Teatro La Fenice
Opera Collection, Volume I
Georges Bizet (1838-75)
Les pècheurs de perles (1863)
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Luisa Miller (1849)
Richard Wagner (1813-83)
Parsifal (1882)
Jules Massenet (1842-1912)
Thaïs (1894)
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
Die Tote Stadt (1920)
Benjamin Britten (1913-76)
Death in Venice (1973)
Performers, cast and recording details listed after review
Dynamic 38055 [8 DVDs: 963]

This is really a very odd collection of operatic video recordings, which apart from the fact that all the works come from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and are given in productions originating from La Fenice in Venice have really nothing in common with each other. Nearly all of them appear to have been the subject of earlier DVD releases, although only a couple appear to have been the subject of published reviews; one appears to be altogether new to the domestic catalogues (the history is not altogether clear) and some have been previously reviewed on this site as audio releases. But they are all worthy representations of the operas concerned, generally well-cast and sensibly designed and directed without any of the excrescences which can afflict too many modern operatic productions. I will treat each work in isolation, on the basis that potential purchasers may wish to look out for individual issues; and I have noted where these remain available.

Death in Venice

This is by some degree the most highly recommendable of these offerings: and the charming idea of bringing Britten’s final opera to life in the city where the action is almost entirely set is a thoroughly good one. Britten himself took some pains to depict the crumbling grandeur of Venice in his music – most notably in the belated ‘overture’ (so entitled) before the third scene – and here, with the aid of some realistic projections and recognisable landmarks, that element in the score is well matched. By contrast many other productions on video lack this essential ingredient in the dramatic mix, and for example in the otherwise excellent Glyndebourne video which was the first to appear in the catalogues the scenic milieu was conspicuous by its total absence; when the hotel proprietor proudly shows off the view from his windows, we were presented with a blank white screen which left absolutely everything to the viewer’s imagination. Here the movements are occasionally ungainly – the gondola seems to have a strange ability to halt in mid-stream – but the atmosphere is always present, and even the extended balletic sequences fall into place without seeming over-extended as they so often can (the Welsh National Opera production earlier this year brilliantly resolved the problem by introducing a sharper focus through the use of spectacular acrobatics). The singing too is good. The multifarious accents are fine as a reflection of the cosmopolitan nature of the hotel clientele, with only the English clerk at the tourist office sounding uncomfortable with the language; and the American Martin Miller is excellent as Aschenbach, with impeccable enunciation which makes the sometimes high-flown poesy of Myfanwy Price’s libretto at times too obvious (although it is a fair reflection of what may be presumed to be Aschenbach’s own style). Scott Hendricks as the multifarious villains is also excellent and clear of English diction; he is more heavily dramatically involved than usual, less of a suave insinuator and more of a physical bully, but as an interpretation it works well and produces some occasional moments of heightened tension. Alessandro Riga as Tadzio is suitably enigmatic, less knowingly provocative than some rivals on video and all the better for it. The offstage chorus is consigned to the back of the orchestra pit, which may sacrifice something acoustically in ambient atmosphere but is welcome for the increased clarity of the texture. The veteran Bruno Bartoletti is an excellent and unexpected conductor, and keeps the music moving on the occasions when it threatens to become becalmed. The individual video issue from 2010 remains available (also in a Blu-Ray release), and was a justified finalist in the 2011 Gramophone awards.

