DVD Videos

“None of the four video-recorded versions can be called ideal; but this Met cycle has plenty of strong points. It's the only one Wagner would have recognised – no small consideration. It's frequently assumed these days that he chose myth primarily to convey political allegory, but this is misleading. Myth inspired Wagner as directly as it did, say, Sibelius; and producers who ignore or mock this, like Patrice Chéreau on Pierre Boulez's rival set, miss a vital dimension.
Here, Otto Schenk and designer Gunther Schneider-Siemssen preserve the Romantic imagery, often beautifully, as Brian Large's cameras reveal; but also unimaginatively, with too many tired compromises. Some, such as the Rhinemaidens' non-swimming contortions and the feeble dragon, are embarrassing, and the costumes often look poor on screen. Individual performances, too, sometimes don't fit into a satisfactory ensemble.
This set can also claim musical superiority; but again, not conclusively. Boulez mistakes speed for energy, drying out the richness of the score; Levine, with the magnificent Met orchestra, tends to wallow in it, especially in a disappointing Rheingold. Matters improve from Walküre onward, but he's prone to sudden wheelspinning accelerations, sometimes wrongfooting his singers.
Boulez remains invisible at Bayreuth; Levine is too much with us, to the detriment of atmosphere.
Nevertheless, his monumental approach does bring out The Ring's sheer beauty and grandeur, where Boulez simply seems glib.
Levine's cast is superior, too, although the pivotal roles are the closest. Both Brünnhildes are splendid, spirited and deeply moving, but Boulez's Gwyneth Jones has the fuller voice; Hildegard Behrens, lithe and nervy, must force an essentially lyric instrument – quite successfully, but the effort shows. James Morris, aspiring to be a bel canto Wotan, has a richer voice than Boulez's Donald MacIntyre, but his diction and his acting are less incisive – partly the producer's fault in Rheingold; he improves thereafter.
Siegfried Jerusalem, though, eclipses Boulez's inadequate Manfred Jung. More lyrical and vocally more heroic, he's a finer musician, less liable to strain and distort the line, and an impressive stage figure.
Jerusalem's surprisingly characterful Loge, despite his galia melon headgear, is probably the best thing in Rheingold. It's rewarding to hear the 'Narration' in this kind of voice. Otherwise this is lacklustre. A superb Rhinemaiden trio is left earthbound, writhing unconvincingly round Ekkehard Wlaschiha's buffoonish Alberich, short on menace until the final curse. Christa Ludwig's once definitive Fricka looks and sounds tired.
Levine's tempi in Rheingold rival those of Reginald Goodall, but without his structure and pacing; the Giants' entrance is marked molto pesante, not funereal. They, the Rhinemaidens and the lesser gods – especially Birgitta Svendén's keenvoiced Erda – outclass their betters.
Levine handles Walküre more successfully. Act 1, though, isn't a success. Gary Lakes' massive but rather lean-toned Siegmund is ill-matched with Jessye Norman, whose vocally searing Sieglinde is subverted by her grande dame manner, robbing the love scenes of any real involvement.
Behrens, however, injects Act 2 with life, and though Ludwig's Fricka still sounds tired, Morris begins to make an impact, singing rather than declaiming the Narration. With a ringingly athletic Valkyrie band, Levine rushes the Ride, but brings the act to a moving Farewell.
Siegfried is visually and musically the best, with Levine at his liveliest, and a Romantic forest out of Altdorfer or von Schwind. Jerusalem's ardent hero may lack Heldentenor heft, and suffer some constraint at the top, but he carries off the forging and lyrical scenes with credit. The Wanderer often suits basses' range and personae, and Morris's commanding, world-weary god dominates Zednik's veteran Mime (mercifully not Chéreau's cute victim), Wlaschiha's now mordant Alberich; and Svendén's eerie Erda. Levine's protracted 'Awakening' stretches Behrens, but she and Jerusalem infuse the love duet with appealing life.
Levine's expansiveness suits Götterdämmerung, which opens with a powerful trio of Norns and a radiant Dawn duet. Chez Gibichung, though, the temperature drops, with Anthony Raffell (a fine Wotan) a miscast, bumbling Gunther, and Gutrune sadly unseductive. Matti Salminen's brutish Hagen, though richly sung, lacks the essential supernatural undertones. Ludwig is much better as Waltraute, but Jerusalem and especially Behrens carry the performance with involving intensity. The Immolation strains her voice, but remains satisfyingly cathartic, aided by appropriate stage spectacle, though Valhalla's downfall is disappointing.
All told, while this set may be less stimulating than the Boulez, it's also less distracting – without, as an eminent colleague once remarked, someone forever shouting in your ear. As well as the original digital stereo, remixed surroundsound tracks convincingly evoke extra ambiance and detail. The image also remasters well, although you may want to turn up the colour.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“None of the four video-recorded versions can be called ideal; but this Met cycle has plenty of strong points. It's the only one Wagner would have recognised – no small consideration. It's frequently assumed these days that he chose myth primarily to convey political allegory, but this is misleading. Myth inspired Wagner as directly as it did, say, Sibelius; and producers who ignore or mock this, like Patrice Chéreau on Pierre Boulez's rival set, miss a vital dimension.
