If there are worse ways of getting to know Verdi's Il trovatore than watching this new DVD from the usually dependable Opus Arte, I haven't come across them yet. Robert Carsen's production of the opera for the Bregenz Festival on Lake Constance in Austria seems to me to have very little to do with Salvatore Cammarano's libretto, while Verdi's music is only intermittently well served by the musical performance on offer here.
In the interview on the DVD's bonus feature, Carsen declares that 'there are more than one hundred references to fire in Cammarano's libretto for Il trovatore' and goes on to equate the burning flames of the characters' passions with the petrochemical industry, which 'stands darkly as the destructive symbol of our times'. With this totally irrelevant and pretentious 'justification' behind him, Carsen and his designer Paul Steinberg created a massive set of an oil refinery on the stage, two football pitches in size. Carsen explains that the factory is laid out with the classical contours of a medieval castle - which would be more akin to the story of the opera - and there's no doubt that it's a great spectacle, with fire coming out of chimneys on every side.
But it makes absolutely no sense, it impedes the musical performance, and its impact really palls after a while. I don't think I've ever seen anything so ridiculous on an opera DVD as when the chorus of nuns marches through the petrochemical factory at the end of Part Two. Leonora going around it in evening dress is equally bizarre. The limp choreography (by Philippe Giraudeau) for the Soldiers' Chorus is nothing short of embarrassing, and the general nondescript feel of the set, which is static, does not allow it to change for the different scenes. Indeed, the story is submerged beneath a barrage of conceptual ideas that relate to almost nothing in the text. The huge irony of the production is that while it is ostensibly very modern in outlook, the stagecraft - i.e. how the singers move - is incredibly old-fashioned and dominated by mindless arm and hand gestures. I imagine the experience at the theatre in the open air was more engaging, but because the singers were acting to a big arena, whereas we can see them in close-up, everything about their performances seems overdone on the small screen.
Musically, too, this is very poor, with a couple of exceptions. The singers use radio microphones at Bregenz, but it feels at times that the film is not quite in synch with the soundtrack. In consequence, this is not a very compelling experience. My heart goes out to Iano Tamar, evidently a stylish Verdian of great ability in the part of Leonora. Apart from strain on the top notes of her aria in Part Four, this is a convincing and highly committed performance, engaging not only with the musical line but the meaning behind the text. Zeljko Lucic is also able as the Conte di Luna, always singing lyrically and trying his best to throw himself into the production, which ends with him shooting Manrico in front of Azucena; and Deanna Meek is a vividly-characterised and strongly-sung Ines.
However, Carl Tanner sounds strained most of the time as Manrico, Marianne Cornetti has wayward intonation as Azucena, and the Moscow Chamber Choir and Bregenzer Festspielchor are woefully underpowered through all the choral music. The Wiener Symphoniker was sited in a different building when playing for this production, and you can tell: there's no engagement with the drama at all, and in essence the soloists have to follow the orchestra rather than the other way around. Thomas Rösner does well to keep everything together, but this is a lacklustre account of one of Verdi's most exciting scores.
Unless you have a particular reason to want to see this DVD, I cannot recommend it at all. For more convincing, if conversely over-traditional films of the opera, check out Paavarotti and Levine at the Met on Deutsche Grammophon, or Domingo and Karajan at Vienna on TDK.