Thaïs

This too is as excellent production, more dramatically integrated that the starrier rival from the Metropolitan Opera with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, and much more satisfactory musically than the textually butchered video from Vienna that I so thoroughly disliked a couple of years ago (review). Indeed I had found it not unpleasing when I previously reviewed it ten years ago in its audio incarnation. Eva Mei may not have the sheer glamour of Fleming as the Alexandrian courtesan, but she can manage most of the notes in this impossibly difficult role and she transitions nicely in her progress from sinner to saint during the course of the opera. Of course the more interesting character is Athanael, who makes the opposite spiritual journey at the same time; Michele Petusi may have a rather gruff more bass-orientated tone than is usual in this part, but he makes an excellent dramatic impression and certainly engages the sympathy of the audience. At the end, instead of pressing his attentions urgently on the dying Thaïs, he is isolated at the front of the stage uttering his despairing blasphemies while she obliviously passes on into the realm of sainthood totally ignorant of his distress; this may not have been Massenet’s intention, but it works well. William Joyner makes a good impression as Nicias, creating a credible contemporary for Athanael and lover for Thaïs much more palatable than the elderly and jaded roué we sometimes encounter. Marcello Viotti conducts with engagement and sympathy, the sets by Pier Luigi Pizzi are more realistic than the somewhat primitive abstractions at the Met, and the score – unlike the ghastly Vienna travesty – is thankfully left largely as Massenet wrote it, with just some minor abridgement in the ballet. Again the individual DVD remains available.

Parsifal

This is another production which should be welcomed for its avoidance of the sheer inanity and idiocy which afflicts all too many stagings of Wagner’s swansong. The sets are not realistic, but they show imagination with some subtle and clever use of lighting even when they duck the difficult business of Parsifal catching the spear thrown at him by Klingsor with a sudden blackout. The costumes are perhaps more revealing than Wagner might have expected (more of that anon), and Klingsor would certainly have benefited from an outfit which better concealed his decaying body; but we are spared the hospital environment which so many modern directors seem to consider appropriate for an opera where sickness, although an essential ingredient, is spiritual rather than physical. But nonetheless the sets are dully abstract rather than evocative, and the presence of an unconvincing heap of boulders near the front of the stage (they act at different times as a convenient seat in the forest and as a rather impractical altar in the temple scenes) does little to redeem some nondescript scenery and a Grail Temple that appears to be constructed of painted corrugated steel. The final scene, so often employed by producers and designers as an excuse to indulge their most abstruse directorial fantasies, forswears any attempt at transcendence; almost immediately Parsifal has finished singing, the Grail is once again veiled, the scenery flies up into the wings, and Kundry wanders away into the darkness, leaving the singers on stage in an uneasily frozen tableau (one or two chorus members fidgeting uncomfortably) that seems to extend for aeons. Heaven knows one is grateful not to be afflicted by some horrific weirdness on stage, but at the other extreme this void remains aggravatingly unsatisfying.

The casting is generally well judged, with Richard Decker excellent both musically and dramatically in the title role; and Wolfgang Schöne, although rather blustering at climaxes, is certainly an effective Amfortas. But the Gurnemanz of Matthias Hölle looks considerably younger than Amfortas, which is dramatically incredible when he has to deliver his narratives in Act One, although he sounds less assured in Act Three; and Mikolaj Zalasinski as Klingsor seems to be all too understandably concerned to gather his skimpy costume around him to conceal his naked flesh. Best is Doris Soffel as Kundry, whose rock-solid technique serves her superbly in a role that is all too often consigned to wayward and unruly sopranos or mezzos. She ducks the wild laughter that Wagner requests when Klingsor’s knights are defeated, and for that we may well be grateful. The choral singing, so important in this opera, is not ideally Germanic in tone, but remains firm and solid thanks to reinforcement from Camerata Silesia; the orchestral playing under Gabor ötvos lacks the luminosity found in performances from Bayreuth and elsewhere, and the balances at climaxes sometimes lack focus; but altogether this is pretty satisfactory even if my firm recommendation would come from the Sinopoli video from Bayreuth about which I waxed lyrical a few years ago (review). And I fail to see why the performance should be extended so extravagantly over three DVDs, although it remains available as an individual release in that format at a reduced price and actually somewhat less expensive than some rivals.

