Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Don Carlo (1868)
Don Carlo – Luis Lima (tenor)
Elisabetta de Valois – Ileana Cotrubas (soprano)
Posa – Giorgio Zancanaro (baritone)
King Philip – Robert Lloyd (bass)
Eboli – Bruna Baglioni (mezzo-soprano)
Chorus and Orchestra of Royal Opera, Covent Garden/Bernard Haitink
Luchino Visconti – original production stage director
rec. live, April 1985, Royal Opera House, London, UK
OPUS ARTE OA1340D DVD [204]
One is so often frustrated by the visual images presented in modern operatic productions featured on video and DVD that it comes as something of a relief to encounter a remastered copy of a good old-fashioned staging given in a presentation that respects the composer’s stage directions in settings that reflect the historical period of the action with singers reprising roles that they will have sung on stage many times. There is of course all too often a downside to this. These same old-fashioned productions can seem simply uninspired, flat or even downright dull when given under revival directors who are concerned simply to go through the motions of “what was done last time”; singers can seem uninterested in the dramatic significance of their music, contenting themselves with the presentation of a concert in costume; and even the sets which may once have seemed to imposing begin to look decidedly tatty around the edges after a couple of decades of being none too gently taken out of storage and put back after a run of performances. This production of Don Carlos by Luchino Visconti was one of the most spectacular successful events at the Royal Opera Covent Garden during the late 1950s – it was succeeded only months later by the astounding debut of Joan Sutherland as Lucia di Lammermoor produced by Franco Zeffirelli, to produce a double Italian triumph – and it held the stage for some thirty years before this revival, with of course a completely different cast, shortly before it was granted honourable retirement.
In many ways the production itself was revolutionary at the time of its original appearance in 1958. It presented Verdi’s score very nearly uncut (contemporary stagings elsewhere frequently made excisions throughout) in the version that the composer himself contrived for the final productions that he approved in Italy in the 1890s, adding an Italian adaptation of the original French Act One to the four-Act edition that had been current outside Paris until the time. As we were later to discover, thanks to much invaluable investigative musicological research during the 1970s, this was by a long way short of a really complete rendition of the score as originally conceived by the composer; and later productions have added back all sorts of additional material, to the extent that no two versions of Don Carlos in the theatre ever seem to contain precisely identical music – quite apart from the vexed matter of whether the opera should be sung in the original French or the ‘standard’ hack Italian translation. In recent years Covent Garden seem to have opted firmly for French, and their latest video release under Antonio Pappano adopts this procedure. But that of course is in a new production altogether.
Visconti attracted some critical brickbats at the time of the original production for a couple of minor directorial extravagances: King Philip accompanied by a couple of wolfhounds, or the presence of a whole bevy of ladies inside the monastery walls in Act Two. But these pale into insignificance beside the directorial excesses visited on the score from other quarters, and the sheer beauty of the stage pictures survives in the slightly pastel shades of the television coloration of this video. The only scene that somehow seems pallid is the spectacular Auto da fé in Act Three, where the stage seems less than ideally crowded – perhaps the Royal Opera management had economically cut back on the population of extras? Sightlines are always clearly visible, and the camera angles enable the viewer to enjoy everything that Visconti has to present – he was also responsible for his own set, lighting and costume designs.
The singing cast too, although not quite as star-studded as at the time of the 1958 first appearance of this production, is imaginative and well-considered. Ileana Cotrubas was an established Verdian in such roles of Violetta, and might have been regarded as possessing a voice a size too small for the more capacious shoes of Elizabetta; but she rises to the moments of stress with gallantry and warmth, and presents a credible depiction of a young woman thrust into events which leave her out of her depth. Luis Lima is also a shade small-voiced for a role that attracted the leading Italian tenors of his generation, but again he has a sense of dramatic inevitability in a character whose physical and moral weakness contribute to his own downfall. By his side Giorgio Zancanaro is a solidly sympathetic Posa, not perhaps as subtle a singer as some but firmly in control of his rich tone and dramatically able to face down his King during their confrontations. As that King, Robert Lloyd is an almost too noble Philip – this is a despotic ruler who rejoices in the burning of his heretic subjects, and is physically and emotionally abusive towards his young wife in a totally heartless manner – but he has the strength of line both in the upper and lower registers to ensure that his music is given its full measure. By comparison Bruna Baglioni is more conventional as Eboli, producing plenty of high notes and low ones as required but not really combing them into a convincing whole. The elderly Joseph Rouleau is also slightly underpowered as the Grand Inquisitor – Lloyd is definitely in the driving seat during their scene together – and Matthew Best is smooth rather than sinister as the Monk, eventually revealed to be Philip’s abdicated father. As I have already suggested, the chorus sound as though they could have been numerically reinforced to advantage; and Haitink is a polite Verdian conductor rather than one who can set the score ablaze, in the manner that Pappano does with the same orchestra in their video from the next generation. Brian Large in his video production, as always, earns our gratitude for making sure that the cameras are pointing in the right direction to capture everything.
Those who hanker after a partially mythical age of the days when operatic productions were more conventional and realistic will need to incentive to investigate this video, which has a considerable historical interest; but others too should investigate, and will discover that the old traditions were by no means as moribund as some modern critics like to allege. There is also the added bonus that this may well be one of the last recordings of the opera to enshrine the text and language of the score in the form that Verdi himself finally authorised.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Other Cast and Production Staff
A Monk – Matthew Best (bass)
Grand Inquisitor – Joseph Rouleau (bass)
Tebaldo – Patricia Parker (soprano)
Lerma – John Dobson (tenor)
Voice from Heaven – Lola Biagioni (soprano)
Herald – Alan Jones (baritone)
Luchino Visconti – design, scenery, lighting and costumes
Christopher Renshaw – revival director
Brian Large – video director
Video Details
Picture format: 4:3
Sound format: Dolby digital
Region Code: all regions
Sung in Italian, with subtitles in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese
