Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (Arthaus: 101595) [DVD] [2012] [NTSC]

This is an opera I am getting to like more every time I hear it. There are none of the big tunes typical of Verdi but the music grows on you.
Placido Domingo in the title role was in a astonishingly good voice as were Ferruccio Furlanetto (as Fiesco) and Anja Harteros (as Amelia/Maria). Fabio Sartori (as Gabriele Adorno) and Massimo Cavalletto (as Paolo) were good but not in the same class as the other three. Audio and video quality were excellent.
The production was traditional but with a few strange effects thrown in. The prologue was set on a darkened stage with a docked ship in the background. Unfortunately the ship itself was set in a bright white background and was the scene of furious activity, all of which distracted from the main action in the foreground. At this point the video editor was quite helpful and cut a lot of this out. In the scene between Simon Boccanegra and Amelia, four large uprooted shrubs descended from the top of the stage and were eventually re-united with the soil. You could see the analogy - the uprooted orphan Amelia is being re-united with here Father in this scene. However this was a very strange, distracting effect - basically the Producer was being clever at the expense of the overall performance.
In the final scene, which is very poignant when well done, the Producer and Video Editor combined in a way that completely spoilt the performance of the two principals. The Producer had a large mirror descend above the scene while the Video Editor switched too rapidly from camera to camera, playing about with clever ways of fading one shot into another. This all distracted badly from what I actually wanted to see, namely the two singers.
The Video Editor is Patrizia Carmine who I have come across before, she completely ruined a fine production of Aida with strange, intrusive video effects. This was a lot better than Aida but still not as good as the best.
In the end, despite some fine performances, this was disappointing. I much prefer the Metropolitan Opera version of this opera with Placido Domingo in the title role and there is also a fine Metropolitan Opera version with Sherill Milnes in the title role.

Coming just before the mature final works, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra - along with Un Ballo in Maschera, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, La Forza del Destino and Don Carlos - occupy a strange but fascinating hinterland in the career of the composer. Each of the operas, influenced by Verdi's political involvement in the Risorgimento for the reunification of Italy during the period, are very much concerned with the exercise of power, but they all rely on typically operatic conventions of bel canto and French Grand Opéra in their use of personal tragedies and unlikely twists of fate to highlight the human feelings and weaknesses that lie behind their historical dramas. Written in 1859, but revised by the composer in 1881, Piave's libretto given an uncredited reworking by Arrigo Boito, Simon Boccanegra is consequently one of the more interesting works from this period, certainly from a musical standpoint. Aware of the flaws in the earlier version of the opera, Verdi can be seen to be striving in its revised form to take it away from the aria/cabaletta conventions towards the more fluid form of through composition and expression of character that would come to fruition in Otello.

It's perhaps with this in mind that the 2010 production of Simon Boccanegra from La Scala in Milan adopts a kind of hybrid form of traditional staging with some modernist touches that, like the opera's own make-up, don't blend together entirely successfully, but are no less fascinating for how they throw their contradictory elements into relief. There's nothing too jarring or experimental in Federico Tiezzi staging - this is La Scala after all - which gives a sense of historical 14th century period, with beautifully designed costumes and eye-catching colour schemes that make the divisions between the rival factions clear. There are one or two more modern touches of stage technique however - descending trees onto the stage in Act II, a sea of blocks that suggests seismic activity and a huge reproduction of Casper David Friedrich's Das Eismeer - that suggest that this shouldn't be taken simple as a straightforward historical drama, but as one that has greater conceptual meaning with regards to the questions of the nature of power and the place of human relationships within it.

This is a fine, marvellously looking production then, meticulously directed and expertly conducted by Daniel Barenboim to bring out the full conceptual nature of the staging and the abstraction of the opera's music, but it's the human interpretation that is perhaps the most vital aspect of Simon Boccanegra. Domingo, of course, isn't the true baritone that is required for the role, but he had all the necessary qualities and experience - as he approached his 70th birthday - to take on the challenge of two significant Verdi baritone roles in 2010 (and it's probably no coincidence that the other was that complementary character of Rigoletto). His tone of voice, so dramatically attuned, brings a great deal of that necessary flawed humanity to the role of Boccanegra. Ferruccio Furlanetto is of course one of the great Verdi basses of our time and it's particularly wonderful to watch two such fine performers and voices complement each other so well in this rival roles. Their Act III 'Piango, perché me parla' is absolutely stunning. Harteros sings Maria/Amelia well - as you would expect - but I didn't get the same sense of father/daughter chemistry that existed when Domingo was paired with Marina Poplavskaya for the Covent Garden production of this opera the same year.

It's not just experience that is required either on the part of the singers, but rather the ability of Domingo, Furlanetto and Harteros to inhabit their characters and give them a deeply human sense of expression through their delivery that ultimately lifts this production above being merely a faithful and appropriate treatment to one that explores the intriguing potential of the opera, with all its fascinating flaws and contradictions. The Blu-ray release from Arthaus presents the production exceptionally well, with a clear, sharp full-HD image, and two sound mixes in LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 that are superbly detailed and toned. There are no extra features on the disc, and only a brief essay on the opera and the production in the enclosed booklet. A synopsis to explain the historical context of the opera's setting would have been useful, but I imagine you can find that on line somewhere if necessary. The Blu-ray is region-free, BD25, 1080i, subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.