Attitudes toward Mozart have changed dramatically since the 18th century. Regarded primarily as a novelty act in his own time, Wolfgang has emerged as a demigod. The latest and most amusing myth of all is that listening to his music makes your child smarter – not more educated, mind you, but actually scoring higher in IQ. Mozart lived before the notion of “classical music” took shape and would be amazed to learn that people in the year 2004 had even heard of him, let alone continued to listen to his music.

While the 20th century witnessed the deification, the 21st may well yield the reformation. With the ascendancy of the period-instrument movement, music of a certain age is being re-examined and reconstituted along less worshipful lines. Ironically, in an era when contemporary music has proven to be a woefully vapid disappointment, the cutting edge may be considerably sharper when applied to the music of the past than to that of the future.

Enter Robert Levin, pianist, fortepianist, and scholar. Over the next two seasons he will be presenting six evenings at Weill Recital Hall designed to enlighten both intellectually and musically. Mr. Levin will intersperse comments, musical examples, and performances to illuminate the process by which the boy genius consistently took music from the intimate to the infinite.

If the entire series is as delightful as this first installment, then Weill will continue to be sold out as it was on Thursday. Levin performs at the Steinway grand in a style deeply influenced by his expertise at the kinder, gentler fortepiano. His individual notes are always crisp and detached and the sustaining pedal is virtually never employed. As he pointed out in his remarks, the patron saint of periodicity, Sir Roger Norrington, was conducting this night just next door on the Carnegie main stage, so vibrato was verboten.

Levin made much of the classification of Mozart’s music into three distinct types. The serious music includes the symphonies and string quartets, the pragmatic the dances and serenades; the third category, which occupied the first half of the program, is the recreational, designed more for home and amateur soirees. The jewel in that particular crown has to be the magical “kegelstatt” trio for viola, clarinet, and piano.

Mozart was the first composer to recognize the polychromatic possibilities of the relatively new wind instrument and quickly discovered the especially pleasing sonorous combination of viola and clarinet that he himself, as a violist, could share with his clarinetist friend Anton Stadler. I hope they were more coordinated in their performances than Mr. Levin and Richard Stoltzman. Leaving aside Mr. Stoltzman’s uninteresting tone, his phrasing was decidedly modern and disjointed – not per se a bad thing in Mozart interpretation, but it contrasted jarringly with Mr. Levin’s pristine straightforwardness. The trio, though charming, sounded under-rehearsed. Mr. Levin had mentioned that he was going for an improvisatory feel; perhaps the rhythmic disparity was for effect.

Much more satisfying was the solid realization of the Piano Quartet in G Minor, the direct precursor of the Brahms in the same key. This is serious music with a capital “S” and the assembled forces presented it as the apex of Haydnesque Sturm und Drang. Cellist Paul Katz provided a forceful bottom and violist Kim Kashkashian was emotive and eloquent, even without a full armamentarium of vibration at her disposal stylistically. Lucy Stoltzman was a bit colorless in tone – perhaps it runs in the family.

Mr. Levin was impressive throughout, not just as a performer but also as a lecturer. It is difficult to achieve just the right tone for one of these talks with music. He has that enviable ability of talking to us all as if we were his friends.

***

I was extremely fortunate at university to study Shakespeare with a rather renowned poet whose thesis was that to truly appreciate the plays at hand, one should never pay any attention to who was speaking. For this exceptional listener, the ebb and flow of the meter itself was what mattered and I can still hear many of those extraordinarily crafted verses in my mind’s ear today with little concern as to their place or function within their specific drama.

This same sense of supremacy of beauty over meaning was evident on Friday evening at the premiere of this season’s run of “Le nozze di Figaro” at City Opera. From the first notes of the overture, conductor Steven Mosteller informed us that this was to be a smooth and comforting version of the comedy, not a raucous and salacious one. Tempi were relaxed throughout; the entire construction seemed more fitting for an andante, even a barcarolle.

The staging and acting also fit this warm-bath approach. Figaro measures the bed, but not Susanna. Barbarina and Bartolo are more characters than caricatures. The scheming of all is benign, the passion decidedly bridled. And this Cherubino seems to actually want to go into the army.

Similarly, the singing was pleasantly homogenous. Although there were shades of qualitative difference in the gentlemen’s vocalism, they were not wide gaps. The Figaro of David Pittsinger was solid and wonderfully entertaining. He has a confident lower register and a seemingly natural extroversion that fit his character exactly. Paulo Szot was a less satisfying Count, but still hit his notes consistently and maintain the uninterrupted and interwoven fabric of this rising and falling regular breathing pattern. Jan Opalach was a superb Dr. Bartolo, descending lower and consistently outshining his two baritonal co-stars, in the process elevating his part to the status of most interesting.

As for the women, Sharon Rostorf-Zamir was a saucy but controlled Susanna, Kathleen Magee a perfectly drawn Barbarina, Orla Boylan a rather unfortunately shrill Countess. Special praise is due to the Cherubino of Jennifer Rivera. Delighting in her hosenrolle with a twist, Ms. Rivera made the most of her delicious casting as a woman playing a man playing a woman. She/he/she held sway on several occasions, not just vocally, where she was delightful, but also kinetically. She turned her dressing scene into a virtuoso commedia dell’ Arte pantomime on the subject of sexual orientation, while never resorting to gestures of the more explicit variety

For lovers of ensemble singing, this “Nozze” is one to remember. Some of the irony in the music may be lost in holistic treatment, but this is more than compensated for by the consistent beauty of the lyric line and the sense of absolute and utter enjoyment, so emblematic of the philosophical overview of the late eighteenth century (although Mozart himself seems to have been a bit of a fly in that particular ointment). Bring the children, have a good time; everyone on that stage certainly does.