Die Tote Stadt

Again this is a performance which, if not of the top flight, is a fully worthy representation of an opera which remains a bête noire to many critics who can never apparently forgive Korngold his Hollywood success. As with Death in Venice, Pier Luigi Pizzi’s designs make a conscious attempt to engage with the atmosphere of Bruges, the ‘dead city’ of the title, with revolving spires and turrets whirling across the background in a nightmare vision and a lagoon to the back of the stage with real water in which characters can either wade or float in boats. Unfortunately this is all part of a single unit set present throughout the opera, which means that the dream-like fantasy is present from the moment the curtain rises instead of insinuating itself during the later stages of Act One as Paul begins to fantasise about his dead wife. The old video from Berlin produced by Götz Friedrich, long deleted but worth seeking out on the second-hand market, managed this transition with far more assurance. This Venice staging scores over Berlin with younger and fresher voices in the two leading roles, although Stefan Vinke as Paul understandably shows signs of strain and fatigue in places during the more strenuous passages of a part that simultaneously demands high heroic declamation and quiet lyricism; and Solveig Kringelborn combines the roles of his dead wife and his living lover with much greater steadiness and beauty of tone than did Karan Armstrong in Berlin. Stephan Genz in the only other part of substance, combining the roles of Pierrot and Frank, is fine in his big song but is let down badly by one of the sopranos in the wordless vocalise that accompanies his final phrases – since this video appears to have been assembled from two separate performances, it should surely have been possible to interpolate a different ‘take’ of this passage. The orchestra under Eliahu Inbal does not have the ideal Korngold richness in the lusher passages of the score; Kiril Petrenko is preferable in the recent video of the opera from the Bavarian State Opera which I reviewed a couple of years ago, although there the essential element of the dead city is entirely missing from Simon Stone’s less than enchanting production. In this case there does not appear to be an individual DVD release currently available.

Les pêcheurs de perles

Unfortunately this performance has to be consigned to the rank of the ordinary rather than anything exceptional or worthy of preservation for posterity. Even those who are coming to the work without any previous conceptions, but who will inevitably know and love the famous duet, will find themselves disappointed by the fact that this reading – alone among DVD versions – adheres to Bizet’s original version of the ending with its decidedly ordinary and conventional conclusion instead of the posthumously added reprise of the main theme with which we are familiar. Nadir’s aria Je crois entendre encore is similarly stripped of its inauthentic pianissimo high C at the end. But it is not simply the matter of the edition of Bizet’s score that causes problems. Only Annick Massis as Leila seems fully to be engaged dramatically and musically with her role, and among the remainder of the singers only the sturdy Luca Grassi as Zurga comes near to matching her; their Act Three scene is certainly effective. Yasu Nakajima as Nadir, precise and correct (although his breaking of the line at the opening of his aria sounds clumsy), fails to engage sympathy and totally lacks any real sense of dramatic involvement; and Luigi de Donato as Nourabad is simply miscast, a baritone in a role that demands a thunderous bass in his proclamations and denunciations. Worse still, the unit set comprising an upended curved surface stretching across the front of the stage (dangerous and precarious for the dancers) banishes the chorus throughout to the back of the set where they fail to make much impact at all. Their enunciation at the beginning of the final scene is imprecise, and their invocations to Brahma which should raise the roof simply sound noisy. Comparison with the Met production by Penny Woolcock which I reviewed some years ago merely served to confirm the infinite superiority of the latter both in terms of dramatic narrative and the musical realisation of Bizet’s early score. The individual DVD of the Venice production remains available, although the Met production is cheaper and clearly would be my preferred option for this score.

