Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Performing Arts - Concerts
Rating: NR
Release Date: 16-OCT-2007
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92364 in DVD
• Brand: COSSOTTO,FIORENZA
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Classical, Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 180 minutes

Customer Reviews

Sorprendente
VAI's ongoing excavation of Japanese archival broadcast performances from the 1960s and 1970s continues with this relative rarity. One is surprised to encounter, on the heels of the earlier LUCIA and FAUST in the series, an opera for which no competing DVD is in the catalogue, and for which the 1997 "Met Guide To Opera On Video" lists only a single VHS performance, that one a 1952 black-and-white film of an edition so severely cut that it barely exceeded the length of a highlights CD.

Donizetti's dramatic opera LA FAVORITE was composed for Paris, as even the uninitiated might intuit from the conspicuous Act II ballet, dutifully danced here by local talent. Partly for its novelty value as a showcase for a star mezzo-soprano or contralto (the only soprano role, that of the heroine's confidante, is decidedly secondary), it has maintained a bare toehold in the repertory. Donizetti's music, as usual (exceptions being his comedic masterpieces ELISIR and DON PASQUALE), alternates between the inspired and the baldly formulaic, its stronger passages anticipating Verdi. The opera usually is performed, as here, in the ghastly Italian translation LA FAVORITA, which inflicts butchery on Donizetti's melodic lines with its poorly constructed verses and also bizarrely rewrites key relationships, for the appeasement of censors of the day. When the Italian translators were done with their work, the basso, originally conceived as a prior at a monastery, was not only a holy man but also a sort of governor figure, as well as the father of two children, the opera's tenor hero and the off-stage queen whom the king is wronging with his affair. The tenor is thus the brother-in-law of his baritonal rival. Much is made of his belief that he must achieve military distinction in order to be worthy of his mysterious lover, whom he believes to be of noble rank (this is the mezzo character, who is also the lover of the king), though in the Italian version this low-born striver is the queen's brother. Marrying well did nothing for the station of this woman's poor family, it seems. A libretto that already poses challenges with its improbable developments, some cluttered intriguing in the middle acts (intercepted letters and the like), and the dated nature of its moral values and dilemmas (even by Italian bel canto standards), becomes ludicrous verging on incomprehensible. The French version, which recently has been well served on an RCA audio recording starring Vesselina Kasarova and Ramon Vargas, is immeasurably superior as music and theater. The Italian bastardization can succeed only if supported by great singing.

Fortunately, more of the principals here can oblige us than not. Working my way up from lowest to highest voice, Ruggero Raimondi, a lad of 29 at the time and quite the youngest member of this quartet, was just embarking on that stretch of 15 years or so when he was the featured basso in every prestigious production or recording of an Italian opera for which Nicolai Ghiaurov could not be engaged. (I exaggerate. Slightly.) He has been aged convincingly for stage purposes as Baldassarre, and his admirers will find much to enjoy. His vocalism is silken-smooth as usual, with a little more punch and solidity to it than is often the case (he often sounds more juiced on stage than in the studio), and he is becomingly recorded. There is no getting around the weak bottom notes, a career-long debit, but it is a strong showing. The most significant blot on the performance is Sesto Bruscantini's Alfonso. Bruscantini in 1971 already had a few decades of experience behind him, and as late as the mid-1980s he continued to demonstrate his utility in live performances and recordings of comedic roles in COSI FAN TUTTE, DON PASQUALE and LA FORZA DEL DESTINO under no less exacting a conductor than Riccardo Muti. But the qualities that enable one to excel in a buffo part such as Don Pasquale or Fra Mellitone are of little help in a bel canto dramatic assignment that demands facility with long lyric lines and some measure of florid dexterity. The Act II sequence "Vieni, amor!...De'nemici tuoi lo sdegno" is, quite simply, calamitous. The baritone struggles with both pitch and balance, and fights a losing battle with a wobble so pronounced that it renders much of the music unintelligible. One winces for Bruscantini, and wants for his sake and one's own for the final bar line to be reached. The polite reception he receives for this entrance is to the great credit of a gracious Tokyo audience. Bruscantini remains a liability in an ensuing duet with the mezzo; thereafter, he effects a partial recovery, but only raises his standing from disastrous to mediocre. At no point could this unsteady, poorly focused growling and barking be mistaken for good singing. The preservation of this performance, I am sorry to say, does no credit to a distinguished career.

