DVD Videos

“Why is it that this performance in low-fi and indifferent black-and-white picture, and in a distinctly old-fashioned staging, has become a legend among collectors of opera on video to the extent of becoming a VHS best-seller? The answer lies in the quality of execution of a once-in-a-lifetime cast, supported by idiomatic conducting and playing at the San Carlo in Naples back in 1958.
Tebaldi had already proved at the Maggio Musicale at Florence in 1953 under Mitropoulos that Leonora was to be among her most successful roles, and here she confirms the fact in spades with her lustrous, effortlessly shaped and eloquent traversal of the role.
By her side she has the incomparable Corelli, singing his first Don Alvaro, and revealing that his brilliant, exciting yet plangent tone is precisely the right instrument to project Alvaro's loves and sorrows. At this stage of his career his thrilling upper register and incisive delivery of the text were at their most potent, as he makes abundantly clear in aria and duet. As his antagonist, Bastianini sings with the kind of Verdian élan seemingly now extinct among his breed. He may not be the most subtle of Verdian baritones, but here his macho approach ideally suits Don Carlo's vengeful imprecations.
If that weren't enough vocal splendour for one occasion, there's Christoff – yet another member of the cast at the peak of his career – intoning Padre Guardiano's dignified utterances in that unique if not always entirely Italianate manner of his. Renato Capecchi for long made the part of Melitone his own: one can see and hear why here in his amusing yet never overstated sense of the role's comic possibilities.
The voices are caught with very little distortion in goodish sound. The original film has suffered some deterioration over the years, but its recent restoration yields far better results than was once the case on dim VHS copies: this DVD derives from RAI's original master copy.
Pleasure is completed by the bonus of an interview with Tebaldi.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

5 star BBC Music Magazine (March 2003)

“Here in Orange, France, on a windswept, night in 1974, they had greatness itself. Pierre Jourdan's film of the event is a priceless document, first of all, in the history of the opera. Stage-settings of Norma are usually hopeless: an offence to the eye, a chafing confutation of the spirit by gross matter. The ancient Roman amphitheatre is at any rate worthy and appropriate, and the Mistral, which threatened to close down the whole show and turn away an audience estimated at 10,000, adds a fine reminder of the power of Nature as it sets the druidical robes billowing and attacks the microphones.
The vastness of the stage provides a further challenge to the man in charge, and although conductor Giuseppe Patanè's star is somewhat eclipsed in the general view of things, he deserves congratulation for two contrary achievements – holding the ensemble together and giving the soloists freedom. But it's their night, and particularly Caballé's. She called it the greatest single performance of her career.
In certain passages it's hard to think of any voice we've known that could sound more lovely; but, more than that, the great role is sung and acted with such well-founded assurance that for once it fulfils its own legend, the embodiment of musical-dramatic sublimity in 19th-century opera. Of the others in the cast it must for now suffice to say that they're worthy partners.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This film of Otello isn't to be overlooked, in spite of its age, because of the quality of the performance.
It formed part of Italian television's pioneering series of productions employing the top rank of native singers when such a group still existed. On this occasion a well-known opera director, Franco Enriquez, was employed to achieve as much as was possible in terms of dramatic fluidity within the technical restrictions then applicable in the studio. The acting of minor characters may be a bit stilted, but the principals, who come under face-to-face scrutiny, stand up well to Enriquez's methods.
So preserved here is a native account of Verdi's masterpiece that would be hard to equal today.
Mario Del Monaco was then at the height of his powers, the reigning Otello of the time, and one of the role's most powerful exponents ever. His portrayal had developed by the late 1950s into a psychological study of some depth and intensity, released on a stream of taut, exciting tone. By his side, Renato Capecchi sings a strongly voiced, highly articulate, intelligently shaped and believable Iago. But perhaps the most compelling performance of all is Rosanna Carteri's Desdemona.
Love, fidelity and sincerity are conveyed in her eyes, indeed her whole being, and in her faultless vocal traversal of the role. Over all presides Serafin, conducting an unobtrusively correct and vital performance of a score he knew so well.
There are downsides. The lip-synch, especially in the case of Capecchi, leaves much to be desired. The sound is confined and occasionally wayward, and the film is obviously a shade worn, but all that's easily forgotten when you're caught up in such a convincing performance.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010