Word: verdis
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...BETWEEN THE DEATH OF A public figure and his operatic commemoration is getting shorter all the time. The ancient Greeks and Romans had to wait millenniums before their reincarnation on the European stage; even Don Carlos' career move from Spanish royalty to Verdi opera took a couple of centuries...
WHAT A CAREER. TENOR PLACIDO DOMINGO has made 79 opera recordings, and his repertory encompasses Verdi, Wagner, Mozart and Puccini, as well as French and Spanish opera. Pavarotti may rival him in vocal beauty, but no singer today is as versatile. So when Deutsche Grammophon set out to recap his two decades with the label, there was plenty to choose from. The first of 10 CDs of highlights to be released this year is Arias, Songs & Tangos. It is a monument to his vigorous musicianship. Over time Domingo's voice has become darker and richer, his style more fluent...
...Welles made a wonderful movie -- an eccentric adaptation that is in spirit as true to Shakespeare's text as, say, Verdi's Otello. The director's brilliant conceit was to film this tale of the ebony Moor and his blond bride in images of stark chiaroscuro, the blackest black and the whitest white. No moral or visual gray tones here. Dark cloaked figures rush toward the Grand Canal, and pigeons scatter up into an angry sky. The spider-webbery of shadows casts doom across an innocent face. It is a canvas, of baroque silhouettes and diagonals rampant, that marries text...
...treacherous character that the role demands, and, in duets with Pavarotti's passionate warrior, Nucci comes across as an insipid foil rather than a calculating fiend. The tremendous aria Credo in un Dio crudel is unspectacular, and the orchestra actually unseats Nucci in places with its impressive rendering of Verdi's meticulously detailed score. Anthony Rolfe Johnson provides a beautiful Cassio, whose innocent virtue is not equalled by Nucci's sinister duplicity...
...quality of the recording is unimpeachable, and, apart from a few faintly audible coughs, crowd noise does not detract. The few stage effects are effective rather than intrusive (especially Emilia's insistent knocking at the end of the last act). Overall, this is a powerful interpretation of Verdi's incredible tapestry, and it is led by an indefatigable hero. Bravo Pavarotti...