Two standard operas and a comparative rarity rub shoulders in
this attractively priced box. At amazon.com it costs around Ł54
while Carmen alone is priced around Ł40. The box focuses
on Plácido Domingo but he is far from the only reason for acquiring
the box. All three operas are starrily cast and are conducted
by superstar maestros. What is also evident is the consistency
in Domingo’s singing. Carmen and Il trovatore were
both recorded in 1978, when he was not yet forty and at his freshest;
Fedora, filmed in 1993 when he was past fifty and consequently
at an age where tenors tend to be on the downhill, shows no discernible
deterioration of the vocal resources. The first two of the operas
are also deeply satisfying as total experiences, whereas Il
trovatore is rather dull when it comes to direction and sets.
The supreme reading
in all respects is the legendary Vienna State Opera production
of Carmen from 9 December 1978 – the premiere performance
of this meticulously prepared production. Here all the ingredients
fit perfectly together as a jigsaw puzzle. The opening of the
electrifying prelude was momentarily a bit disappointing due
to the rather boxy sound but this was soon forgotten. Carlos
Kleiber’s taut reading and the superb playing of the Vienna
State Opera Orchestra had me sitting spellbound and never for
a second did the thrill slacken. Everything is controlled to
perfection – but not the kind of perfection that can become
mechanical. Here everything is full of vibrating life.
Franco Zeffirelli’s
sets, realistic and atmospheric, are ideally suited to Kleiber’s
conducting: the same precision, a myriad interesting details
and a constant ebb and flow of movement, pulsating with life.
Contrary to many productions, where the people on stage seem
to move about just because somebody has told them to move about,
there is a purpose behind the movement – and this is so throughout
the performance. Morales and his soldiers are clearly curious
about Micaëla when she appears and tangibly disappointed when
she leaves, turning down their invitation to visit their barracks.
The street-urchins – the Wiener Sängerknaben who have abandoned
their sailor suits – are visibly enjoying their drill and all
the gentlemen, who have flocked outside the cigarette factory
to catch a glimpse of Carmen, are doing their best to attract
her attention. Carmen herself, superbly personified by Elena
Obraztsova, is more a smiling charmer than a seducer. The chaotic
scene after the fight in the factory is exciting in its organized
turmoil with the young Kurt Rydl a powerful and virile Zuniga.
The first act is
wholly engrossing, and the second act is in no way inferior.
After a gossamer like interlude we are exposed to Lillas Pastia’s
tavern, softly lit in reddish light, like a painting by Brueghel.
Obraztsova’s singing of the gypsy song is thrilling and she
uses her chest register to imposing effect. It all ends in a
dance orgy with whirling figures all over the stage. Likewise
spectacular is the entrance of Escamillo and then, when the
guests have left, the smugglers’ quintet is lustily executed
at rollicking tempo. This number marks the transition from the
public sphere to the personal: the long scene between Carmen
and Don José which, through the appearance of Zuniga and his
duel with Don José, forever changes the lives of both Carmen
and José. When we reach the third act, after the beautiful flute
solo in the interlude, Zeffirelli paints a chilly and darkly
sombre rocky landscape with a full moon looming above the mountain
ridge. The warmth and joy is gone and Frasquita’s and Mercedes’s
attempt to enliven the atmosphere in the card scene falls flat
when Carmen turns her cards and finds nothing but death.
The short final
act is sun-drenched as it should and here the crowd is even
denser than before and when the matador and his assistants arrive
on horseback there is feast! But this is of course only the
cheerful backdrop to the inevitable tragic end to the short
but intense affair between Carmen and Don José. It is a heart-rending
sight to observe Escamillo, who seconds before has won triumphs
on the arena, coming out to find his beloved Carmen dead, slaughtered
in the same way Escamillo slaughtered the bull.
Zeffirelli’s staging
of this drama is a masterpiece from beginning to end and since
he also directed the video production he could convey to the
home viewers exactly the intentions behind the stage version.