Luisa Miller

Among the vast flotilla of operas that Verdi launched in his ‘galley years’ before the production of Rigoletto, it is Luisa Miller which has often seemed closest to breaking into the central mainstream repertoire over the years (I exclude Macbeth from consideration in this context, since the generally established edition of that score is a substantially revised version from many years later). After a comparatively conventional couple of opening Acts, the final Act Three of Luisa Miller launches into a series of dramatic confrontations which provoked Verdi into an impassioned outpouring which heralded the new discoveries of his mature period, and the challenge for performers has always been to make the two somewhat disparate halves cohere convincingly. I commented on this problem back in 2013 when I reviewed the relevant DVD issue in the ‘Tutto Verdi’ series from Parma, when I mentioned this Fenice recording only to comment that I had not seen it. In fact it is a generally basic production where the scenery consists of a series of columns onto which various photographic slides, of unclear significance, are projected. The distinct lack of furniture renders some scenes risible as characters are forced to sit on the floor in various undignified positions, and the costumes which seem to vaguely suggest a late nineteenth century setting lack any real sense of historical period. The whole is somewhat redeemed by some seriously good singing. Giuseppe Sabbatini is a dramatically involved hero, Darina Takova an affecting heroine adept in her coloratura passages, and Damiano Salerno is suitably heroic as the maltreated father. In the various villainous roles two Slavonic basses are highly impressive: Alexander Vinogradov as the villainous aristocrat, and Arutjun Kotchinian as his loathsome henchman Wurm whose habit of smoking (in which he indulges while blackmailing the hapless heroine) has clearly not stunted his growth. The chorus sound much happier in Verdi than in Bizet, and Maurizio Benini treats the score with affection (perhaps too much so in the final Act, which could proceed rather more briskly to dramatic advantage). Again the individual DVD remains available, although rival versions are again cheaper (and the separate issue is confusingly advertised as being spread over two discs).

The one other element that most of these productions have in common is an apparent fascination with the naked human body, the male in particular. In Death in Venice the followers of Dionysus in Aschenbach’s nightmare keep a discreet distance, but Thaïs certainly entertains a couple of naked men in her bedroom (and rather unkindly seems to show them out into the street without allowing them to dress first), the nightmare religious procession in the final act of Die Tote Stadt seem on their final appearance to have shed their clerical robes, and in Parsifal both the flower maidens and their knightly lovers wander around in a state of full frontal nudity for some while, at the same time being studiously ignored by Parsifal and Kundry who are just becoming acquainted with each other. Even the Pearl Fishers set acquires a pair of bare-breasted statues during its Second Act, while one of the projections in Luisa Miller features a head-and-shoulders portrait of a lady who seemingly does not regard concealment of her bust as a priority. Whether all this naked flesh is meant to be titillating for audiences or not I cannot possibly judge, but without wishing to be unkind I may perhaps be allowed to comment that the results are not generally very enticing. But otherwise the choice of operas for this boxed collection is commendably wide-ranging, and surprisingly for an Italian house there is a total avoidance of the standard Verdi-Puccini repertoire in favour of French, German and English scores.

The video productions by Tiziano Mancini are fine, and he displays a welcome willingness to pull back and let us see the full stage picture rather than focusing on unflattering close-ups of singers in strenuous action. On the other hand he is also rather too ready to cut away from the stage to show us the conductor and orchestra in support, to the detriment of dramatic involvement (Davide Mancini, who is responsible for the video direction in the Korngold and Britten, avoids this problem). The recorded sound is rather close and lacking in resonance, but that is clearly a result of the house acoustic rather than any conscious decision by the engineers. None of the DVDs contain any bonus or extra tracks, but the subtitles (at least those in English; the availability of others varies from one disc to the next, and are not detailed in the booklet) are clear and generally accurate. The presentation does however leave a considerable amount to be desired. The individually packed DVDs give only the cast lists; and the box is provided with a skimpy booklet which adds merely a few stage photographs, track listing and basic (and uncued) synopses of the plots. There are no essays on either the works themselves (and neither the dates or editions used), nor the performers, nor explanations of the productions. At an asking price of around £10 per disc (even if this is somewhat lower than standard) prospective purchasers are surely entitled to expect slightly more than the bare minimum of background which is supplied here. This box is advertised as Volume One of an ‘opera collection’ from Teatro La Fenice, and possibly one might express a wish that future volumes might give us a bit more information (which presumably was supplied with the original issues).

