It's interesting, as well, to hear resident singers in different roles. Lucio Gallo, for instance, is here a youthful Count Almaviva, while in Boccanegra he plays the darker figure of Paolo Albiani. Patrizia Ciofi, the Susanna here, sings a modern Violetta complete with sunglasses in another fine release from Jingo, La Traviata conducted by Lorin Maazel from La Fenice, Venice (2004).
The main feature recommending the live outdoor concert filmed in Dresden in 1999, Dresden Classical Night, is the presence of the fine Bulgarian-born soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow. Predictably, she gives a superb performance. But there are six soloists in all, so none of them gets that much screen time. They end up singing the Brindisi from La Traviata together, a bizarre event indeed. The other soloists are Deborah Sasson, Vincenzo La Scola (who sings Gabriele Adorno in the Boccanegra reviewed above), Neil Shicoff, Volker Bengl and Roland Seiffarth.
Lastly, a film that's not new but deserves a few words of praise nonetheless. Entitled Hans Werner Henze: Memoirs of an Outsider, it's a highly atmospheric survey of the life and work of the man it describes as Germany's most distinguished composer. Born in Westphalia in 1926, Henze is seen in his home of 40 years, just outside Rome. Early on you hear Simon Rattle describing his work and position in 20th century music generally. “Essentially he is always going to be an outsider — as a gay man, as a liberal growing up in the Third Reich, as a person who seems to be somehow, not a refugee, but always somewhere else.”
Henze is a composer who was heavily criticized, along with Shostakovich and Britten, by the serialists in the post-1945 era for not being sufficiently austere. These days this has become an asset, though his wanting to have all instruments playing all of the time can be a problem. Even so, this is a truly fascinating DVD, and highly recommended.
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