Greece Hotels Travel - Verdi - Luisa Miller
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List Price: $29.98
greece-hotels-travel.com Price: $20.97
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Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Starring: Placido Domingo, Renata Scotto, Sherrill Milnes, James Morris, Metropolitan Opera
Directed By: James Levine, Nathaniel Merrill
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0044007340271
Format: Classical
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-09-12
Running Time: 148
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
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- Donizetti - L'Elisir d'Amore / Eschwe, Netrebko, Villazon, Wiener Staatsoper
- Verdi - Stiffelio
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Cast
Comment: Excellent production values in this lesser known work. It features a cast of outstanding singers and directors.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Visceral performance of heart-rending Verdi.
Comment: Wow! This is one of those glorious golden performances that we are privileged to now enjoy on DVD. This was my first exposure to Luisa Miller and I was astounded by the sheer power and emotional impact of both the opera and this performance. I'd have bought this long ago had I known what I was missing! This is an incomparable evening of heart-wrenching Verdi. For me, there is not a slack moment in it. Whatever weaknesses the opera has pale before the vigor and sincerity of Verdi's intent combined with the tremendous talent and dramatic commitment of the artists in this production.
At the outset Levine seizes you firmly by the throat with a ferociously intense overture (which may be full of sprightly tunes but the tragedy is already lurking, I think). Domingo and Scotto. Either of these incredible singing actors would be enough for me. Put them together and you are guaranteed fireworks. Here you get them performing as if their very souls just might burn themselves out. But it doesn't end there! We also have Milnes and Giaiotti (familiar from many a classic Verdi recording) who are both excellent in their contrasting father roles. Also, a devilishly charming Wurm in James Morris- what a treat!
And if the mere extravagance of the cast weren't enough there is that special, indefinable something extra that lifts this performance to a unique place in my viewing experience. Besides having one thrilling highlight after another there is a constant dramatic tension and overriding sense of occasion. Every time I watch this I am impressed all over again by the sheer earnestness of it all. There is real `heart' in the music and the performance.
In Luisa Miller I think Verdi has given us a very potent drama as well as lovely music. It strikes me as unpretentious- no grand opera spectacle- but simply direct and gripping. He concerns us with a handful of rather ordinary people and certainly managed to enlist my sympathy for their struggles. I don't say this can compare with the likes of Otello but it is utterly worthwhile in its own right and the third act is particularly exquisite. Verdi always has a special tenderness for father/daughter scenes and surely this is among the best. Scotto and Milnes play it out beautifully. Luisa's brief prayer of farewell reminds me a little of the similar scene in Otello- Desdemona's "Ave Maria". Then, enter the hurt, embittered and desperately vengeful Otello, er, Rodolfo. Domingo brings an animal ferocity to the following confrontation scene. I won't spoil it any further in case you don't know the story- I didn't before watching this and that first viewing was something to be remembered.
Bonus
The DVD also contains a unique bonus- a filmed interview with Levine, Scotto, Domingo and Milnes prepared for broadcast during intermission. It's pretty interesting with some discussion of how conductor and singers communicate and work together in performance.
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent
Comment: I am relatively new to opera, and found this performance to be delightful. Domingo and Scotto were wonderful, and also Sherrill Milnes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER "LIVE FROM THE MET" GEM
Comment: Not to "ditto," Rush-Limbaugh-like, comments other have made, but I too have hoped for a commercial, well-mastered issue of this telecast ever since it was broadcast live on PBS on a Saturday night in January, 1979. I didn't own a video recorder at the time and recorded the audio track on a (barely adequate) cassette. The same cast appeared on the Met's radio matinee exactly a week later, which has been available (in stereo) on CD on semi-pirate labels like Gala and Myto. And it has its strong points, mainly that everybody sounds a bit more relaxed than they were on the live telecast a week earlier, and thus some of the singing is a bit smoother.
But I'll take the feverish excitement of the telecast any day--and say what you will about Renata Scotto's occasionally wiry top notes, the lady was always riveting to watch. Some commentators have suggested she looks too matronly here for the young Luisa--I just don't see it. Vocally she was perhaps just past her peak here, and just beginning a precipitous slide that would crash-land about three years later with a disasterous opening-night "Norma" where she was practically booed off the stage. But for my ears the voice holds together nicely in this performance, and she acts her heart out.
Speaking of "booing"... if you, like me, wondered why the Met never saw fit to release this telecast on home video, evidently they had to wait until digital video editing was sophisticated enough for them to remove a rather ugly little demonstration by an obnoxious audience member in Act One. When Scotto begins her first solo, some idiot (evidently put out with some comments Scotto had recently made about Maria Callas) screams out "Brava Maria Callas, soprano assoluta!!" You DON'T see it on this DVD because DG managed to edit it out somehow (perhaps with videotape shot for test purposes at a previous performance; they neither acknowledge nor explain the omission). If you're interested, do a search on You Tube for "Luisa Miller"--I believe the original clip can be seen there.
I have to agree that Domingo looks foolish in the blond wig, but my, he sings like a god here, all the way up to a clean high B natural--and no, this was NOT cleaned up or edited for the DVD. Love him as I do, he has a somewhat justified reputation for cracking on high notes. But not this night. "Quando le sere" in act two is vintage Placido: impassioned, sonorous, broadly phrased. The minute-long cheering ovation that greets him is nearly as thrilling as his singing. Even as early as the 1978-79 season Milnes was, like Scotto, on the downward slope of his vocal prime, but he often sings thrillingly here. Bonaldo Giaiotti is in characteristically rich, if rather wooly, voice as Count Walter, and his plotting and scheming with Wurm is truly terrifying. Wurm, in the person of the young James Morris, is suitably creepy and oily. It's not exactly a showcase role vocally for a bass, but Morris has charisma galore. The supporting cast of Met regulars is perhaps less glamorous-- Jean Kraft looks more like Placido's mother than a childhood girlfriend--but they fit well into the production. Levine was still in his "young firebrand on the podium" period at this time, and his conducting, right from the overture, has an exciting, stylish Toscanini-like drive and thrust. The Met Orchestra wasn't as yet the virtuoso body they eventually became, but the playing is spirited.
The Scotto-heckler wasn't the only thing DG has edited here. This being a live telecast, the Met's radio announcer Peter Allen performed his customary job of commenting on the curtain calls and intro'ing the station breaks. Evidently the original stereo soundtrack was a very basic two-track job; DG no doubt wanted to eliminate Allen's live announcements for the purposes of home video, and since they couldn't simply remove them, they just dubbed over them... with "canned" applause... specifically, isolated "bravos" from the Domingo ovation in act two! Frankly, I almost wish they had eliminated the end-of-act curtain calls altogether, just a quick fade at the curtain. But I do understand why they did it. The camera work is a bit erratic (this was live-to-air, remember), and the video technology of 1979 isn't the last word in clarity; neither is the sound, which strikes me as too distant and echoey at times. (PBS would get much better at live audio as the "Live from the Met" series went on.) These same comments apply to the Met "Rigoletto" and "Boheme," both from 1977 and released along with this "Luisa Miller" by DG. But that doesn't make them any less essential. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Treasure Returned to the Catalogue
Comment: To the best of my knowledge, this is the first DVD featuring Renata Scotto although I would be delighted to be proved wrong (please reissue a Tokyo Lucia with Bergonzi). The only other DVD (with June Anderson)is hardly in the same league so perhaps I should have rated it five stars!
My only negative is the very dated production; it clearly shows its age, especially aesthetically although I would be hard put to suggest how it should be staged. Suffice it to say that it works and with Scotto and Domingo the emphasis is clearly on the singing and they deliver in spades. It is ironic that Verdi didn't give his title soprano an aria that had been excerpted and sung by sopranos of the past whereas the tenor has the glorious aria that has be recorded countless times in the days of 78's and LP recitals. Needless to say Domingo garners the greatest ovation. Milnes was clearly an audience favorite (if not one of mine)and there is no doubting his committment to the role both in his aria and the wonderful duets with Scotto. It is somewhat ironic that Milnes and Domingo are roughly contemporaries while Domingo continues to sing (albeit a reduced and different repertory)and Milnes career started to fade a number of years ago. Ordinarily baritones can enjoy longer careers than tenors, but in this case.....
Scotto is a treasure; the DVD should be required viewing and studying for any one who aspires to the repertoire. It was late in her career yet she is savvy enough to know how to capitalize on her strengths and minimize the weaknesses. Her attention to text is an object lesson and of course it helps that she is Italian, but she animates every phrase she sings, does nothing that is superfluous. I saw her only once, a Butterfly in San Francisco in the 70's; it was a glorious performance. But then she is a glorious artist.
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