The opera is presented in the original opera-comique version
with spoken dialogue, which adds extra insight in the proceedings
compared to the Guiraud version with recitatives. One oddity
is that the interlude before the last act is inserted in the
act, after the opening choral scene, and performed as a ballet,
which seems an excellent idea.
The singing is,
fortunately, on the same high artistic level as the production
at large. I have already mentioned Elena Obraztsova and she
is superb from beginning to end. In fact this must be the best
thing she ever did. She is also an excellent actor. Domingo
in one of his greatest roles – he recorded it twice commercially,
for Solti (Decca) and Abbado (DG) as well as taking part in
Francesco Rosi’s 1984 film, conducted by Maazel – and though
his consistency is miraculous I feel that this production surpasses
the other three – if only with a hair’s breadth. Yuri Mazurok
is a great Escamillo and Isobel Buchanan is possibly the loveliest
Micaëla anywhere. The rest of the cast is also excellent. No
one should miss the opportunity to see and hear this stupendous
production.
Umberto Giordano
is no doubt best known for Andrea Chenier, premiered
in 1896, the same year as Puccini’s La bohčme. Fedora
came two years later and the leading tenor role was sung
at the premiere by the then practically unknown Enrico Caruso.
It is also primarily through the tenor aria Amor ti vieta
that the opera is remembered. Of his other operas Siberia
and Madame Sans-Géne were fairly successful but are forgotten
today. His Marcella from 1907 has been revived to celebrate
its centenary. A recording of that occasion was released last
year and reviewed by both my colleague Robert
Hugill and myself
and a DVD of the same production is due for review before long.
Giordano’s inspiration flowed less constantly than Puccini’s,
his melodic invention wasn’t as striking and there are not infrequent
distances of transportation, even in Andrea Chenier,
which admittedly contains several inspired arias for tenor,
a good soprano aria and Gerard’s famous Nemico della patria.
Interestingly I
found Fedora more to my liking musically, even though
it took quite some time to rev up. But once the temperature
in the relation between Princess Fedora and Count Loris started
rising, so did the musical and dramatic temperature. It wasn’t
until after Amor ti vieta, powerfully sung by Domingo,
that Loris’s character started to emerge and after having initially
found him more or less a stuffed shirt he became a true human
being. As in the other two of Giordano’s operas that I have
heard there is a long list of comprimario roles but even though
they are essential for the story it is only, besides Fedora
and Loris, Olga and De Siriex that really matter.
The sets are atmospheric
and especially the wintery last act is beautifulVeteran conductor
Gianandrea Gavazzeni, 84 at the time of recording, may not have
been a high-voltage maestro in the Carlos Kleiber mould, but
with his great experience – he had been conducting at La Scala
since 1948 – he never let things down. He is shown en face
in the pit on several occasions during the performance,
slightly tired it seems but with a watchful eyes on his musicians.
But this opera stands
and falls with the quality of the singing and acting from the
main characters. Adelina Scarabelli is a mercurial Olga and
sings her aria about the Parisian man with obvious relish. Alessandro
Corbelli is an expressive De Siriex and sings La donna Russa
with the right swagger. In some of the lesser roles Luigi Rono
has a fine solo in the interrogation scene and Alfredo Giacomotti
is a good police officer.
Mirella Freni was
approaching sixty at the time and there is a widening of vibrato
compared to what she sounded like in the 60s and 70s and 80s,
but not disturbingly so and she is superb in the ‘letter scene’,
which is accompanied by a highly evocative orchestra with reminiscences
from Loris’s Amor ti vieta. Her final monologue, just
before she dies, is enormously touching. In duet she and Domingo
match each other to perfection, having appeared together so
many times. There is by the way an interesting scene between
the two while in the background a pianist is entertaining the
other guests and his playing becomes the sole accompaniment
to their singing.
