Also available on Blu-ray

Giuseppe Verdi
AIDA

Aida – Hui He
Radames – Marco Berti
Amneris – Andrea Ulbrich
Amonasro – Ambrogio Maestri
The King – Roberto Tagliavini
High Priestess – Antonella Trevisan
A messenger – Antonello Ceron

Arena di Verona Ballet
Arena di Verona Chorus and Orchestra
Daniel Oren, conductor

Gianfranco De Bosio, stage director

Recorded live at Arena di Verona, June 2012

Bonus:
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese
Running time: 150 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Verdi based La traviata on Alexandre Dumas fils's novel and play La Dame aux camélias, inspired by the life and death of the real Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis. One of the most popular of all operas, the 2018/2019 season featured 151 productions of La traviata performed worldwide. Verdi's sublime score contains some of his most inspired arias and duets. Ermonela Jaho stars as Violetta, opposite Charles Castronovo as Alfredo, with Plácido Domingo as his unyielding father in Richard Eyre’s classic production, featuring stunning naturalistic designs by Bob Crowley. This production is recorded in High Definition and true Surround Sound.

VERDI Rigoletto & • Edward Downes, cond; Christine Schäfer (Gilda); Marcelo Álvarez (Duke of Mantua); Paolo Gavanelli (Rigoletto); Eric Halfvarson (Sparafucile); Elizabeth Sikora (Giovanna); Graciela Araya (Maddalena); Peter Auty (Borsa); Giovan Battista Parodi (Monterone); Royal Op O & Ch • OPUS ARTE 6005 (DVD: 135:15 + 11:33) Live: London 9/19/2001.

& Documentary: Verdi Through the Looking Glass (17:50); Interview with David McVicar

This Rigoletto directed by David McVicar, last available on a Kultur DVD in 2009, is not to be confused with the other Marcelo Álvarez Rigoletto with soprano Inva Mula and baritone Carlos Alvarez (originally issued by TDK in 2004 and reissued by Arthaus Musik in 2010). I reviewed the latter performance in Fanfare 34:2 and found it interesting but somewhat ho-hum. This one apparently made its appearance in a boxed set from the BBC that also included productions of Falstaff and Il trovatore. Unless the Fanfare Archive is incorrect (I checked under “Singers” for Paolo Gavanelli as well as under “Composers & Works” for “Verdi Rigoletto”), this one seems to have somehow escaped being previously reviewed in Fanfare.

McVicar, in his brief interview, describes Rigoletto as “a scream of rage” against social inequality. He’s probably right. He also brings up the Communist Manifesto and relates Verdi to it. He’s probably wrong. Rigoletto was just good old Victor Hugo, and Hugo had a lifelong fascination with hunchbacks and other physically deformed humans. That’s all it is. It’s not a Communist plot. “It deals with questions of what is beautiful, what is ugly,” he continues, and in that he is 100 percent correct. That was, indeed, Hugo’s focal point. Neither Tribolet (Rigoletto) nor Quasimodo (the hunchback of Notre Dame) are bad people, just unfortunate in the way they were born. “This [opera] is about things that are darker, things that are more unpalatable,” McVicar continues, and this, indeed, is the focus of his production.

An interesting point of dramatic relationship between the two DVD Rigolettos: in neither one does the title character have a real “hunchback” as one would imagine, for instance, from seeing either the Lon Chaney or Charles Laughton films of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They have, rather, a sort of bulging shark fin growing out of their shoulders. One of the most impressive characterizations of the title role (and I’ve mentioned this before) was a 1970s filmed performance in which Rolando Panerai, his back bulging and deformed, scampered across the stage like some sort of huge and unsettling spider. I don’t demand that every Rigoletto act that way, but Panerai’s conception was uncomfortable to watch in a bizarre, black humor concept.

Thus, in McVicar’s mind, the opening “grand ballroom scene” has no splendor whatsoever. It is a dark, almost forbidding atmosphere in which topless women carouse like whores with the courtiers. The Duke of Mantua’s court has nothing festive, celebratory, or grand about it; it is seamy and disgusting, like the Duke himself. Yet the Duke is handsome and looks (relatively) innocent; it is his twisted jester who personifies all the ugliness inside of him, though Rigoletto is actually the most acutely self-aware person up there. He knows exactly what’s going on, what his function is within the court, and so is able to play up to the Duke’s depravity in a black-humor sort of way and thus win his favor.

Marcelo Álvarez, though a very accomplished tenor, is not one of the world’s great stage actors, thus he follows McVicar’s stage directions—looking rather blasé, jaded, and bored with the many topless beauties in his court—without really getting into the character the way a Jon Vickers, for instance, would have, yet he is certainly good enough to fit into the overall concept. “Questa o quella” sounds almost more brutal than jolly; this is no devil-may-care flirt, but a lecherous Don Juan with no pretense at looking or acting like a gentleman—except when he is play-acting with Gilda. In a way, however, I found the overwhelming number of topless women carousing around like whores to be too much of a bad thing. OK, fine, you made your point. Do you have to keep drumming it over our head like Gene Krupa’s tom-toms? Enough already. I mean, why would they even bother getting dressed in the first place if all they’re going to do is run around laughing and having their dresses pulled down and their knickers pulled up? Yet vocally and dramatically, this performance really takes off. Downes drives his orchestra, chorus, and soloists like a man possessed—I haven’t heard such a well-conducted Rigoletto since the old Bonynge recording—and all the solo voices are good in the first scene, even the dark sound of Parodi as Monterone. Gavanelli not only has a first-class voice, he knows how to use it for both musical and dramatic effect and is a fine stage actor as well. Vocally, the one fly in the ointment is Halfvarson as Sparafucile. His voice has a squally sound, which is exacerbated by an uneven flutter bordering on wobble, but he is a good stage actor, so that’s half the battle won.

I’ve long felt that Edward Downes was one of the more underrated opera conductors in the world. For whatever reason, he always seemed to be overshadowed by other British opera conductors: John Barbirolli when he was younger, John Pritchard when he was older, and later by Antonio Pappano; yet though I am also a big fan of Pappano, there has never been any question in my mind that Downes was always better than Barbirolli or Pritchard, and his work here is splendid. He takes slightly more relaxed tempos than you might be familiar with from the Richard Bonynge or Francesco Molinari-Pradelli recordings, and certainly more relaxed than Arturo Toscanini took act III back in 1944, yet as always his conducting has real “bite.” Not only the brass and winds, but also the strings, speak to you as the drama unfolds on stage, and that, to me, is definitely the mark of a great conductor. Here, too, he uses rubato, rallentandos, and other rhythmic devices to occasionally elongate the musical line without distorting it, as well as a wide range of dynamics and accents to make the music “speak.” A sterling example of how he works may be heard in “Pari siamo,” that difficult quasi-parlando aria in which the title character vacillates between self-reflection and loathing of the court and those he must serve and make laugh. This has always been, for me, one of the supreme highlights of this opera, yet too many baritones run through it as if it were a bel canto exercise. Gavanelli and Downes know exactly how to play it, and it comes off beautifully. The baritone here reveals as great a command of soft singing and half-shades as of ringing, forte high notes.

There’s a bit of luxury casting here in having Christine Schäfer, the world’s most famous exponent of Berg’s Lulu, singing Gilda. She is in superb voice and, more importantly, is a fine stage actress. Moreover, she is able to bring the voice “down” enough from its usual stratospheric heights to give the middle and lower ranges some richness and depth, something I would not have expected of her prior to hearing this. Toscanini, defying operatic conventions of his day and long afterward, insisted that Gilda be sung by a strong lyric soprano voice of the sort that could conceivably also sing Aida and Leonora. For generations, collectors have been enamored of the 1944 performance he gave of act III with Zinka Milanov as Gilda, but although Milanov sang very well her basic timbre was wrong for the part. It was simply too dark and matronly-sounding, more like a 40-year-old Gilda. Toscanini had a much better soprano in his 1943 broadcast, Gertrude Ribla. My other favorite Gildas in the lyric soprano mold are Maria Callas, Cristina Deutekom (only in the first duet with Rigoletto; I don’t think she ever sang the complete role on stage) and Margarita Rinaldi in the aforementioned performance with Panerai, but to this very short list I now add Schäfer. She not only sings it well but brings an entirely new dimension to Gilda that only Ribla and Callas came close to. I was also delightfully surprised to hear that many of the normal cuts in the music were opened up here. In “E il sol dell’anima,” Álvarez sings some of the phrases with something close to the melting legato and sensual phrasing of Tito Schipa—another pleasant surprise. Both soprano and tenor hit the high D? at the end of “Addio, addio,” yet both cut it off short as the score prescribes. Verdi would have been very pleased by this, yet perhaps more so by Schäfer’s near miraculous performance of “Caro nome.” She is even better, musically and dramatically, in this worn-out set piece than Callas or Rinaldi, binding the phrases beautifully yet still “clipping” the descending eighth notes as the score demands, limning every trill, however short, with dramatic meaning. This is surely the work of a great singing actress, and Schäfer does herself proud. Unlike so many practitioners of this role over the decades, Schäfer doesn’t “give them what they want to hear” but what the score dictates, and the aria is all the stronger for it.

