GIUSEPPE VERDI on Arthaus DVD
by Peter Grahame Woolf

The fascinating Forza DVD (1998 from the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg) is a full-blooded rendering of a full-blooded, essentially unsubtle, opera composed for an audience of opera enthusiasts, but no way updated here for the jaded appetites of today's audiences, brought up on fast-moving film & TV, and whom younger directors presume to be always looking for new slants. The main interest of this performance is historical, with the earlier St Petersburg version of the score and sets reconstructed to the 1862 designs. We do not have the turbulent war scenes from the later Italian version nor Alvaro's suicide; he survives till the final curtain.

The tone of La Forza del Destino veers between high drama and low comedy, with intimate exchanges of love and revengeful fury, and busy crowd scenes with fun at the expense of the ridiculous monk Fra Melitone (Georgy Zastavny) and, for happier relief, some sexy display of her attractions by the eye and ear catching Preziosilla (Marianna Tarasova), mezzo fortune-teller and cheer leader for battle. For menace and foreboding dark blues predominate, and the soldiery offer variety with colourful uniforms.

The main difficulties - to my eyes - arise in the arias and duets and epitomise some of the problems of live opera for home viewing; many collectors will take them in their stride. They are static in the old style, offering little by way of significant gesture, and filmed too close up, with the singers' mouths wide open, necessarily so to carry over the orchestra in a large house. Gegam Grigorian (Alvaro) and Galina Gorchakova (Leonora) are strong and honest, sing well and convince in their assumptions of the main roles - sample Gorchakova's 'Pace, pace, mio dio'. Leonora's short-lived father, who dies in the first scene, and her avenging brother (Nikolai Putilin, a serious disappointment in body language and his unmelodic phrasing) are rather wooden to watch and listen to, and there must be many better accounts of their roles on record. Marianna Tarasova, Georgy Zastavny and Nikolai Gassiev sing well and are never less than watchable in their character roles. The Kirov chorus is well directed by Elija Moshinsky in a thoroughly conventional manner, which will be a relief to older viewers who would also have enjoyed the Salzburg/Furtwangler Don Giovanni. Valéry Gergiev keeps the Kirov Orchestra on its toes and the drama at high voltage.

Even more so does Guiseppe Sinopoli galvanise the chorus and orchestra of Deutsche Oper Berlin in the original 1847 version of Macbeth. We are given many welcome opportunities to watch his electrifying conducting of a live 1987 performance of enormous intensity and conviction on everyone's part, an interpretation which highlights the originality of Verdi's great first essay to realise Shakespeare on the stage for an opera audience of his time.

Sinopoli encompasses with flair and absolute precision the populist banalities of some of the music (which brought to my mind some of Mahler's) as well as the subtleties of the main scenes, which presage his later Shakespearian masterpieces. Duncan's murder is quickly achieved and the action is throughout swift, based on Piave's admirable libretto. Locations (Luciano Damiani) are neutral and undefined, with background elements often dimly lit and out of focus (e.g. the banquet guests with witches in close attendance); disconcerting at first viewing but making increasingly good sense with familiarity. This approach concentrates attention upon the power-hungry principals and their inner feelings; in Luca Ronconi's production you live the nightmare of their destructive symbiosis as the screws are turned to fulfil the ghastly predictions of the bearded witches - because of Verdi's need to use his opera chorus fully, those are many, as are Banquo's murderers and the exiles mourning the fate of their country.

No worries about Maria Zampieri or Renato Bruson in close up; both are the personifications of a marriage made in Hell, complementing each other to achieve their ambition and doomed to perish in ignominy; these are magnificent performances to which to return. Gestures are never exaggerated, always telling; as filmed under the direction of Brian Large ideally judged for home viewing. The apparitions scene is purposely confused so that we view it as from within Macbeth's own tortured mind; Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene is riveting. Indeed, everyone's facial expressions and body language are appropriate and convincing, with strong support from James Morris (Banquo) and Dennis O'Neill (Macduff).

The ending is somewhat perfunctory, which allows the viewer to unwind. Although the picture format is the old 4:3, the filming is imaginative, concentrating attention upon the essentials at all times and including memorable shots of the late, lamented Sinopoli and his ever alert orchestra; it is not one of those films in which visual elements distract from the music.

This is a superbly filmed DVD which repays repeated viewing and should be in everyone's Verdi collection.

© Peter Grahame Woolf 2002.

Right of reproduction by electronic means only is hereby granted to The Opera Critic - copyright is retained by the author. No other usage or distribution whatsoever may be made without the written consent of the author.