Opera Scotland

Nozze di Figaro 1950Glyndebourne Opera

Read more about the opera Marriage of Figaro

On paper this looks like a wonderful Figaro staging, with a group of excellent singers. In practice, it seems to have been a disappointment, largely due to the conducting style of Ferenc Fricsay. This great Hungarian had a superb career and died at a relatively young age. His recordings include excellent versions of Fidelio and Zauberflöte. The fast speeds he chose for Figaro seem to have made life difficult for the singers and have irritated the audience. Perhaps this style was a fore-runner of the authentic school that began to appear a few years later - if only there was a recording of one of the performances we would be able to judge for ourselves.

Of course, there was perhaps another reason for Figaro not pleasing everybody, and that was the simple fact that the other opera on display put the Festival on the map, and was still talked about with bated breath decades later - Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the original version of Ariadne auf Naxos. Did Sir Thomas perhaps hog all the rehearsal time? Or was it just that the RPO, working with him a lot, struggled with another conductor's way with Mozart?

The chorus, under Chorus Master John Pritchard, contained several who would become familiar names in later years - sopranos Olwen Davies and Joan Stuart; tenors William McAlpine and Alexander Young.