DVD Videos

“This Warner DVD offers idiomatic performances from La Scala of Puccini's trilogy. The productions are broadly traditional, with an ultra-realistic set for the grand guignol of Iltabarro and rather more stylised settings for SuorAngelica and Gianni Schicchi.
Casting is strong in Il tabarro, with Piero Cappuccilli in his prime as Michele, the cuckolded bargemaster. His appeal to Giorgetta, his estranged wife, is so passionate and tender that his climactic solo has your total sympathy. Sylvia Sass as Giorgetta tends to overact; the steely edge in her voice helps keep your sympathies with Michele. As Luigi, Nicola Martinucci is powerful and unstrained. Outstanding among the others is Eleonora Jankovic as La Frugola, firm of voice and characterful without overacting.
The staging of the murder and Michele's revealing of the body under his cloak, always tricky to bring off, is neatly managed.
The stylised set for Suor Angelica is unobjectionable.
What dominates, as it should, is Rosalind Plowright's moving performance of the title role.
Next to her, Dunja Vejzovic is disappointing, not so much vocally as in appearance and personality; she seems too young and lightweight; hardly the unforgiving Princess. The nuns are nicely touched in, and the chorus is impressive. Brian Large's direction sidesteps the final and sentimental vision of Angelica's dead child.
Gianni Schicchi is placed in an enormous apartment with a panoramic view over Florence. The claustrophobia that can add point to the comic story is entirely absent, but the set is undistracting.
Eleonora Jankovic again stands out among the incidental characters as the old woman, Zita, and Yuri Marusin as Rinuccio copes well with his big aria. Lauretta, his lover, is strongly cast, with Cecilia Gasdia luxuriantly drawing out 'O mio babbino caro' in finely shaded phrases, to the delight of the Scala audience. Juan Pons is a firm and commanding Schicchi, taking centrestage from his first entry.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“both [Heppner and Eaglen] are vocally at their peak, singing like angels, totally unstrained and finely focused. The young René Pape as King Mark is formidably impressive too, with Katarina Dalayman a superb Brangäne...Levine brings out the power and concentration of this epic, drawing brilliant playing from the Met. Orchestra” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“The production is in the best spirit of the Maryinsky, sumptuous to look at and full of period atmosphere...a faithful attempt to match what the composer might have expected to see on stage...This is a very distinguished production and a hugely enjoyable evening.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“Malena Ernman is a stunning Orlofsky (at the end, Lawless reveals that the prince was really a princess after all), and Håkan Hagegård and Pamela Armstrong are very satisfying as Dr. Falke and Rosalinde, respectively. Lyubov Petrova is a charmer, both visually and musically...The set is spectacular, particularly in Act Two, where the use of a rotating stage creates a movie-like effect.” Classical Net, 2004

“There are several early opera productions from Italian television featuring Franco Corelli, but this one catches the great tenor in one of his favourite roles, as Don José, in splendid form vocally, and even more so dramatically. Although the soundtrack was pre-recorded, the studio production was live; Corelli and Belén Amparán as Carmen strike sparks off each other.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“Klinghoffer has yet to be performed in the US, and Penny Woolcock's live-action film, shot on location, won't do much to quieten the controversies that have kept it off the stage. She fleshes out the opera's philosophies, inasmuch as the composer conducted and discussed production details with Woolcock, and was thereby at least complicit in the choice of images. Klinghoffer is more an orato- Opera Adams rio than an opera, and she uses the choruses and non-dramatic stretches to fill out the characters with flashbacks to 1940s Palestine and even historical footage of Nazi Germany.
This is Adams's slowest stage piece, and Woolcock's close, hand-held camerawork tests severely the singers' acting, particularly when they aren't singing. The singers were actually recorded live during the on-location filming, after the orchestra was recorded. The payoff is immense: synchronisation is perfect, and what we hear goes believably with what we see. Even in these trying circumstances, the vocalism and acting are outstanding.
So, does the film show librettist Alice Goodman and stage director Peter Sellars's scenario to be anti-Semitic and sympathetic to terrorism, as some of its American critics claim? The film does round out the terrorists' characters, but there's a balanced portrayal, showing the good and the bad of both Jews and Palestinians. The terrorists show regret after the killing, but there is also a stoning where a Palestinian mob gets drunk on its own brutality. Some of the Jewish tourists are parodies early on, but Marilyn Klinghoffer comes to take on towering dignity and strength. Most of those who've criticised the politics are responding to what they want to see in the opera than what's actually there.
Woolcock has turned Klinghoffer into a fairly gripping visual drama; but her success shows up the musical deficiencies: encountered as an opera rather than a film, it may be of no more than topical interest.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010