Sunday Night at the Opera: Marriage of Figaro

We’ll finish our Month of Mozart this week with Le Nozze di Figaro, one of the greatest, most popular and most human of all operas. The earliest of Mozart’s Italian masterpieces, its characters exhibit extraordinary depth, and the kaleidoscopic ensembles are unmatched.

I’ll play you highlights from a historic 1955 recording on Decca, with Cesare Siepi as Figaro, Hilde Gueden as his betrothed Susanna, Lisa della Casa as the disillusioned countess, and Susanne Danco as the amorous page Cherubino.  Erich Kleiber conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.