Verdi - Simon Boccanegra / Levine, Te Kanawa, Metropolitan Opera
by Brian Large
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bruno Pola, Kiri Te Kanawa, Plácido Domingo, Robert Lloyd, Vladimir ChernovDirector: Brian Large
Editor: Gary Bradley
Writer: Francesco Maria Piave
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 141 minutes
Published: 2011-10-24
DVD Release Date: 2002-09-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Movie Reviews of Verdi - Simon Boccanegra / Levine, Te Kanawa, Metropolitan Opera
Movie Review: Verdi's Greatest Music...
Summary: 5 Stars
...and therefore his greatest opera!
That's not an opinion shared by everyone, I know, but watching and listening to this production by the Metropolitan Opera might concern a few. Verdi himself thought, as he put it, that he'd done something worthwhile with Simon Boccanegra, and he revised it and promoted it assiduously. In no other opera is his music so consistent, both in melodic invention and in sustained development. The aesthetic failings of earlier operas, in my ears, were their episodic unevenness and an ever-present possibility of lapsing into schmaltzy bumptiousness just at the wrong moment. In Simon Boccanegra, Verdi achieves a unity of voices and orchestra, of song and symphony that opera lovers are more likely to expect from Wagner. But Verdi never lets his musical invention stagnate into bombast. Conductor James Levine takes a few passages on this recording a little too briskly and bouncily, mostly in the first scenes, but the superb musicianship of the Met orchestra fills Verdi's score with an opulence that matches the visual splendor of sets and costumes extravagant even by New York standards. The only visible flaw in the production is the weathered face of Placido Domingo, decades too old for the role of Adorno, but who could want to replace him with a prettier face when he sings so heroically? Kiri Te Kanawa is divine in the role of Maria/Amelia, Adorno's lver and Boccanegra's lost daughter. The love story, however, is secondary to the tale of hatred and reconciliation, acted out by the two old men, Simon and his vengeful enemy Jacopo Fiesco, sung by baritones Vladimir Chernov and Robert Lloyd. I have heard more beautiful male voices - most recently that of Dmitri Hvorostosky and Vitalij Kowaljow as Boccanegra and Fiesco in the current San Francisco production - but Chernov and Lloyd compensate for their vocal roughness with powerful expressiveness. Camera work is way good, as they say in Hollywood, and the recording quality is clear and well balanced between stage and orchestra pit. Even the subtitles are better than average - more accurate and more ample.
Critics and program writers often declare that Simon Boccanegra is difficult to stage. There's an awkward jump of 25 years between the first act and the principal drama of the 2nd--4th acts. There are several improbable coincidences... but what opera lacks its improbabilities? None of that detracts, to my mind, from the dramatic grandeur of Verdi's concept, of the father-daughter bond that overcomes implacable enmity and reptilian betrayal. The libretto is not without melodrama, but it approaches Shakespearean tragedy far closer than the operas like Othello and MacBeth that Verdi based on actual Shakespeare plays. Believe me, folks won't go home from Simon Boccanegra saying "great singing but what a dumb plot!"
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