One of the more brilliant moments in this production comes when the Duke sings “Ella mi fu rapita … Parmi veder le lagrime.” You finally understand the words. You’re not necessarily supposed to feel sorry for the Duke, but you are supposed to understand that Gilda’s purity of character made him come close to mending his ways. Would he have? Probably not, and that is the dramatic irony of the aria. Also interestingly, vocal delicacy and dramatic subtlety crown the second half of Rigoletto’s “Cortigianni” aria, with Gavanelli singing as tenderly in this section as Giuseppe de Luca once did, albeit with greater dramatic meaning in his delivery.

Wonder of wonders, Álvarez sings “La donna è mobile” with lightness and delicacy—again, à la Schipa—though he does not resist the temptation to sing the unwritten high B at the end. Yet he does also, even more surprisingly, sing the opening solo lines of “Bella figlia dell’amore” with equal delicacy, at once bringing the voice down to a mere thread of sound, a fil da voce, which makes a much greater dramatic impact than shouting it out. Graciela Araya is an excellent Maddalena, both vocally and histrionically, and the quartet ends quietly with no one banging out a high note—again, as the score directs—and Downes’s conducting of the storm scene is just as powerful as Toscanini’s. The final scene is touchingly sung and acted. All in all, a splendid performance.

The mini-documentary Verdi Through the Looking-Glass features one of the strangest and most exclusive clubs in the world: a group of old men in Parma who are named after each of Verdi’s operas! So you get to meet Macbeth, Il giorno di regno, I masnadieri, Rigoletto, Otello, Aida, Falstaff, La forza del destino, I due Foscari, etc. in the flesh. (They don’t mention whether or not one of them is named Messa da Requiem!) And they sit around and drink green-colored alcoholic beverages (the color comes from kiwi juice) at nine in the morning!

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

When an artist, through whatever means, becomes a transcendent artistic figure, he or she becomes the object of extreme devotion. In and beyond the operatic world, that person is Maria Callas, and those devoted to her, and they are legion, want nothing less than to hear every recorded note she sang, and are fortunate enough to be able to do so. The start of her 25 years of worldwide stardom is not far in the future as you listen to her sing the role Abigalle in Verdi's Nabucco in this 1949 live performance from the Teatro di San Carlo with conductor Vittorio Gui, one of her early champions.

This performance of Rigoletto features possibly the most famous tenor of all time, Luciano Pavarotti. This three act opera by Giuseppe Verdi was premiered in Venice on March 11, 1851. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave, and is based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse. Alongside Pavarotti is a world-class cast, including Kostas Paskalis in the title role, Renata Scotta as Gilda andRosa Laghezza as Maddalena.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Macbeth undoubtedly marked a turning point in Verdi’s operatic writing, i.e., the foregrounding of the characters’ introspective, psychological aspects. This DVD/Blu-ray captures the production staged at Novara’s Teatro Coccia during the 2013-14 season, with thriller/horror filmmaker Dario Argento tackling opera direction for the first time. One could only expect a direction in line with his films, and from that point of view this Macbeth meets expectations, with the visualization of the opera’s bloody, indeed gory scenes matching the dark, brutal character of Shakespeare work.

