Verdi - Il Trovatore / del Monaco, Gencer, Bastianini, Barbieri, Clabassi, Previtali, RAI 1957

When Italy began broadcast television in the late 1950's, it was natural that producers would turn to opera. This is one of several titles now available on DVD (others include Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Pasquale). It's in black and white. The picture is grainy. The sets and costumes look artificial. The lip-synching is poor. Even the subtitles are full of misspellings. But for me, it's five stars anyway because the four leads give five star performances. To heck with the rest!Leyla Gencer brings out the lyric beauty of the arias composed by Verdi for Leonora. She sings them at a slower pace than usual, but that only showcases the elegance of an aria such as "Tacea la notte." She then takes the quick-paced cabaletta that follows and performs it in a light and dreamy mood as opposed to the usual desperate rush we're used to. Truly unique.In Act IV, the ethereal quality that she brings to "D'amor sull'ali rosee," makes her heartbreak just that much sadder for us watch. It's one of the most beautiful renditions of the aria that I've heard; the way she floats those high notes is just stunning. It's only in the "Miserere" that her desperation begins to show, making it understandable why she would poison herself.Mario Del Monaco's deep tenor voice is stronger and louder than we're used to modernly. Combine the sheer power of his voice with his old-fashioned dashing and heroic interpretation of Manrico, and it's a performance to treasure. I love how he savors every note of the tender and slow "Ah! si, ben mio" instead of rushing through it to get to famous battle cry, "Di quella pira."Fedora Barbieri has a powerful mezzo voice with great range from low to high. But along with its power, her voice possesses a beautiful flow that is associated more often with sopranos. She moves flawlessly from crazed to loving mother. I'd heard her Azucena on CD (it's one of her signature roles), so it's a great treat to see her on DVD.Ettore Bastianni has a beautiful burnished baritone voice - almost a bass baritone - yet he is at home in the higher notes too. He emphasizes the human side of Di Luna, managing to make him a sympathetic character. This is helped by his superb rendition of "Il balen." His success in drawing our sympathy in this aria is due in large part to the pure beauty of his voice.Take these four superb solo voices, put them together in Verdi's ensemble piece, and the resulting duets and trios are riveting. The Manrico, Leonora, Di Luna trios that end Acts I and II really rock. (Sorry, but I think of them as rock and roll trios because of their driving rhythms; I can hardly sit still through them.) The Act IV duet between Leonora and Di Luna builds to a lightening-fast pace, their voices blending beautifully as her desperation turns to a kind of otherworldly ecstasy as she believes that, by sacrificing her own life, she has saved Manrico. It's thrilling to watch. The icing on the cake is the short Manrico, Leonora, Azucena trio just before the opera ends. The soprano Gencer takes the low note, the mezzo Barbieri takes the high note, the tenor takes the middle, and we are transported musically to that heightened place to which only opera can take us.If you love Il Trovatore as I do, don't miss this DVD.