Here, Otto Schenk and designer Gunther Schneider-Siemssen preserve the Romantic imagery, often beautifully, as Brian Large's cameras reveal; but also unimaginatively, with too many tired compromises. Some, such as the Rhinemaidens' non-swimming contortions and the feeble dragon, are embarrassing, and the costumes often look poor on screen. Individual performances, too, sometimes don't fit into a satisfactory ensemble.
This set can also claim musical superiority; but again, not conclusively. Boulez mistakes speed for energy, drying out the richness of the score; Levine, with the magnificent Met orchestra, tends to wallow in it, especially in a disappointing Rheingold. Matters improve from Walküre onward, but he's prone to sudden wheelspinning accelerations, sometimes wrongfooting his singers.
Boulez remains invisible at Bayreuth; Levine is too much with us, to the detriment of atmosphere.
Nevertheless, his monumental approach does bring out The Ring's sheer beauty and grandeur, where Boulez simply seems glib.
Levine's cast is superior, too, although the pivotal roles are the closest. Both Brünnhildes are splendid, spirited and deeply moving, but Boulez's Gwyneth Jones has the fuller voice; Hildegard Behrens, lithe and nervy, must force an essentially lyric instrument – quite successfully, but the effort shows. James Morris, aspiring to be a bel canto Wotan, has a richer voice Wagner Opera 1279 than Boulez's Donald MacIntyre, but his diction and his acting are less incisive – partly the producer's fault in Rheingold; he improves thereafter.
Siegfried Jerusalem, though, eclipses Boulez's inadequate Manfred Jung. More lyrical and vocally more heroic, he's a finer musician, less liable to strain and distort the line, and an impressive stage figure.
Jerusalem's surprisingly characterful Loge, despite his galia melon headgear, is probably the best thing in Rheingold. It's rewarding to hear the 'Narration' in this kind of voice. Otherwise this is lacklustre. A superb Rhinemaiden trio is left earthbound, writhing unconvincingly round Ekkehard Wlaschiha's buffoonish Alberich, short on menace until the final curse. Christa Ludwig's once definitive Fricka looks and sounds tired.
Levine's tempi in Rheingold rival those of Reginald Goodall, but without his structure and pacing; the Giants' entrance is marked molto pesante, not funereal. They, the Rhinemaidens and the lesser gods – especially Birgitta Svendén's keenvoiced Erda – outclass their betters.
Levine handles Walküre more successfully. Act 1, though, isn't a success. Gary Lakes' massive but rather lean-toned Siegmund is ill-matched with Jessye Norman, whose vocally searing Sieglinde is subverted by her grande dame manner, robbing the love scenes of any real involvement.
Behrens, however, injects Act 2 with life, and though Ludwig's Fricka still sounds tired, Morris begins to make an impact, singing rather than declaiming the Narration. With a ringingly athletic Valkyrie band, Levine rushes the Ride, but brings the act to a moving Farewell.
Siegfried is visually and musically the best, with Levine at his liveliest, and a Romantic forest out of Altdorfer or von Schwind. Jerusalem's ardent hero may lack Heldentenor heft, and suffer some constraint at the top, but he carries off the forging and lyrical scenes with credit. The Wanderer often suits basses' range and personae, and Morris's commanding, world-weary god dominates Zednik's veteran Mime (mercifully not Chéreau's cute victim), Wlaschiha's now mordant Alberich; and Svendén's eerie Erda. Levine's protracted 'Awakening' stretches Behrens, but she and Jerusalem infuse the love duet with appealing life.
Levine's expansiveness suits Götterdämmerung, which opens with a powerful trio of Norns and a radiant Dawn duet. Chez Gibichung, though, the temperature drops, with Anthony Raffell (a fine Wotan) a miscast, bumbling Gunther, and Gutrune sadly unseductive. Matti Salminen's brutish Hagen, though richly sung, lacks the essential supernatural undertones. Ludwig is much better as Waltraute, but Jerusalem and especially Behrens carry the performance with involving intensity. The Immolation strains her voice, but remains satisfyingly cathartic, aided by appropriate stage spectacle, though Valhalla's downfall is disappointing.
All told, while this set may be less stimulating than the Boulez, it's also less distracting – without, as an eminent colleague once remarked, someone forever shouting in your ear. As well as the original digital stereo, remixed surroundsound tracks convincingly evoke extra ambiance and detail. The image also remasters well, although you may want to turn up the colour.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Elijah Moshinsky’s production is surely as lively and moving as Verdi’s intricate masterpiece deserves. Jose Cura sizzles. Dimitri Hvorostovsky is everything one could want to see and hear in a Verdi baritone. This new “Trovatore” DVD is a reminder that not every golden age happened long ago” San Francisco Chronicle

“This production from St Petersburg, and contemporaneous with the Glyndebourne production reviewed above, is a much more conventional but equally valid approach. The staging is always apt, and in terms of cast, the Kirov holds the edge over its rival. The young Guleghina is the intense, vibrant Lisa to the life. The video direction is exemplary, though the sound leaves something to be desired.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It is handsome to look at and very well staged, a joy to watch as well as listen to...it is a straightforward and clean-cut presentation, deftly using massive choruses to match the opulent scenery, and nearly all the cast is first-rate.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“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