Seeing this production
with the same cast live at Covent Garden
in April 1985, but not this specific
performance, I have very vivid memories
of the occasion. I knew it was going
to be filmed but I never saw it; Swedish
Television didn’t show it. Memory can
be deceptive of course, but when the
DVD started I felt at once transported
back to the Royal Opera House twenty
years ago, although to a better seat;
in 1985 I was perched in the amphitheatre.
In a way the two occasions were complementary
to each other, for from the amphi one
has a perfect over-view of the enormous
stage and Visconti’s sets really made
their mark while on the TV screen they
make fairly little impression and Brian
Large wisely chose to bring us into
the action by mostly working with close-ups.
With good actors this pays dividends
when the drama unfolds, for although
this is "Grand Opera" it is
in the main characters’ reactions and
relations that the real drama takes
place – just as in Aïda.
Occasionally this spotlighting also
has its drawbacks: the lighting, so
evocative when watching from a distance,
sometimes places the actors in an unfavourable
light and especially Don Carlo himself
in the first act seems to be suffering
from an advanced stage of jaundice.
To continue on a critical note the sound
is no more than adequate and the auto-da-fé
scene naturally is the big loser.
Bernard Haitink, who
is filmed from the pit every so often,
leads a well-knit performance, more
forward-going than his CD recording
made some ten years later, which is
well sung but too laid-back. It is a
long opera in predominantly dark colours,
here underlined by the dark sets and
costumes and often sparse lighting.
Some productions are redeemed by Don
Carlo in the final scene being transfigured.
In the current Stockholm production,
though, he kills himself and here he
is dragged by Charles V, seemingly against
his will, into the unknown darkness.
The central themes in the drama: the
complicated love relations, Philip’s
despotic reign and his yielding to the
altar, personified by the Grand Inquisitor,
are well delineated in a performance
that grows in intensity and never slackens.
There is some scrappy wind playing,
noticeably in the prelude to Act 5 –
or is it just the recording? – but otherwise
the orchestra are fully up to their
usual standard, as is the chorus.
The cast could hardly
be bettered and it is especially good
to be able to commend a couple of singers
otherwise more or less neglected by
the regular record companies. First
of all Luis Lima in the title role,
which seems to have been written specifically
for him. He is a splendid actor and
his emotions are so grippingly mirrored
through his facial expressions that
one can’t help shedding some tears as
listener and onlooker. His involvement
is so deep that one sometimes fears
that he won’t be able to sing. But he
is and he sings like few other exponents
of the role have done. On sound-only
Bergonzi may beat him by a hair’s-breadth
but with the acting taken into account
he reigns supreme: beautiful voice,
nuanced, living the part.
Bruna Baglioni, who
if I remember correctly was a replacement
for Tatiana Troyanos, is a magnificent
Eboli, sexually alluring and singing
with intensity and burnished tone, making
O don fatale a highpoint of the
performance.
Of the more household
names Giorgio Zancanaro once again shows
that during the 1980s and early 1990s
he was the possibly best Verdi baritone
around, challenged by Bruson, but while
not having such a magnificent instrument
as the latter, was far more accomplished
at expressing the shifting emotions.
The prison scene in Act 4 can stand
with the best, not showy but honest
and involved.
One would have thought
that Elisabetta was too heavy a role
for Ileana Cotrubas’s lyric soprano
and of course one hears that she is
no Tebaldi, but a slimmer voice in this
part can have its own rewards and Cotrubas’s
slight flutter makes her more vulnerable
and so more credible than a hefty spinto
voice. Her great aria in the last act
is affectionately sung and she has enough
power even for the climactic eruptions
of emotion.
In the theatre Robert
Lloyd’s tremendous authority penetrated
even up in the amphitheatre and in close-up
he is a formidable Philip, acting with
grave dignity and horrifying wrath.
He is also extremely sensitive in the
more private utterances, his monologue
directed upwards – to God. This is a
wonderfully nuanced portrait of one
of the most complex of operatic characters.
Joseph Rouleau, another
singer in the main neglected by the
record companies, is a threatening Grand
Inquisitor, sonorous and venomous. The
smaller parts are generally well taken,
although Matthew Best’s characterful
Monk could have been steadier.
There are several other
versions of Don Carlos on DVD,
which I haven’t seen, among them a production
from last year with the newest tenor
star Rolando Villazon and, again, Robert
Lloyd as Philip, but apart from the
less than excellent sound, this is a
version that can be whole-heartedly
recommended – and not for nostalgic
reasons only.
Göran Forsling
The Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the
Royal Opera House/Bernard Haitink 
NVC ARTS 510110242-2 [approx. 204:00] 
