Placido Domingo – My Greatest Roles
The Documentary
Placido Domingo (tenor)
Produced and Directed by Chris Hunt
An Iambic Media Production in association with ZDF and Arte, 2009
WARNER/NVC ARTS 50-51865-6282-2-4 [80:00]
There isn’t a lot to this DVD. It’s intended as an accompaniment to Warner’s
new series of Placido Domingo’s Greatest Roles (see review of Volume
1). Let’s hope that Warner release many volumes because the titbits sampled
here are thrilling. The presentation lets it down, though. All you get are
frustratingly tiny excerpts which are often interrupted with speech or voice-over.
It’s interesting only as an appetiser, though everything on offer here makes
fantastic listening. Carmen from Vienna finds him on fantastic form
in the flower song, and he is caught in full - if frustratingly abbreviated
- flow in Andrea Chenier, also from Vienna. Likewise, a youthful
Ernani from La Scala and Fanciulla del West from Covent Garden
are quite thrilling, but they only leave you hungry for more. Otello
(Covent Garden) and Lohengrin (Vienna) both sound fantastic, but you
never get any more than a minute of music before an interruption. Hoffmann
from Covent Garden suffers the same fate, though I wasn’t sorry to see the
back of a rather daft production of Samson et Dalila from San Francisco.
The single most satisfying excerpt is his Gioconda (Vienna) where he
sings Cielo e Mar in the full flush of his vocal prime: it’s all the
more frustrating that the entire second stanza is lost! The role he spends
most time on is Cavaradossi, though I suspect that’s due to the unique nature
of Andrea Andermann’s live film in the setting and times of the opera, so
that we are treated to lingering views of St Peter’s during E lucevan le
stelle.
These extracts are interspersed with somewhat vapid biographical details and
with the tenor himself discussing the roles in brief, but anyone looking for
profound revelations will be disappointed. For anyone interested, it’s far
better to go to Helena Matheopoulos’ ghost-written book, Placido Domingo:
My Operatic Roles – this contains real insights and fascinating comments
on all the characters he had played on stage up to the point of publication,
though it’s difficult to get a hold of these days.
We are given barely any technical details: no co-stars are credited and there
are no details of dates of recording, only the venues.
These really do capture Domingo in his “Greatest Roles”, but this won’t satisfy
anyone with more than a superficial knowledge of his work. It’s a sample menu
only: is it too cynical to call it a marketing device? Save your money and
buy some of the complete performances on offer instead.
Simon Thompson