Great Opera Arias

Introduction

This concert was originally entitled 'The Gold and Silver Gala with Plácido Domingo and Friends' and was broadcast on the BBC in December 1996. I seem to remember that there was some Royal attendance, possibly confirmed by some of the bowing being deliberately directed towards stage left (and up a bit). This DVD contains a heavily edited version of that broadcast (no commentary, and a forced quick succession of pieces)

The full list of music featured is as follows :
Gounod Faust: Prologue
Gounod Faust : Avant de quitter ces lieux
Massenet Le Cid: O souverain
Bizet Carmen: Parle-moi de ma mère
Mozart Don Giovanni: Là ci darem
Donizetti Don Pasquale: Quel guardo
Donizetti L'elisir d'amore: Caro elisir, sei mio
Halévy La Juive: Rachel, quand du Seigneur
Grigoriu Valurile Dunarii : Muzica
de Curtis Tu ca nun chiagne
Strauss Der Rosenkavalier: The Presentation of the Rose
Mascagni L'amico Fritz : Cherry Duet
Lehár Gold und Silber

Audio

Very good stereo sound. All the performers are on stage, including the orchestra, yet the voices are placed to the fore.

Video

A good as you would expect from a 12 year old TV recording.

Extras

None at all, and this is very annoying. I can understand that classical DVDs at the 'cheaper' end of the market can't expect to be overflowing with extras, but here, we have absolutely no information about the music at all. Even though I have been playing professionally myself for quite a few years, I only recognised five of the works on offer here, and would have been grateful for some help in putting things into context.

As it is, we have some lovely tunes, brilliantly performed, but unless you know the works already, some help in telling us precisely what is going on would be useful.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a very fine concert. Domingo is at his best, and the 'frends', all at relatively early moments in their careers do not disappoint. Alagna and Gheorghiu were the darlings of opera audiences at the time and work well together, although Alagna is, as usual, uninteresting as an actor - a skill which is even more necessary when there is little to let us know where we are in the drama.

The highlight for me is the Rosenkavalier scene, where Susan Graham and Lillian Watson transport us immediately to the end of Strauss's marvellous opera, but even this is somewhat spoiled by the antics of Asher Fisch on the podium in between the two singers.

Domingo emerges again to conduct a decent version of the Gold & Silver Waltz at the end, and then it is all over.

A good gig, but a disappointing DVD presentation, and marked down accordingly.