Directed (barely) by one Claudio Fino and mouthed to a prerecorded soundtrack, RAI's 1957 studio film of IL TROVATORE runs for a little over two hours, and its crude charms are sufficient only to carry it through a scene or two. As Plinio Clabassi, Leyla Gencer, Ettore Bastianini, Mario del Monaco, and Fedora Barbieri made their vocal appearances in that order, my first thought was that if an equivalent to one of these voices were to emerge today, it would be cause for great excitement. If equivalents to all five were to emerge, we would have entered a different age, and it is not something on which to pin one's hopes. On the other hand, important singers of the present day would never be embarrassed by a presentation such as this one.I can well imagine another viewer watching and thinking, "Oh, what a charming product of bygone days." In fact, that was my reaction to a similar FALSTAFF (1956, directed by Herbert Graf and conducted by Tullio Serafin, on VAI DVD). The difference: the FALSTAFF is professionally and even artistically directed, far better conducted, and competently acted (in some cases much more), even by one of the same cast members (Barbieri). It is a shame that the FALSTAFF is the one that looks and sounds as though it were left out in the rain, and the TROVATORE is the decently preserved one. I went through three discrete stages: (1) In the opening scenes, grateful to have a visual document of these singers looking young and attractive and sounding great. (2) About 20 minutes in, fighting the urge to turn off the picture, then just giving in and taking the unintended laughs where they might come. (3) By the midpoint, impatient and a little bored.In the final scene, when Manrico is listening to Azucena's worries about her impending execution, Del Monaco bites his fist while his eyes bulge and dart all over the cell maniacally. This single example is representative of the histrionics throughout: intentional parody would not have room to go much further. Not to be outdone by her leading man's deft enactment of thyroid crisis, Gencer spends most of her time simulating a ruptured ovarian cyst from beneath her troweled-on albino clownface, and the camera stays mercilessly close (the benefit: we are spared a longer view of the sets). Everyone has a single dramatic attitude. Manrico is FIERCE! Leonora is TORMENTED! Azucena is DERANGED! Luna actually comes off pretty well, in that Bastianini seems to be playing a real person who thinks about and reacts to things. In this company, he practically seems modern. But all of the singers have been abandoned to their own devices, and their training has not prepared them for it, and results are often uncomfortable. Then there is the lip-synching, which is poor, as it usually is in opera films of this vintage. If the singers were actually performing live on a stage, their hamming would have some conviction behind it. There would be the high-wire excitement of its being joined to their sound production, and they would also have a crowd off of which to feed. But the miming makes the gestures not only silly-looking and not well suited to the medium, but hollow.The draw, of course, will be the singing. Clabassi is a Ferrando of the first rank, and deserves to be considered among the principals. Gencer (Turkish by birth, the one non-native) is in her vocal prime, both expressive and very well set up for Leonora technically -- I marveled, for example, at her precision in the cabaletta of the Leonora/Luna duet, at a very quick tempo. Leonora's rival suitors provide the expected reserves of lung power and testosterone, although they are more impressive for the exciting noise they make than for refinement or musicianship. Del Monaco, especially, is unwilling or unable to modulate his dynamics, so that even the tender sentiments of "Ah si, ben mio" come out in an emphatic bellow. "Di quella pira" is an example of good intentions defeated by imperfect technique. The tenor starts out articulating the semi-staccato semiquavers rather well, but the more of them there are, the sloppier he gets, as if he can't concentrate on note values and do the other things he has to do at the same time. Within a few measures, he's just neighing his way through them. Barbieri's other commercial Azucenas (the more solidly vocalized one under Cellini; the more musically thoroughgoing and dramatically shaded one for Karajan) were better than this one; but once past a shrill and unsupported "Stride la vampa," and with charity given for an under-pitched high note or two thereafter, she settles in nicely -- an Azucena of distinction.Conductor Fernando Previtali throws in a random eccentricity every so often (usually in the form of just hanging onto a note longer than we expect), but primarily elicits a quick, bouncy, rather insipid reading of what there is of the score. Expected cuts are in place (no "Tu vedrai che amore" for Leonora; a single verse of the remaining cabalettas), but it is probably to the good that the maestro does not take repeats, because he makes all of it sound like what we already have heard. This is startlingly unimaginative, two-speed conducting; Verdi in a vacuum.An audio recording of the soundtrack probably would be easy enough to find, and the connoisseur who goes that route will be spared much besides the unconvincing post-synchronization and silent-movie emoting: the scenic look is cheap and flimsy overall (in Act II Scene 2, Luna and his men pick their way through mismatched trees, bushes, and shrubbery -- the "whatever you can get your hands on by 5:00" school of set decoration); supers/choristers break character in seeming apathy; blocking is often palm-to-the-face stuff. Of the last, two of the worst examples are in the convent scene: Del Monaco running right at the camera while looking insane; at scene's end, belatedly and for no good reason, nuns and retainers surrounding the principals in the manner of children watching a schoolyard brawl.The performance is worth acquiring in some format for its Leonora most of all, because Gencer did not make major-label recordings and so it is always a treat to find her in a complete performance of a great part. Good sound for the period (as here) is a bonus. For the most part, though, this is the kind of artifact that gives IL TROVATORE a bad name. It makes the music seem trite and the drama stupid, and neither should be the case. Of documentary interest only, and cause for anti-nostalgia as much as nostalgia.

The B&W print is good for a 1957 TV show. The staging is appropriately traditional. Count di Luna's behavior would have been tolerated only in the middle of the Aragonese civil war of 1409-1410. The lip synching is o.k., and the subtitles are better than most. The singing is uniformly excellent. Fedora Barbieri's Azucena is absolutely terrifying. Mario del Monaco brings out the heroic and quixotic nature of Manrico very well. I found Ettore Bastianini's slight.y cold Count di Luna quite satisfactory. For me, he projected the image of a man struggling to contain his emotions. He has renounced his claim to the throne for the good of the country, and he feels entitled to Leonora in return. Layla Gencer's Leonora is beautifully sung but rather stiff until the last act. In the last act she becomes passionate. Only one of the many stage versions of Il Trovatore that I have seen measures up to this television production.

RECORDING OF A TV PRODUCTION, BUT WHO CARES,THREE OF THE BEST ARTISTS.

Il s'agit d'un film en noir et blanc, où l'opéra est chanté en playback. Qu'importe le décor montagnard en carton-pâte, les hennins moyennâgeux ridicules, les expressions outrées, les regards flamboyants et les postures avantageuses, aujourd'hui démodés. Seul compte ce miracle, quatre grandes voix réunies dans une distribution exceptionnelle : Mario del Monaco (il a 42 ans) Leyla Gencer (29 ans) Ettore Bastianini (35 ans) et Fédora Barbieri (37 ans). C'est peu dire qu'ils sont éblouissants par l'étendue, la brillance, la générosité de leurs moyens vocaux : ils sont absolument magnifiques!Un dvd indispensable : aux anciens, pour se remémorer la splendeur des voix dont on disposait, à l'époque, sur les scènes d'opéra...... aux jeunes, pour comparer avec ce que nous offre l'époque actuelle, hélas!Les sous--titres français sont satisfaisants.

me ha gustado ver esta prouccion tan antigua y ver a los cantantes.

A regarder comme un document historique.Images et son faibles bien évidemment (l'image peut-elle être restaurée ?)Mario Del Monaco crève cependant l'écran. Cette version se regarde sans ennui.

Une distribution magnifique, unique ,ils sont tous à citer. La mise en scène, les décors.....il y aurait beaucoup à dire mais peu importe, la musique, LE CHANT sont là et c’est extraordinaire!!!!....