Thank you, Chris - very interesting and all news to me. I have added a note to my survey, lifting your explanation, with grateful acknowledgement.
While looking around the web at Figaro-related matters, I took the opportunity to read again Ralph Moore's excellent 2018 survey of some selected Figaros. Speaking of the Erich Kleiber recording, he says "And goodness knows why the decision was made to give Susanna Marcellina’s aria – it’s wholly inappropriate".
The reason was, I imagine, that Marcellina was sung by a contralto, and a rich-toned one at that, Hilde Roessel-Majdan. There's no way that a contralto, especially a deep one, could cope with the tessitura of this aria - even mezzos who aren't very nearly sopranos find it difficult. Roessel-Majdan was engaged, I suppose, because she was the reigning Marcellina at the Vienna State Opera - apparently she sang the part there 194 times. But in those days, nobody ever sang this aria and we must suppose that it was not sung in any of these 194 performances. Roessel-Majdan doubtless walked into the recording engagement without it having occurred to her that she might be expected to sing the aria. So, in the face of Kleiber's insistence that the aria would not be cut, the problem was to find which other member of the cast could and would sing it at short notice - hence it went to Hilde Gueden.
The long tradition of a hefty "old bag" Marcellina sung by a contralto or at least a deep mezzo depended on the ommission of the aria. I don't know how many actual performances include it even today, but recordings usually do, and there has been a shift towards high mezzo or soprano Marcellina who can cope with the aria if required.
As to why Mozart should have suddenly required Marcellina to sing an aria in a higher tessitura than the rest of the role, which is within comfortable reach of a contralto, I cannot say. Probably it would be necessary to research the vocal characteristics of the singer for whom he wrote the part.
A final curiosity is that, for the Giulini recording, a coloratura soprano, Dora Gatta, was engaged as Marcellina who could have sailed through the aria with the greatest of ease - but she was not allowed to do so!
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