Friends sometimes ask me how it's possible that I come up with a world-shattering masterpiece in this column every month. The implication is that I'm over-praising what I write about at least some of the time. But what they don't take into account is that these are classic years for DVD, with 40 years of films, videos and laser-disks crowding to be transferred onto the near-ideal new medium. It's not surprising that there's a masterpiece a month. What is surprising is that there aren't more.
And the latest arrivals are sensational indeed. Deutsche Grammophon have recently acquired the back catalogue of Unitel, a recording company whose predecessor, Cosmotel, was co-founded by Herbert von Karajan. Now they have issued the first 10 DVDs from that sumptuous hoard, eight operas, one ballet, and one recital. With them they're issued a sampler entitled Music to Watch. Among the riches are Jon Vickers in both Otello and Carmen, and a outstanding Le Nozze di Figaro ("Figaro's Wedding"), directed by Jean-Pierre Ponelle, dating from 1976.
There are two major advantages to this wonderful Figaro. The first is its cast -- Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the Count, Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess, Mirella Freni as Susanna, Herman Prey as Figaro and Maria Ewing as Cherubino, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by the then doyen of Mozart opera recordings, Karl Bohm. The second plus is that it's a film, not a stage performance.
The advantages of the film approach are countless. Instead of singers always having to have their mouths open, they can now be seen as if in a silent reverie, as the Countess is in both Porgi Amor and Dove Sono. The latter aria is especially moving, with slow-motion sepia film showing her days of courtship with the Count before his innumerable and
on-going infidelities. The overall sense of human beings equally consumed by sexual desire and jealousy, whatever their social rank, reaches a peak with a stunning performance by Herman Prey as Figaro. The setting looks like an authentic Andalusian stately home, and even the weather is realistic.
This marvelous film, which comes on two DVDs, dates from before the fashion arrived of opera directors doing their utmost to subvert the composers' and librettists' intentions. Here, everything is done to highlight the dramatic intelligence and the musical brilliance of the original, considered by many the finest opera ever written. Ironies and dramatic points you've missed in half a dozen stage performances suddenly leap out at you, and a few extra ones are added, invariably to the advantage of the work as a whole.
This Figaro is both beautiful and exceptionally insightful. What is so admirable about it is that its strengths are those of the original opera. If I wanted to give a young person a present that would enhance their life for the next 40 years or so, this pair of DVDs is currently what I would choose. The work itself is one of the summits of Western civilization, and though there are several other versions on DVD, this one could hardly be bettered. Subtitles are available in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and, thankfully, Chinese.
There's no way that Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore ("The love drug") is a comparable masterpiece. But it's zestful, lyrical and funny, and New York's Metropolitan Opera scored a hit with it when it was first staged in 1992. This recording of that production offers great pleasure in a gorgeously rich, appropriately camp style.
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