comic-romantic, usually baritone Papageno. It works here because it fits with Nezet-Seguins overall conception of the work. You might divide recordings and performances of Die Zauberflote into two groups: those that treat the opera as a small, semi-popular work, and those that take it at full scale. Nezet-Seguin decides he can have it all, and he pulls it off. Much of the opera is light and delicately funny, and Villazon adapts well to this. He avoids a cutesy sound throughout, and he isnt challenged in his lower register simply because Nezet-Seguin is not asking for a lot of volume. Klaus Florian Vogts Tamino is similarly restrained. But when Mozart calls for a big sound, Nezet-Seguin is not afraid to draw the contrast. The Queen of the Night, Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova, offers an unusually muscular Der Holle Rache, avoiding any trace of squeakiness, and the scenes with Sarastro and his royal entourage are given full sonic splendor. The overall effect is an alternation between low comedy and spectacle, and this may have been very close to what Mozart and Schikaneder had in mind. The rest of the cast, mostly German, is uniformly strong, and this is a highly recommended Zauberflote all in all.