Verdi's grand tale of ill-fated love, deadly vendetta, and family strife.Verdi's grand tale of ill-fated love, deadly vendetta, and family strife.Verdi's grand tale of ill-fated love, deadly vendetta, and family strife.
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Featured review
Still the best Forza on DVD
Verdi's La Forza del Destino is a very long opera with great music but poses a bit of a problem scenically. The plot is convoluted and hard to believe, think Il Trovatore, but much longer. The comic scenes were intended to lighten up things but sometimes drag on. So most performances have (sometimes heavy) cuts. This performance is no exception and yet still comes in at over 2,5 hours.
The opera was recorded at the San Carlo in Naples on 20.03.1958 (the date 15.03. On the Hardy Classics DVD is wrong, that was Corelli's role debut of which there is only a private audio recording in bad sound). The audio of 20.03. (with the prompter audible) is from the radio broadcast, the video was filmed at the same time, without sound, and had been lost. When the film resurfaced it turned out to be very dark and had to be lightened considerably which impacted the picture quality. The film also had to be aligned to the audio. Considering the technical challenges the result is good enough though of course it cannot be compared to modern videos.
Production and costumes are traditional and very much representative of what opera used to be in 50ies Italy and earlier. For viewers used to modern Regietheater the acting may at first look strange, but the singers' gestures are meant to be seen and understood in the furthest reaches of the house and so may look exaggerated or static on screen. The singing also was different, microphones (usually only one high above the orchestra pit) were only for backstage purposes and for the broadcast, none amplyfying into the auditorium, so the voices had to have squillo (ring) to project above the orchestra and into the house.
Orchestra (a notoriously undisciplined one) and choir of the San Carlo are ably conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. There is the odd misalignment between stage and pit typical of live performances and sometimes there are brief disagreements over tempi between conductor and soloists. The rowdy Naples claque also make themselves felt by throwing cabbages at Corelli (Northerners weren't always welcome in the South).
Renata Tebaldi sings Leonora di Vargas, one of her best roles, and in 1958 she was still in her prime. The voice is huge but capable of the most ethereal pianos, with a still solid top, an all enveloping velvety middle range and strong chest voice- this is simply great singing! Her big aria and the final trio are out of this world. Tebaldi was a tall woman (nearly 1,80m) and had suffered from Polio in her youth. She has always (undeservedly) come in for a lot of flak from Callas supporters saying her acting was static and her singing unimaginative. It's true she doesn't do much running around on stage yet her acting always has dignity and sincerity and her Leonora is completely convincing. In a way she can appear old fashioned but Tebaldi's role portraits both vocally and on stage are just as valid as Callas'.
Franco Corelli's Don Alvaro (only days after his role debut) is already a fully realized characterisation and vocally the role fits him like a glove. He has the mezza voce and long sustained breaths but also the ringing high notes and the raw power for the dramatic outbursts.
In the aria you can detect a touch of the (in)famous Corelli nerves, as the performance goes on the nervousness disappears. In Solenne in quest'ora which he sings lying on his back you can hear the voice of a man close to death, perfection! (Except maybe for the last needlessly aspirated addihios, but Bastianini does just the same;-) The last duet with Don Carlo is the test for every Don Alvaro, it has a low B flat (under C) where voices too light for the part simply go under/ are inaudible. Corelli passes with flying colours and apart from vocal glory also pulls off some convincingly sincere acting in a monk's robe.
As Don Carlo di Vargas Ettore Bastianini's dark baritone ideally complements Corelli's tenor, in this case I really regret that their second duet was cut. The beauty of Bastianini's voice was always indisputable but at times he could sound a bit stolid and uninvolved. This is certainly not the case here, he is fully into the action- like Corelli he was usually much more inspired live than in the recording studio.
Boris Christoff lends his unmistakeable bass to Padre Guardiano. The beard and hair seem a bit outdated even for the 50ies but his performance is certainly impressive. Vocally I prefer Cesare Siepi in this role but that's a matter of personal taste.
The part of Preziosilla is a very hard one to pull off, her music is rather formulaic and not Verdi's most inspired. Oralia Dominguez is a luxury cast and she does all that can be done with the role.
Renato Capecchi as Fra Melitone has a much more thankful role which he acts and sings with gusto, this is real comic relief amid the drama and tragedy.
The whole cast is one houses today can only dream of and as such the performance is an invaluable document. Apart from that it is the only live video of a full opera that we have of the great Franco Corelli (all the others are lip synched TV films).
The opera was recorded at the San Carlo in Naples on 20.03.1958 (the date 15.03. On the Hardy Classics DVD is wrong, that was Corelli's role debut of which there is only a private audio recording in bad sound). The audio of 20.03. (with the prompter audible) is from the radio broadcast, the video was filmed at the same time, without sound, and had been lost. When the film resurfaced it turned out to be very dark and had to be lightened considerably which impacted the picture quality. The film also had to be aligned to the audio. Considering the technical challenges the result is good enough though of course it cannot be compared to modern videos.
Production and costumes are traditional and very much representative of what opera used to be in 50ies Italy and earlier. For viewers used to modern Regietheater the acting may at first look strange, but the singers' gestures are meant to be seen and understood in the furthest reaches of the house and so may look exaggerated or static on screen. The singing also was different, microphones (usually only one high above the orchestra pit) were only for backstage purposes and for the broadcast, none amplyfying into the auditorium, so the voices had to have squillo (ring) to project above the orchestra and into the house.
Orchestra (a notoriously undisciplined one) and choir of the San Carlo are ably conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. There is the odd misalignment between stage and pit typical of live performances and sometimes there are brief disagreements over tempi between conductor and soloists. The rowdy Naples claque also make themselves felt by throwing cabbages at Corelli (Northerners weren't always welcome in the South).
Renata Tebaldi sings Leonora di Vargas, one of her best roles, and in 1958 she was still in her prime. The voice is huge but capable of the most ethereal pianos, with a still solid top, an all enveloping velvety middle range and strong chest voice- this is simply great singing! Her big aria and the final trio are out of this world. Tebaldi was a tall woman (nearly 1,80m) and had suffered from Polio in her youth. She has always (undeservedly) come in for a lot of flak from Callas supporters saying her acting was static and her singing unimaginative. It's true she doesn't do much running around on stage yet her acting always has dignity and sincerity and her Leonora is completely convincing. In a way she can appear old fashioned but Tebaldi's role portraits both vocally and on stage are just as valid as Callas'.
Franco Corelli's Don Alvaro (only days after his role debut) is already a fully realized characterisation and vocally the role fits him like a glove. He has the mezza voce and long sustained breaths but also the ringing high notes and the raw power for the dramatic outbursts.
In the aria you can detect a touch of the (in)famous Corelli nerves, as the performance goes on the nervousness disappears. In Solenne in quest'ora which he sings lying on his back you can hear the voice of a man close to death, perfection! (Except maybe for the last needlessly aspirated addihios, but Bastianini does just the same;-) The last duet with Don Carlo is the test for every Don Alvaro, it has a low B flat (under C) where voices too light for the part simply go under/ are inaudible. Corelli passes with flying colours and apart from vocal glory also pulls off some convincingly sincere acting in a monk's robe.
As Don Carlo di Vargas Ettore Bastianini's dark baritone ideally complements Corelli's tenor, in this case I really regret that their second duet was cut. The beauty of Bastianini's voice was always indisputable but at times he could sound a bit stolid and uninvolved. This is certainly not the case here, he is fully into the action- like Corelli he was usually much more inspired live than in the recording studio.
Boris Christoff lends his unmistakeable bass to Padre Guardiano. The beard and hair seem a bit outdated even for the 50ies but his performance is certainly impressive. Vocally I prefer Cesare Siepi in this role but that's a matter of personal taste.
The part of Preziosilla is a very hard one to pull off, her music is rather formulaic and not Verdi's most inspired. Oralia Dominguez is a luxury cast and she does all that can be done with the role.
Renato Capecchi as Fra Melitone has a much more thankful role which he acts and sings with gusto, this is real comic relief amid the drama and tragedy.
The whole cast is one houses today can only dream of and as such the performance is an invaluable document. Apart from that it is the only live video of a full opera that we have of the great Franco Corelli (all the others are lip synched TV films).
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- Jun 16, 2022
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