Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala
by Henri-Georges Clouzot
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Fiorenza Cossotto, Herbert von Karajan, Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti, Nikolai GhiaurovDirector: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Brand: Universal Studios
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Latin (Original Language), DTS 5.1; English (Original Language); French (Original Language); German (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 85 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Philips
Movie Reviews of Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala
Movie Review: Peerless account; singers, especially the ladies, in top form
Summary: 5 Stars
If there is one absolute essential to be had in your
video/DVD library, it is the 1967 film of Verdi's Requiem,
recorded at La Scala.
The lineup:
Starring:
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan
(with: leontyne price, luciano pavarotti, fiorenza
cossotto, and nicolai ghiaurov)
Let's get one really serious bugbear outta the way. I LAUGH
when reading that the directorial credit is ascribed to one
Henri-Georges Clouzot. It's plainly
obvious that the Master Controller here of All Things
Camera is Herbie The Self-Love Bug. He's a camera-hogging
poseur, putting on these lofty faces of beatitude and
self-reverence, doing a virtual ballet with his arms and
hands. It's a frustrating state of affairs to hear the
singers' most crucial lines going forth expressively whilst
we want to take an elbow and knock the camera off Herr
Herbie toward what we're missing. The Von does a fine
conductorial job, tempos usually well-judged; in particular
the sensitive moments are beautiful texturally, and
eloquent. Elsewhere, in the more fiery damned-to-hell
sections, he rather sweetens them with Deutscher Zucker,
and misses out on the terrifying thunderous sweep of the
Italians, Toscanini and De Sabata, or the weeping wrath of
Giulini.
The Scala forces are as always, right on top of this music,
and the chorus, well highlighted here, demonstrate their
inborn affinity with this music.
What makes this a near-definitive version are the soloists,
all at their Spring-of-life prime.
It's a jolt to see a clean shaven, ineffably boyish
Pavarotti, comparatively trim and well turned-out. It is as
well refreshing to see him in state before he became The
Pav. Forced into this formalized surrounding, and absent of
the later self-conscious self-awareness, he looks part of
the ensemble, and for all intents and purposes, like a
serious artist. For all of that, he is not very expressive
in face, looking slightly out of it, with a sort of worried
little frown - apropos? But, for compensations, there's
the voice, fresh, pingy and with that characteristic combo
of silver and gold. And under Von Karajan's eagle-ear, he
manages some fine modulation of tone, without resorting to
the breathy attempts of later years. "Ingemisco" peals out
quite eloquently.
This is Ghiaurov's best account by far of the bass part. In
the Giulini recording I felt he lacked depth at the bottom
of his range, and his sense of rhythm was a bit slack. Even
in this film he is more bass-baritone than true bass; to my
ears he lacks the forbidding blackness in the lower reaches
(Siepi on the De Sabata set is my ideal). He frequently has
to alter vowels in a conspicuous attempt to achieve depth;
for example 'suplex' becomes 'soaplex', 'natura' becomes
'na-toh-ruh'- yet when he has to sing the high-lying
'responsura' - the vowels are all pure. The final
'stupedit' is breathy. The upper range is magnificent; the
opening of 'Confutatis maledictis' thunders out splendidly.
Moreover though, he sings with a great deal of feeling, and
puts a lot of care into his phrasing.
The ladies, though, take top honors here.
Fiorenza Cossotto is right smack in her most
refulgent-voiced period of her career, just a few years
before the nap wore off her upper register and turned hard
and narrow. Here though, she is in shining, full tone.
Cossotto is in the same period as her recorded Santuzza
with Von Karajan, unfailingly demonstrating a rapt, finely
detailed musical expressivity, and her voice obeys her
every wish. She follows the score markings scrupulously.
The portamenti at 'proferetur' is simply ravishing;
Cossotto at this time was capable of real modulation, and
she imparts an ethereal "tubular'sound for those high-lying
lines where there is an ideal purity. 'Lux æterna' is
ravishing, spiritual. On the other end of the scale, that
immediately identifying plum-burgundy colored tone has
never etched the lower lines more satisfactorily than here.
Absent of any coarseness, the mellow richness is a pleasure
in this music. Best of all: she is a perfect match for
Price in their sections in unison. In the 'Recordare,' you
will not believe your ears when you hear their harmonizing
on the word 'redemisti'. Or their shadows-and-light effect
in 'Agnus Dei' - eerie, haunting, otherwordly! Timbres and
vibrations ideal in a way that they rarely are.
Prepare yourself for my words on Price. To my ears, this is
the greatest account of the soprano part I have ever heard.
I have heard nearly every commercial and a few live ones,
and no soprano can beat Price for sheer ease and beauty of
tone. It may even be Price's finest recorded document.
Challenge me if you wish, this is a personal observation,
but I have practically memorized the score, and her
attention to the special, specific dynamic markings is
unparalleled. Why? Because she CAN. From soft to swelled,
back to soft again? Pfftt. No problem at all, sure,
anything you want. And I'll make it easy for you; she can
boast of hitting a hallmark standard because it is
fulfilled as it rarely is in vocal music. In this account,
there is no strain or struggling ANYWHERE. The top sails
forth with a rapturous abandon, ease and purity you won't
get in any other soprano. And if anyone had a patent on
beauty of tone, it was Price. It was the voice from heaven.
Clichéd and kitsch metaphor aside, I never cease to be
amazed at how anyone can float and send out a high tone
with such lack of effort. One thing about Price's top
notes. You know how a lot of sopranos seem to reach for
their upper notes in an interval, as if they were
"climbing" in a sense? They hit the note, but it seems to
be where the vibrations are on the underside of the pitch;
with Price, she seems to drop squarely from the sky right
onto the note. Not necessarily on the upper side of the
pitch, but just the ability to gently land on it. That's
how secure she was.
Price once said (and I paraphrase) "Sometimes I just move
myself to tears. That sounds so conceited, doesn't it, but
I can't help it!" Well if anyone had a right to say it,
she did. Especially on this occasion.
How beautiful is Price's singing here? So beautiful, that
the andante section `Requiem, æternam' in the "Libera me"
still has the power after all these years, to jerk the
tears out of me.
In the dramatic opening section of "Libera Me" you can see
how involved she is, really investing into the text and
emotions in a very personal way. For once, that dusky, not
always focused lower register works just right here:
somehow the absence of chesty bellowing sounds apropos for
this religious piece. The fear and recoil is vividly
projected, and it is therefore more effective.
But nothing will prepare the listener when Price does the
`Requiem æternam.' It is an amazing circumstance, when you
follow the score, to see how conscientiously she is
following the gradations of p, pp, ppp, and pppp, executing
them flawlessly, and yet with such an abundance of feeling,
such a malleable, unforced legato line. When she's asked to
start softly, swell, and then pull back on the first
`æternam,' your ears pin back at Price's staggering ease.
And on top of that, a tone so buoyantly glistening, such
joy in the gilding of a line where so many have audible
trouble just to keep up with it.
The most boneheaded decision though, a serious editing
mistake (one for which you feel like smacking Von Karajan
upside his head) is denying us the pleasure of seeing Price
sail out the climactic high C at the end! Did Herbie wish
to upstage her? He succeeded. What more criminal thing to
do?
If you already haven't done so, do yourself a favor and get
this release. It is a legendary document of
all the artists involved at the pinnacle of their careers.
More Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala reviews:
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
Summary of Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala
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