Verdi: Requiem; Overture, La Forza del Destino.(Video Recording Review)

Ligabue, Bumbry; Konya, Arie: Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Giulini. Text, notes. BBC Legends, BBCL 4144-2

This is Carlo Maria Giulini's third Verdi Requiem on disc, joining the landmark EMI/Angel studio set (with Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, Gedda, Ghiaurov) and a less compelling Proms concert version with an English cast. This new BBC exhumation, from a live performance in London's Royal Festival Hall, dates from 1964, very close to the time of the other two.

What's new is a quartet of soloists who outdo themselves--not in individual exploits so much as in their cohesive, sometimes transcendent ensemble work. Occasional vocal blemishes aside, it's stunning to follow such tight interaction in a live performance. The Verdi Requiem has been called overly theatrical, but Giulini manages once again, amid the brimstone and anguish, to stress its contemplative element.

The new cast has more Italians and more Verdians. They make the most of those traits. My favorite is the quintessential spinto, Ilva Ligabue, who lends the flowing soprano line a rich emotional color. She manages the technical demands quite convincingly, keeping an urgent beat in her smooth legato. There is a luscious roundness even in the high piano passages (not quite ppp in her case).

Grace Bumbry is the soul of decorum, self-effacing, sparing of chest voice--in other words, the opposite of her onstage behavior as Amneris or Azucena. She attends to details of diction ...