This is an energetic, ideally balanced performance of Cosi—no small feat. Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s leadership percolates and is full of wit, but it is not cold; as often as you hear some (never intrusive) laughter from the audience during the recits (this was recorded live at Baden-Baden) you also are wafted along by the sheer romance of the melodies. Both “love duets” in Act 2 make the audience believe the characters’ emotions are real—at least at that moment: this isn’t a cynical reading, it’s a life’s-like-that reading. This ability to balance slapstick and sentiment so that neither dominates, along with Alessandro Corbelli’s interpretation of Don Alfonso, are the key.
Corbelli, who possesses a voice lighter than most Alfonsos (and lighter than the Guglielmo on this set), is never snide or bullying and he doesn’t sneak around; he is trying to teach a life-lesson to the naïve Ferrando and Guglielmo. He sings smoothly and never exaggerates. Nézet-Séguin’s tempos are natural and flowing and, although they embellish lightly in the recits, his fortepianist and cellist do not become characters, as, say, René Jacobs’ team does.
The women are not ideal. I’ve admired everything about Miah Persson in the past—her Poppea, her Governess (in Turn of the Screw), and her previous Cosi (on DVD from Glyndebourne)—and here, although still admirable, she’s missing something. Both ends of her voice give some trouble—the top tends to splay and the bottom is weakish—and she is vaguely uninvolved at times: “Al campo”, in Act 2, as Fiordiligi decides to join her love on the battlefield, is bland—there’s neither irony nor sincerity—and elsewhere she sounds a bit detached in general. I am only holding her up to her own high standards.
Mezzo Angela Brower, a singer new to me, is a perky Dorabella, her “Ladroncello” aria a pointed delight, and she exhibits both a lovely morbidezza and edge, each when called for. She does not take a back seat to her sister. Mojca Erdmann’s Despina is—let me search for the gentlest word—disgusting. She partakes of every known cliché this role has ever seen, both bellowing as the doctor and squeaky as the notary—but more, and worse, than that, she embellishes her vocal line with shockingly out-of-place and mostly ugly very high notes. Cute? Sassy? Insane? If she were your maid, you’d fire her.
In addition to Corbelli, the other guys are equally good. Rolando Villazon, with Werther, Hoffmann, Roméo, and Don Carlos in his repertoire, has recently turned to Mozart. His Ottavio was excellent and so is his Ferrando: such muscular singing takes some getting used to in this role, but if you think about it, swagger and anger play as great a part as sweet boyishness here, and Villazon offers it all. A high note here or there may smack of verismo, but he’s an exciting and vibrant character. And he handles the ridiculously fast coloratura in the first-act finale—touching on every note in precise rhythm—better than any singer I can recall. Adam Plachetka’s Guglielmo is abetted by a round, darker sound than we’re accustomed to, but the role is vocally far-reaching, and it’s nice to hear the low notes as big as the high ones. He sings off the text brilliantly, is smooth as silk in his second-act duet with Dorabella, and can express anger and hurt equally well. It’s an excellent, complex performance.
The women are all better in ensembles than in their solos (even Erdmann) and the sum of the parts adds up to more than my complaints about the individual issues. Just listen to the spectacular, involved, mood-altering second-act finale to hear what a fascinating, polished viewpoint Nézet-Séguin and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe have taken. The Despina rules this out as a first choice, but it’s a fine performance on many levels. The finest Cosi remains Karajan’s on EMI (1954).
