A new DVD version of Otello, widely considered to be Verdi’s masterpiece, is an important event. Issued in March, it’s based on a production at the Salzburg Festival in 2008. This was the first new Otello to be staged there since 1970.
Otello and Desdemona are played by relatively young soloists, the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and the Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya. Iago is the somewhat older Spanish baritone Carlos Alvarez.
There’s no doubt which of these three makes the biggest impression. Poplavskaya has a truly dynamic voice. You have no inkling when you first see her, huddled in an oversized jacket, what an explosive presence she will prove when she finally sings. She is in every way a major discovery, and this Otello is certain to catapult her into international stardom. She sounds a natural for Isolde, for example.
Otello himself is a titanic operatic role, and some critics at the Salzburg performances expressed doubts as to whether Antonenko was equal to it yet. Here he certainly takes second place to his opposite number (and she has a lot less to sing than he does), and to the forceful, caustic Iago of Alvarez too. Nevertheless, he does have his moments, though vigor rather than feeling is probably his strongest suit.
The production, directed by Stephen Langridge, features a relatively bare stage, with a glasslike platform in the middle, eventually to be smashed by Iago, and the central section of the back wall devoted to video projections. Color is provided by the chorus, exotically dressed Cypriots in an early scene, including some girls who try to seduce an innocent-seeming teenager.
Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in what is a near-ideal rendering of this mighty score. The arrival of the Venetian ambassadors, for instance, is almost unbearably intense, as is the whole of the third act (the last act is less successful). The DVD is topped off with a 30-minute bonus item in which the soloists and Langridge (but not Muti) engage in chat about the opera. Yet Muti is in some ways the star of this production. He must have known Otello supremely well from his days at La Scala where it was always the opening opera of each new season.
This is an exciting release, with many impressive elements. This is not to say, however, that it’s superior to the more sophisticated Met version of 1996 with Domingo, Fleming and Morris, conducted by Levine. That version remains unchallenged. However, a dream ticket with Domingo, Morris and Poplavskaya would probably stand against all comers.
Karajan was a great proponent of Richard Strauss, in contrast to his rather wavering commitment to Mahler. Three DVDs of him conducting Strauss’s tone poem Don Quixote have come to hand, two from Sony and one from Deutsche Grammophon, and it’s inevitable to ask which is to be recommended. All performances are with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
The two Sony DVDs were issued in 2005 and 2008 respectively, the former standing alone, the latter in combination with Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”). The version on Deutsche Grammophon is partly concealed from the casual browser as it’s included in a DVD entitled Rostropovich: Life and Art. While not in any sense a cello concerto, Don Quixote has a prominent part for a solo cello, and Rostropovich’s performance, with Karajan on the podium, dates from 1975 (the DVD was issued in 2008).
The Rostropovich DVD is hugely attractive on many counts. At 131 minutes it’s tremendous value for money. It not only contains the Don Quixote with Karajan but also Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Bloch’s Schelmo with Leonard Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France, filmed in Paris in 1976. And there’s a bonus half-hour film about Rostropovich that is endlessly fascinating.
So what of the Don Quixote? It’s a live performance in the Berliner Philharmonie and is played by Rostropovich with characteristic attack and exuberance. The sound quality is outstanding, with great presence, each instrument being vividly highlighted in the sound-picture whenever it has a prominent moment. Visually it’s brightly lit, and is in every way a buoyant and dramatic occasion.
The surprise that comes when comparing the two Sony DVDs is that they contain the same performance of Don Quixote, filmed in 1986. Clearly the Heldenleben (filmed in 1985) was added subsequently to give better value and a new lease of life to the Don Quixote recording.
These Sony versions are quite different from the Deutsche Grammophon one with Rostropovich. They’re a studio performance, and clearly intended to be definitive. The feeling is of a dark studio world, with the various key instrumentalists, and needless to say Karajan himself, dramatically lit against the Stygian background. Karajan had a part, probably the controlling one, in the editing, and the effect is of an all-of-a-piece work of art, with the visuals, recorded sound and performance quality all receiving the closest possible attention.
The choice, then, will depend on the couplings. But it’s hard indeed not to want both these Karajan versions of one of Strauss’s most lovingly detailed scores.
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