One of Fricsay’s last recordings, this sublime ‘Figaro’ is once more restored to the catalogue. It boasts a Who’s Who of great Mozarteans from the late-1950s/early 1960s, including Irmgard Seefried, Maria Stader and Hertha Töpper with the magnificent Fischer-Dieskau in incomparable form as the Count Almaviva. The extensive booklet notes include a synopsis, notes on […]

On 11th June 1944, Karl Böhm conducted ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ at the Vienna State Opera. It was, in his own words, ‘despite the dark shadows cast by the war which was already long since lost, a feast for musical Vienna’. The occasion was the 80th birthday of Richard Strauss ­which would have undoubtedly been celebrated […]