Paul Corfield Godfrey

Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI and helps us keep free access to the site

Performers, cast and recording details:

Les pêcheurs de perles
Leila – Annick Massis (soprano)
Nadir – Yasu Nakajima (tenor)
Zurga – Luca Grassi (baritone)
Nourabad – Luigi de Donato (bass)
La Fenice/Marcello Viotti
Pier Luigi Pizzi, director, sets and costumes
rec. La Fenice, April 2004

Luisa Miller
Luisa – Darina Takova (soprano)
Rodolfo – Giuseppe Sabbatini (tenor)
Miller – Damiano Salerno (baritone)
Walter – Alexander Vinogradov (bass)
Wurm – Arutjun Kotchinian (bass)
Federica – Ursula Ferri (mezzo-soprano)
Laura – Elisabetta Mantorana (mezzo-soprano)
La Fenice/Maurizio Benini
Arnaud Bernard, director
Alessandro Camera, sets
Carla Ricotti, costumes
rec. La Fenice, May 2006

Parsifal
Parsifal – Richard Decker (tenor)
Kundry – Doris Soffel (mezzo-soprano)
Amfortas – Wolfgang Schöne (baritone)
Gurnemanz – Matthias Hölle (bass)
Klingsor – Mikolaj Zalasinski (baritone)
Titurel – Ulrich Donnebach (bass)
Knights – Iono Zennaro (tenor), Federico Sacchi (bass)
Squires – Liesl Odenweller, Elisabetta Mantorana (mezzo-sopranos), Roberto Cavatta, Gianluca Moschetti (tenors)
Flower maidens – Catherine Ciangano, Sara Allegretta, Ragnhild Motzleidt, Julie Mellor (sopranos and mezzo-sopranos)
Voice from above – Claudia Clarich (contralto)
Camerata Silesia
La Fenice/Gabor Ötvos
Denis Krief, director, sets and costumes
rec. La Fenice, March 2005

Thaïs
Thaïs – Eva Mei (soprano)
Athanael – Michele Pertusi (bass)
Nicias – William Joyner (tenor)
Palémon – Christophe Fel (bass)
Crobyle – Christine Buffe (soprano)
Myrtale – Elodie Méchain (soprano)
Albine – Tiziana Carraro (mezzo-soprano)
La Charmeuse – Anna Smiech (soprano)
La Fenice/Marcello Viotti
Pier Luigi Pizzi, director, sets and costumes
rec. Teatro Malibran, Venice, November 2002

Die Tote Stadt
Paul – Stefan Vinke (tenor)
Marie, Marietta – Solveig Kringelborn (soprano)
Frank, Pierrot – Stephan Genz (baritone)
Brigitte – Christa Meyer (mezzo-soprano)
Juliette – Eleanor Marguerre (soprano)
Lucienne – Juliette Oesch (mezzo-soprano)
Gaston – Gino Potente (tenor)
Victorin – Shi Yije (tenor)
Albert – Mathias Schulz (tenor)
La Fenice/Eliahu Inbal
Pier Luigi Pizzi, director, sets and costumes
rec. La Fenice, 29 and 31 January 2009

Death in Venice
Aschenbach – Martin Miller (tenor)
Traveller, Fop, Gondolier, Hotel manager, Barber, Leader of the Players, Dionysus – Scott Hendricks (baritone)
Apollo – Razek-François Bitar (counter-tenor)
Tadzio – Alessandro Riga (dancer)
Jaschiu – Danilo Palmieri (dancer)
Hotel porter – Marco Volen (tenor)
Travel bureau clerk, Priest, 1st Gondolier, Lido boatman, Waiter – Luca dall’Amico (baritone)
Strawberry-seller, Newspaper-seller – Sabriana Vianello (soprano)
Lace-seller – Liesbeth Devos (soprano)
Beggar-woman – Julie Mellor (mezzo-soprano)
3rd Gondolier, 2nd Strolling player – Shi Yije (tenor)
Ship’s steward, Waiter, Guide – William Corro (baritone)
La Fenice/Bruno Bartoletti
Pier Luigi Pizzi, director, sets and costumes
rec. La Fenice, 22 and 25 June 2008

Technical details:

Picture format: 16:9
Sound format: Linear PCM 2.0 – Dolby Digital
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
sung in original languages, details of subtitles not provided