The audience at this 1988 San Francisco Opera production of La Bohème clearly thought very highly of it. There is even some applause for the scenery. I’m less impressed. Seen as a star vehicle for Pavarotti and Freni it’s quite adequate, though both are decidedly on the mature side for Rodolfo or Mimi. Other than that it’s rather dull, the video direction doesn’t help it any and the technical quality is no more than adequate. Continue reading
So, another lip synched film from the 1970s. This time it’s Verdi’s Otello starring Jon Vickers and Mirella Freni. What makes this one a bit different is that Herbert von Karajan not only conducts but directs as well. It’s a curious piece with fantastic music making but no real production concept, continuity errors, some very dodgy acting and puzzling cinematography in places. It’s never dull though. Continue reading
Giordano’s Fedora is a sort of apotheosis of the 19th century Italian opera. It’s a melodramatic love story in an aristocratic Russian setting. There is murder and suicide and plots and a dead mother and brother. The music is dramatic, even bombastic, when the mood suits but finds time to give showpiece arias for the principals. There is not a single idea in libretto or score that could give anyone an uncomfortable thought. The Metropolitan Opera’s 1996 production by Beppe di Tomasi builds on this by playing it dead straight and setting it in a series of suitably opulent settings complete with extravagant frocks. The cherry on the already rather rich cake is casting Placido Domingo as Loris Ipanoff and Mirella Freni as Fedora Romazoff. I imagine it’s many people’s idea of the perfect night at the opera In it’s way it’s the polar opposite of, say, Bieito’s Wozzeck. Continue reading
Today’s Ponelle production is the 1976 Le Nozze di Figaro. It has the starriest cast of any of the Ponelle films I’ve seen to date; Herrman Prey in the title role, Mirella Freni as Susanna, Kiri Te Kanawa as the countess and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the count. It even, rather bizarrely, has Maria Ewing as Cherubino. To round things out Karl Böhm conducts with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Staatsopernchor. As we shall see, musically it lives up to the casting. Continue reading
Continuing the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle marathon we come to his 1974 film of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Mirella Freni in the title role and a young Placido Domingo as Pinkerton. Musically this is the most satisfying of the Ponelle productions I’ve yet come across. Freni is superb. Radiant is not too strong a term, Domingo sings pretty much as well (we’ll come to points of dramatic interpretation later) and the supporting cast is flawless. There’s some serious luxury casting here with Christa Ludwig as a superb Suzuki. Robert Kerns is an excellent Sharpless and Michel Sénéchal equally good as Goro. Herbert von Karajan conducts. He tends to go for sheer beauty of sound rather than maximum drama but what beauty of sound! The soloists are wonderfully backed up by the Wirner Philharmoniker and the Staatsopernchor. Continue reading
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