Format: 1080 60i, 16:9; PCM 2.0, DTS HD master 5.0
Region: 0 (All Region)
Subtitles: Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is playable only on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Giuseppe Verdi
IL TROVATORE
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Il conte di Luna – Claudio Sgura
Leonora – Teresa Romano
Azucena – Mzia Nioradze
Manrico – Marcelo Álvarez
Ferrando – Deyan Vatchkov
Ines – Cristina Giannelli
Ruiz – Roberto Jachini Virgili
Un vecchio zingaro – Enrico Rinaldo
Un messo – Seung Hwa Paek

Parma Teatro Regio Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Martino Faggiani)
Yuri Temirkanov, conductor

Lorenzo Mariani, stage director
William Orlandi, set and costume designer
Christian Pinaud, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Teatro Regio di Parma, 5 and 9 October 2010

Bonus:
- Introduction to Il Trovatore

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 140 mins (opera) + 10 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

Giuseppe Verdi
AIDA

Il Re – Kevin Short
Amneris – Iano Tamar
Aida – Tatiana Serjan
Radamès – Rubens Pelizzari
Ramfis – Tigran Martirossian
Amonasro – Iain Paterson
Un messaggero – Ronald Samm
Una sacerdotessa – Elisabetta Martorana

Camerata Silesia
Polish Radio Choir, Krakow
Bregenz Festival Chorus
Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Carlo Rizzi, conductor

Graham Vick, stage director
Paul Brown, stage and costume designer
Ron Howell, choreography
Wolfgang Göbbel, lighting designer

Recorded live from the Bregenz Festival, 22 and 24 July 2009.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Running time: 135 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

R E V I E W:

At Bregenz one can expect spectacular productions – or at least conspicuous ones. I am talking about Opera on Lake Bodensee which takes place in July and August each year. It’s part of the Bregenz festival which provides a lavish offer of opera, theatre and concerts. The outdoor stage surrounded by water invites gigantic sets and the long distance to the grandstand on the shore requires amplifying equipment. I have seen some productions on DVD and also some stills. They are generally provocative, putting the characters in settings as far away from the original as can be imagined. Il trovatore a few years ago took place in an industrial landscape, possibly on an oil platform. This Aida goes even further. The water here isn’t ocean deep but allows the actors to wade, to swim, to fall in or splash, even to be drowned. During the prelude two lifeless bodies hanging on a wire attached to an enormous building crane, are slowly transported before the eyes of horrified onlookers until they are lowered down into a barge off the stage. In Trovatore fire was central to the proceedings; in Aida water has the same importance, the Nile being the life-blood of the Egyptians. There is a water ballet in the triumphal scene. The tomb episode takes place on a ship drifting among the waves. During the final duet the ship rises from the water and sails into the sky, leaving Amneris alone at the waters’ edge. A real amphibious opera.

Dominating the stage picture are two monstrously big, blue feet. Why are they there? Whatever the reason they appear to function as the firm foundation around which the action rotates, whether it be Aida, the slave girl, scrubbing the floor, Amneris in black dotted evening gown airing her human ‘dogs’ or high priests and soldiers invading the stage. There are activities aplenty with numerous extras just being there, costumes are a mix of modern and ancient. All this business tends to suffocate the central conflicts and it is typical of the performance that it is in the Nile scene – act III – that the action grabs the viewer by the throat; this is the first scene with no external distractions. In a way this is dramaturgically sensitive, since the first two acts primarily deal with festivities, while the core of the drama is the triangle Aida – Amonasro – Radames. This is an oversimplification of the plot. There are many strands in the libretto and Amneris – though basically an evil character but one who loves – is the hub around which everything rotates. In this performance it also becomes obvious why Verdi initially contemplated naming the opera Amneris.

Iano Tamar, the Georgian soprano who was also a great Leonora in Il Trovatore, is the star; her somewhat darkish timbre contrasting well with Tatiana Serjan’s girlish Aida. Tamar has authority and a thrilling lirico-spinto voice. In the first scene in act IV she is truly great. Serjan at first seems too lyrical for Aida, having a fluttery soubrette voice but it sits well with her youthful looks. Her Ritorna vincitor is however sung with intensity and in the third and fourth acts she grows in stature, no doubt inspired by Scottish baritone Iain Paterson’s powerful Amonasro. He is an unusually dangerous Ethiopian king. Rubens Pelizzari is a rather pale Radamès in the first two acts but like his Aida he grows and in the Nile duet he finds a glow that has eluded him before. O terra addio, though sung in a strange setting, is delivered with lyrical beauty and warmth by both artists. Tigran Martirossian is an acceptable Ramfis but Kevin Short’s King is terribly wobbly.

