Mozart + Mozart: Insertion arias for Il burbero di buon cuore; Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Le nozze di Figaro; Don Giovanni, La clemenza di Tito; Paisiello: Il barbiere di Siviglia; VM Soler: Il burbero di buon cuore; Traetta: Antigona Olga Peretyatko (soprano); Basel Symphony Orchestra/Ivor Bolton Sony Classical 19075919052 60:01 mins
This enterprising disc places Mozart among some of his contemporaries – Paisiello and Vicente Martín y Soler were both known to Mozart in Vienna. Curiously, the liner notes give no information at all about the singer, whose Russian origins probably explain the inclusion of an item from Antigona by Traetta (who never met Mozart) since it was premiered in St Petersburg in 1772.
Olga Peretyatko won the Operalia prize in 2007. Her impressive range stretches from a very clear low G (in ‘Non più di fiori’ from Tito) to a sparkling top D (In ‘Marten aller Arten’ from Die Entführung), and her tasteful decorations in ‘Dove sono’ (from Figaro) show just how much she understands the style. Her voice takes on an unusually dark colour in the Traetta pieces, and there is perhaps a slight lack of tenderness in the Andante sostenuto section of Mozart’s ‘Vado, ma dove?’ The centrepiece of the disc is the long extract, dramatically sung, from Die Entführung, an opera in which she performed in 2016. The Mozart pieces attract sophisticated support from the orchestra though elsewhere (in the Traetta) it is less refined.
Anthony Pryer