Carlo Maria Giulini’s studio recording of Le nozze di Figaro was made in 1959, the September sessions followed by a concert performance in the Royal Festival Hall. This recording, however, comes from a concert in the same hall on February 6, 1961: the cast is quite different, save for Schwarzkopf, Cappuccilli and Gillian Spencer, the 1st girl. It’s billed as a ‘first CD release’, but in fact the performance did appear on the Walhall label in 2011, mysteriously described as being from the Royal Albert Hall.

The overall timing here is much as before. In both performances one sometimes feels a want of spaciousness: there’s no pause before the Count’s outraged echo of Susanna’s ‘Hai già vinta la causa’, for instance, or before the humiliated husband implores the Countess to forgive him. Some of the recitatives in the later recording are gabbled, and the beginning of the Overture is a scramble. Both versions omit the arias for Marcellina and Don Basilio in Act 4, and there are cuts in the secco recitative; in the recognition scene a line of Don Curzio’s is assigned to Marcellina. The 1961 concert performance is done plain: so there’s no bell to summon Susanna in the first scene, and no slaps for Figaro in Act 3 or – one misdirected, the others very much intended – in Act 4.

Still, this is a concert, not a theatre performance, and it is highly enjoyable. The BBC recording, in mono of course, is excellently balanced: Don Basilio’s ‘Così fan tutte le belle’, often hard to discern, comes across loud and clear. On the other hand, the cellos and basses in the recitative preceding Figaro’s ‘Se vuol ballare’ sound as though they were limbering up for Beethoven’s Ninth. Giulini and the Philharmonia are on top form: there’s a lovely opening phrase from the violins, almost a caress, in the catty duettino for Marcellina and Susanna; and the woodwind are nicely to the fore in the latter’s ‘Venite inginocchiatevi’.

Master and man are well matched. Fernando Corena, whom you might expect to have been cast as Doctor Bartolo, is a fully rounded Figaro: dangerous in ‘Se vuol ballare’, assertive in Act 2, bitter in ‘Aprite un po’ quegl’occhi’, all beautifully enunciated. Ernest Blanc, the Escamillo in Beecham’s Carmen, sings out firmly in ‘Crudel! Perché finora’: greatly preferable to Eberhard Wächter’s mezza voce on the older recording though, to be fair, Wächter’s delivery of the Count’s aria is as strong as Blanc’s. Elisabeth Söderström is a charming Susanna who finds real passion in ‘Deh vieni’, a quality present also in Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s accompanied recitative leading up to ‘Dove sono’. Teresa Berganza sings ‘Voi che sapete’ winningly, with a strong, confident last phrase, and there’s more passion as Cherubino pours his heart out to the Countess. Giorgio Tadeo has the right weight for ‘La vendetta’. Hugues Cuénod is perfectly cast as an amusing Don Basilio, as he was in the Glyndebourne recording under Vittorio Gui. Like Michael Kelly, back in 1786, he doubles as a stuttering Don Curzio. After her recent death, it’s both pleasant and sad to note Heather Harper’s poignant account of Barbarina’s little cavatina.

In my Gramophone Collection (A/11) I called the studio recording ‘earthbound’. I would now say that was fair only by comparison with the wonderful Giulini Don Giovanni. It’s well worth having; and so is this later recording, with the presence of an audience – albeit not in a theatre – eliciting a bit more zip from the singers.