The evaluation is reversed in the case of our Fernando, Alfredo Kraus, who all by himself would justify the purchase of this DVD for the master class in the arts of mezzavoce and legato that he provides in his Act IV solo. Kraus has come down to posterity as a singer prized for the finer points, for stylishness and elegance, and this is as it should be. What often surprises me, although I should not continue to be surprised at this point, is the sheer power that he can summon along with those virtues. He sounds as though he could hold his final high note in this opera -- and a thrilling, ringing thing it is -- for days. His partner, Fiorenza Cossotto, singing the eponymous role, can be seen today as a well-balanced bridging figure in her performing tradition. Her manner is gutsy and temperamental, and she is not above some old-fashioned breaking of character to bask in a triumph. Having just sung an aria that includes such lines as "Heaven itself decreed my grief...At my feet the grave has opened," she throws her arms wide open and beams, ecstatic. Character Leonora is not eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of a morbid death fantasy; singer Fiorenza is just especially pleased with the climactic high notes she has nailed, and with the three-minute ovation she gets for the effort. It would be easy to note such a display and consign Cossotto to the old school without qualification; but in fact, she combines that gusto and abandon with a quite modern respect for musical values. Like Kraus, she can be both forceful *and* graceful, and while her stage acting is only serviceable, she is at a rarefied level in her ability to use her voice's colors, shadings, and dynamics in the service of the text. The power of her acting is always in the musical gesture and nuance, not in the things she does with her hands or her face. On her personal 1-to-10 scale, this performance is about an "8" -- a few tones at the very top come out slightly squeezed, and her high note to close out the noisy Act III ensemble is not quite up to pitch -- but Cossotto at "8" is a tremendous pleasure. She was something of "la favorita" herself for record companies in the 1960s and 1970s, and was able to commit almost all of her signature roles to deluxe commercial recordings in that period. Her later Decca recording of this part, opposite Pavarotti, is note-complete, as this is not (here she sings only one verse of the Act III cabaletta, and is allowed to modify the coda by dropping out for a couple of measures so as to load up for the big money notes at the finish), but in every other respect the live performance is to be preferred. The mezzo's voice has more freshness and sap, with all its distinctive characteristics in evidence: the sweet, sopranoish top; the tangy, piquant middle; the low notes which seem covered in a ruby veil.

In reviewing the FAUST DVD in this series, I wrote, "Stage lighting levels were too low to begin with, and this conspires with age-related softness and color fade (and weak black levels) to create a pervasive murkiness. To call the production minimalist would be to credit it with a conceptual dimension it does not have; this is just rudimentary, no-frills staging. Props and decoration are scarce, and there is little evidence of the ordering intelligence of a strong director guiding the singers' movements and gestures, which are well-schooled but stock; the Japanese audience may not have seen them many times before, but you have." All of the above applies here as well, although I am even more critical of this staging. On that level it is a limp, enervated affair, and no one here is as much fun to watch as Scotto and Ghiaurov were in the FAUST. I have ripped an audio copy and will prefer in the future to appreciate the performance's assets that way. I also have to intensify criticism of the picture quality: besides being dim and murky, most of it has a blue-green tint that suggests either an opera taking place in an aquarium, or one watched through Buffalo Bill's night-vision goggles. On the plus side, there are no burned-in Japanese subtitles, as the FAUST had. The sound is excellent (stereo, surprisingly, where the slightly later FAUST had been mono), but one must learn to screen out the persistently audible murmuring of a male prompter.

To conclude, a word of praise for the NHK Symphony Orchestra and NHK Italian Opera Chorus. I do not know how much rehearsal time these Japanese musicians were allowed, but I know that their acquaintance with a second-tier Donizetti item such as LA FAVORITA could not have been long and deep. One would scarcely guess this from the vigor, accuracy, and professionalism of their playing, which frankly puts the work of 75 percent of the provincial Italian and South American orchestras of that era -- even in much better-known music such as LA TRAVIATA -- to shame. They are abetted in the endeavor by the well-schooled conducting of Oliviero de Fabritiis, one of those lifetime Italian pit conductors whose unflashy but stylistically secure work is destined to go underappreciated.

A FAVORITE OPERA
I can't figure out why in the world this opera isn't done on a regular basis. The Metropolitan has Dolora Zajick on its roster who has sung the title roll in opera houses all over Europe but not the Met. Let's get a production going for her before she retires to her farm house in Reno. As fas as this 1971 production goes, I can't tell if it's in color or black and white with a blue tint. Either way, the picture is grainy. the sets are cheap looking and the lighting certainly wansn't done with video in mind. On the positive side we have the great Fiorenza Cossotto and the great Alfredo Kraus who make this DVD worth the purchase price. Their scenes together(especially in acts three and four) are vocal dynamite. For added excitement and great old fashioned Italian singing we have Sesto Bruscantini and Ruggero Raimondi with Olivero de Fabrities in the orchesta pit. We may get a better production and picture of FAVORITA in the future, but nothing will surpass ths singing on this disc.

A JEWEL FROM THE PAST.
This DVD is a "must" for all opera's lovers. I'm grateful to the people who recorded this performance, allowing us to hear and see such wonderful voices of the past. Very moving Fiorenza Cossoto's interpretation of the aria "O mio Fernando" and Alfred Kraus's "Favorita del re". Also, the "finale" of the second act is remarkable, when the main voices are mixed with those of the chorus. The image is sometimes a little dark, but that doesn't reduce the pleasure of watching this jewel from the past.

Sílvia Costa.