DGM 00440 073 4135
Mozart died before he could finish his Requiem, and Leonard Bernstein conducted the performance newly released by Deutsche Grammophon in 1988, two years before his own death. It's exceptionally heart-felt, with some very slow speeds. With the rococo sumptuousness of St Mary's Minster, Diessen (in Germany) as background, the effect is very moving. No one claps at the end (despite the presence of a small audience), and the silence is only broken by the tolling of a couple of church bells. Bernstein rather theatrically dabs a tear from an eye at one point.
Of the four soloists, Jerry Hadley and Marie McLaughlin are particularly resonant and strong, and the DVD as a whole is definitely the best of the three DVDs of Mozart's Requiem I've seen.
Beatrice Di Tenda
Vincenzo Bellini
Gruberova, Volle, Kaluza, Hernandez
TDK 82412 100172
Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda was his penultimate opera, coming after Norma and before Il Puritani. It isn't performed often, but the DVD from Zurich Opera suggests that it should be. Bellini's rising and falling lyrical melodies, followed by quick-march choruses, are addictive, and become more beautiful the more often you hear them.
The story is of Filippo, Duke of Milan, who no longer loves his wife Beatrice, and has fallen for a younger women, Agnese. She, though, loves a young man called Orombello, but he loves the soon-to-be-abandoned Beatrice. It's all as frustrating as the triangle of unreturned love in Sartre's bitter little play Huis Clos. The difference is that Filippo is a Renaissance prince, and so has his wife tortured to reveal the names of Orombello's accomplices (Orombello happens to be planning the duke's overthrow).
Edita Gruberova sings the twice-tormented Beatrice with professional bel canto grace, but the true star is Michael Volle who renders the cruel Filippo with velvet-toned menace and repressed voluptuousness. The setting is brought forward to the 1930s, and good use is made of Zurich's revolving stage. Marcello Viotti conducts the local orchestra with appropriate grace, and the result is a recording of an unjustly neglected opera that can be firmly recommended.
RSS