Verdi : Rigoletto [DVD] [2010] [NTSC]

This performance is totally dominated by the superb Gilda of Diana Damrau, who gets right inside the skin of the naïve young girl encountering love for the first time. Every line and word of "care nome" is acted giving extra depth to a beautifully sung and nuanced performance. Even when waiting silently outside Sparafucile's house in Act 111 she still dominates the stage.

Fortunately Zelijko Lucic's Rigoletto is a fine foil to her with his robust singing that can be so thrilling in Verdi, but sufficiently expressive to create a realistic daughter father relationship.

If like me the Gilda/Rigoletto relationship is the finest part of the opera this set is for you, the low price makes it well worth buying for Act 11 alone.

Unfortunately belcanto specialist Juan Diego Florez makes a first (and apparently final) foray into Verdi and is very ill at ease with the role of the Duke, a role extremely difficult to portray due to the conflict between arrogance and the need to make the love duet believable. Florez never commands the stage as a Duke must, and his restrained performance of the arias probably reflects his concerns for his voice. However "Donna il mobile" is quite effective in its quiet way, also his part in an excellent performance of the quartet.

In this Lehnhoff production the acts seem to take place in different periods, a traditional palace all black marble (very effective if your TV picture is carefully set up), Gilda's bedroom is a plain box with a bed and cerulean blue walls with black "X's" all over them, later changing to white, and a simple room for Sparafucile in Act 111 in the centre of a blacked out stage. I found this staging very effective, especially the masks worn by the chorus, animal bird and insect in Act 1, and horned in Act 111.

Sparafucile and Magdalena are no more than adequate, the chorus is lively.

Apart from Florez the performance is also let down by the orchestra under Fabio Luisi, they play the notes, but that is all, for example the wonderful sinuous and menacing music accompanying the first meeting between Rigoletto and Sparafucile fails to make the dramatic contribution it should.

So, the only compelling reason to buy this is the Gilda of Damrau, and a very compelling one too.

Rigoletto was one of my first opera purchases - the Decca Pavarott/Sutherland/Milnes lp nearly 40 years ago. Today, with more versions on my shelves than I can shake a stick at, tape, dvd, lp, cd, I'd decided enough was enough, until somebody loaned me this Dresden dvd. After watching it once, I had to add it to my collection.

In many ways it is like a restored masterpiece. Conductor and producer are the real stars, their conception totally meshed and for the most part superbly realized. Musically, it is the opposite of a run-through. This conductor, Fabio Luisi, has an amazing ability to balance of Verdi's orchestration precisely without sacrificing feeling. There is almost a woodcut feel about the score, details emerging in sharp relief. If this is the future of Verdi conducting, bring it on! Lehnhoff's production, too, is freshly thought-out. For instance, there is a brilliant moment in the great Act 3 quartet when the Duke and Gilda embrace. Every other production I've seen keeps them either side of a stage wall, following the script literally. Here, Lehnhoff lets them act according to the fantasy contained in the words they're singing, and for me the result is breathtaking. I love the masques worn by the courtiers, in fact the entire realization of the courtiers' roles. They are the true bad guys, equally malicious to both the Duke and Rigoletto.

Too bad Florez has abandoned this role. The hard edge on his voice may signify strain but it could also be a recording quirk. You'll also hear that Florez too-much-of-a-good-thing ping in some of his early recordings, most notably, Matilde di Shabran, before most sound engineers learned to cope with it. As an interpretation, his Duke doesn't quite work for me. It seems to aim for Pavarotti's lovable rogue conception without quite getting there. He lacks Pavarotti's stage presence here. Had he taken the role through more performances I'm sure it would have matured to become one of the great Dukes. La donna e mobile is superb.

Lucic's Rigoletto works better on the ear than the eyes. Physically he's a long way from the hunchbacked cripple Verdi wanted. His acting strikes me as rather old fashioned compared with the rest of this cast and there is little of the `poisoned dwarf' about him. Neither is there the flip side, the open-hearted tenderness other Rigolettos have found in the scenes with Gilda. It's a big voice, but others - Milnes, Nucci, Gavanelli, Alvarez to name just a few, find more light and shade than is available here.

Diana Damrau's Gilda steals the show. She is a long way from the usual pallid, shrinking violet. Her Caro nome is almost a statement of claim and intent and her offstage rape by the Duke (graphically hinted by Lenhoff) might raise the question of who seduced whom. Vocally, she is absolutely magnetic.

Supporting parts are very well taken, a magnificently steely Sparafucile by Georg Zeppenfeld, Christa Mayer's Maddalena suitably sluttish.

Lehnhoff's thunderstorm is a bit over the top, but if there isn't such an episode in a Lehnhoff production you question its authenticity.

I recognize, reading other reviews on this page after I wrote this, that I'm at polar opposite to some. No matter, I'd urge any opera lover to investigate this dvd and form his or her own opinion. If it isn't an unqualified success there's more than enough that's outstanding, unparalleled by any other version I've heard or seen, to compensate for its shortcomings.

Succintly, I bought the Rigoletto DVD because I thought that it was an excellent cast which indeed grew as the opera developed. I've never heard Diana Damrau sing before and I felt that she was quite outstanding as Gilda. Along with Rigoletto and the Duke. The production I would just describe as very European. So, be realistic, you can't buy a decent bottle of wine for £8.99, treat yourself to the DVD and then enjoy it with a good vintage, you won't be disappointed.