Although I saw this performance of Verdi's Stiffelio from the Metropolitan Opera in its original video release, nothing had quite prepared me for the impact it would have on DVD. With vastly superior picture quality and atmospheric 5.1 DTS Surround Sound, it has gone instantly near to the top of my favourite opera DVD list.
Giancarlo del Monaco's gigantic production (in Michael Scott's lavish settings) opens up many of the questions surrounding this dramatically unusual work. In the first act, the staging has a foreground area, where the main action takes place, and a dining room at the back with windows dividing the two, so that Jorg, the slimily omnipresent assistant to the minister, can observe what is going on between Stiffelio and his wife Lina. The design also works well for the chorus in the finale of Act One, because the main characters' tortured emotions are literally foregrounded while the chorus sings a deliberately banally happy chorus in the anteroom.
Far more than in Elijah Moshinsky's largely insightful production for the Royal Opera (reviewed in April), Del Monaco places emphasis on the Bible. The holy book is, after all, the main thread running through the piece, both musically (in the form of various prayers) and dramatically. In the opening scene, Jorg taunts Stiffelio with the Bible, urging him to stick to its letter rigidly, and in a brilliant piece of 'book-ending', Jorg is the one who holds up the Bible at the end of the opera, parading it in front of the assembled congregation after Stiffelio has read aloud from the story of Jesus' forgiveness of the adulteress, a metaphor for the minister's forgiveness of his wife. By having the courage to go with Verdi and Piave's intentions in this way, Del Monaco makes sense of the finale in terms of reconciliation.
Other assets of this production include the use of a military uniform for Stankar, Lina's father, which makes the duel between him and his daughter's seducer, Raffaele, more threatening and increases the sense of a soldier's wounded pride; a very malevolent staging of Stiffelio's near-punishment of Raffaele - he is literally on the brink of stabbing Raffaele to death when the sound of the chorus comes in from the church; and a general control of the wayward gestures that sometimes spoil stagings of Italian opera: Del Monaco makes sure the singers largely keep control of their arms and hands unless the action calls for it.
Matching this careful but thrilling approach is a musical performance of intensity and detail under the direction of James Levine. Not to everyone's taste in some of the repertoire he undertakes, and perhaps not inspiring to watch when he is conducting an off-stage organ in the scene change before the finale, Levine is nevertheless at his best in this performance. Tempi are sensibly judged - not least in the rousing account of the Sinfonia, which he takes at a more realistic speed than did Mark Elder on the first night of the recent Covent Garden revival - and he has the ability both to unleash and restrain the orchestra, depending on what is appropriate for the vocal and theatrical situation.
Yet the hero of the performance is Plącido Domingo as Stiffelio. When this singer was at his height, as he was in this performance from 1993, nobody on earth could match his ideal combination of inherent vocal and physical splendour, unerring dramatic instinct and intelligent musicality. His tone is firm even in the opening song of the voga (boatman); he confronts his wife in the second numbers of the first and third acts with the same intensity that he once brought to the role of Otello; and he paints the agony of this man of faith who is faced with either defending his honour or upholding the beliefs that he preaches, with the utmost realism. Anyone who saw him play the role at the Royal Opera House in 1995 and was disappointed by his slightly underwhelming vocal performance should not be put off from buying this DVD, which shows him at his best.
A surprise for me was just how dexterously Sharon Sweet negotiates the tricky part of Lina in this performance. She may not be the most physically lithe Lina in history, but her voice is in splendid condition. More than in any of the other renditions of the opera I have heard (including Catherine Malfitano both on DVD and in person), she is spot on with the intonation of the virtuosic passages she sings in her two arias, and she brings a dignity to the role that is most suitable for a minister's wife.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Chernov rages away as Stankar with huge stage presence and an elegant, noble tone. The first-act duet with Lina is excellent, but what really stands out is his deft delivery of the cabaletta to his Act Three aria. He sings of an overwhelming joy on discovering that the opportunity to avenge his daughter's honour has arisen, and as well as singing nimbly around Verdi's rapid melodic line, his acting captures exactly the crazed psyche of the character.
No less impressive are Paul Plishka's oppressive Jorg, Peter Riberi's sleazy Raffaele, and Charles Anthony and Margaret Lattimore's vocally secure performances as Lina's cousins.
The audience breaks into rapturous applause after the orchestral sinfonia and applauds almost every subsequent number with increasing enthusiasm. Suffice it to say that I'm on my feet in admiration, too.