As so often with these Bregenz productions one ends up in two minds. They’re innovative for sure, and this Aida is no exception. One can marvel at ideas that suddenly illuminate the proceedings but just as often one thinks: ‘What’s the point of this?’ Carlo Rizzi keeps things together and draws splendid playing from the Wiener Symphoniker. The choral forces have no easy task to walk all those stairs and balance on wet slippery stones while keeping an eye on the conductor but they manage it well. Sound and pictures are good. Readers have to decide from my descriptions whether this is a DVD worth spending money on, but Iano Tamar’s glorious Amneris should definitely be seen and heard.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Also available on standard CD

This unique programme is the first time that all the ballet music from Verdi’s operas has been brought together in a singe recording. Although The Four Seasons from I vespri siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers) and the ballet scenes from Aida and Otello have survived, substantial pieces from Il trovatore and Don Carlo are more often cut, while the ballet from Jérusalem is all but unknown. José Serebrier’s recordings with the Bournemouth Symphony have resulted in some great successes with unusual repertoire. This release will be of interest both to opera enthusiasts and to those eager to explore Verdi’s neglected and relatively small body of concert music.

R E V I E W:



VERDI Complete Ballet Music from the Operas • José Serebrier, cond; Bournemouth SO • NAXOS 8.57218-19 (2 CDs: 115:22); NAXOS NBD0027 (Blu-ray audio: 115:22)


This pair of discs includes ballet music from Otello, Macbeth, Jérusalem, Don Carlo, Aida, Il trovatore , and I vespri Siciliani —much of it music we don’t get to hear in performances of these operas. The most direct competition for this set is the four-disc Chandos series featuring all of this music plus all the preludes and overtures, with the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Downes. If you have those discs, this would probably be a needless duplication. But comparing the performances demonstrates Serebrier to be the more interpretively interesting conductor. Downes’s performances are more than competent, and he does hold one’s interest throughout what is not always first-rate music. I reviewed the Downes recordings as they were released, in Fanfare 20:5, 21:6, and 23:5.


Serebrier, however, brings to the music a greater variety of color, more rhythmic energy, and a wider range of ideas about phrasing. The vitality of his rhythm is perhaps the most significant difference, and it can be heard everywhere, in slow or fast music. The extra lilt he brings, for example, to the waltz right after the introduction of the Don Carlo ballet brings a smile to the listener.


There are fine, comprehensive notes to accompany the disc, and Naxos’s recorded sound is well balanced and clear, if a bit closer-in than the Chandos. While not all of this music is at Verdi’s most inspired level, none of it is unworthy of our attention. Second-rate Verdi is still better than most composers’ gems! Serebrier’s colorful, charming, and highly committed performances, and the Bournemouth Symphony’s excellent playing, make this a highly recommendable disc.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

A few months before his death in February 2014 conducted by the then 83 year old world famous conductor Lorin Maazel at the Munich Philharmonic, the famous Verdi Requiem. He presided over there " his" orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic Choir and soloists class : Anja Harteros (soprano), Daniela Barcellona (mezzo- soprano), Wookyung Kim (tenor) and Georg Zeppenfeld (bass). The moving concert was recorded on three nights and this may be his last recording of the great conductors will now appear on Sony Classical. The press was then full of praise were " all desires and expectations (fulfilled) that can be put to this work. " (Süddeutsche Zeitung). And the evening paper Munich spoke of a " forceful and convincing " interpretation.

Also available on Blu-ray

Giuseppe Verdi
LA BATTAGLIA DI LEGNANO

Federico Barbarossa – Enrico Giuseppe Iori
Primo console di Milano – Francesco Musinu
Secondo console di Milano – Federico Benetti
Il podestà di Como – Gabriele Sagona
Rolando – Leonardo López Linares
Lida – Dimitra Theodossiou
Arrigo – Andrew Richards
Marcovaldo – Giovanni Guagliardo
Imelda – Sharon Pierfederici
Un araldo – Alessandro De Angelis
Uno scudiero di Arrigo – Nicola Pascoli

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico “Giuseppe Verdi” di Trieste (chorus master: Paolo Vero)
Boris Brott, conductor

Ruggero Cappuccio, stage director
Carlo Savi, set and costume designer (with Mimmo Paladino and Matthew Spender)
Nino Napoletano, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Teatro Lirico “Giuseppe Verdi” di Trieste, 23 and 29 February, 2 March 2012

Bonus:
- Introduction to La battaglia di Legnano

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 119 mins (opera) + 11 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)