The name of Josef Krips is associated the world over with ensemble opera of the finest sort and with a timelessly valid approach to Mozart that remains exemplary in our responses to the composer. Both these qualities are evident in the Orfeo’s live recording of the Vienna State Opera’s production of Così fan tutte, a performance recorded on 22 September 1968 and not previously available on CD. For all its precision, Krips’s approach still leaves ample scope for spontaneity and allows his whole cast to blossom. This is made possible in part by the conductor’s detailed preparation but also by a speed of reaction that never relents. The chief beneficiaries of this approach are the two characters who pull the strings in Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s multilayered plot: the mercurially bright and vocally agile Despina of Olivera Miljakovic and the cynical Don Alfonso of Eberhard Waechter, here playing a character part for the first time in his career – a début as surprising as that of the young Adolf Dallapozza at Ferrando. The rest of the cast reads like a Who’s Who of some of the Vienna opera-going public’s favourite singers. Gundula Janowitz sings the part of Fiordiligi with her usual crystalline intonation and lyrical inwardness, without ever underplaying the work’s sense of drama. As Dorabella, Christa Ludwig demonstrates that extensive experience of a role does not necessarily lead to a lack of temperament, a truism that also applies to the Guglielmo of Walter Berry, whose bass-baritone voice retains its pristine freshness, allowing him to complete the cast with the greatest naturalness. The Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera round off a Mozart recording that is no mere afterthought to the Mozart celebrations of 2006 or even a historical retrospective but a lesson in how first-rate performances of Mozart’s operas should be presented as part of the everyday repertory.