The Karajan-conducted
and directed Il trovatore from Vienna offers excellent
singing from all the principals and, the opera being one of
the maestro’s favourites, it is also musically and dramatically
coherent – as much as the quirky libretto allows. Visually it
is however a disappointment. The Zeffirelli-Kleiber Carmen
oozes life; this Trovatore is very much the opposite:
static, dull scenery, little interaction or action between the
characters. One gets the feeling that the soloists were left
to themselves to decide what to do and how to do it. Raina Kabaivanska,
one of the most expressive of singers in her generation, sings
her Tacea la notte practically immovably, only making
an occasional gesture – mostly stretched out arms in a very
old-fashioned manner. Interestingly, against all the rules,
she runs in on-stage again after the cabaletta to acknowledge
the applause! The trio that rounds off act I is one of the most
heated moments in this opera but visually it is cool and distanced:
Manrico, Luna and Leonora look like participants in a garden
party, embedded in greenery. No, visually this is not much better
than a concert performance.
There are other
scenes that are better. The gypsy camp, opening with the famous
anvil chorus, has life and movement, the sky is darkly foreboding
and windswept and the blacksmiths are really forging with sparks
flying from the anvil. The scene with Manrico and Azucena is
also a highlight, visually as well as musically with both Domingo
and Cossotto on top form. There are ups and downs in the direction
in the remaining two acts as well and eventually it emerges
as a decent but far from exhilarating production.
Vocally it is a
different matter. Caruso once said all Il trovatore needed
to succeed was the four greatest voices in the world. Here we
have five of the greatest singers from the 1970s, all
of them in good shape. The fifth singer is the first to be heard:
José van Dam as Ferrando. Besides his long narrative in the
first scene he has little else to sing but he makes his mark
to great effect with dark steady tone, expressivity and dramatic
conviction. Piero Cappuccilli was at the time the leading Verdi
baritone, challenged possibly only by Sherrill Milnes. He may
not have had such a fine instrument as Robert Merrill or Ettore
Bastianini from the generation before but his superb breath
control, allowing him to sing the long unbroken phrases Verdi
prescribes, and the steady tone makes him a very fine Count
Luna. As for Domingo he was never quite the ‘King of High C’
that Decca labelled his colleague Luciano Pavarotti, but his
other credentials made him an ideal Manrico – and his final
C in Di quella pira is decent enough. Fiorenza Cossotto
was the natural heir to Giulietta Simionato as the leading Italian
mezzo-soprano and Azucena was one of her signature roles. She
recorded it twice commercially, in the early 1960s under Tullio
Serafin (DG) with a superb cast including Antonietta Stella,
Carlo Bergonzi, Ettore Bastianini and her real life husband
Ivo Vinco as Ferrando, and a handful of years later under Zubin
Mehta (RCA) with Leontyne Price, Domingo (his first complete
recording), Sherrill Milnes and Bonaldo Giaiotto. Both recordings
comply with Caruso’s criteria and so does this DVD, which would
have been even more recommendable had the production as a whole
been more stimulating.
Bearing my reservations
in mind no opera lover is likely to be seriously disappointed
with this box and the phenomenal Carmen should be in
every opera collection.
Göran Forsling
Elena Obraztsova (mezzo) – Carmen; Plácido Domingo (tenor) – Don
José; Yuri Mazurok (baritone) – Escamillo; Isobel Buchanan (soprano)
– Micaëla; Cheryl Kanfoush (soprano) – Frasquita; Axelle Gall (mezzo)
– Mercédčs; Kurt Rydl (bass) – Zuniga; Hans Helm (baritone) – Moralčs;
Heinz Zednik (tenor) – Remendado; Paul Wolfrum (baritone) – Dancaďre;
Chor der Wiener Staatsoper; Die Wiener Sängerknaben; Ballett der
Wiener Staatsoper; Bühnenorchester & Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper/Carlos
Kleiber
(4 DVD) 
