Verdi: Aida.(a review of the DVD )(Opera Review)

[] Gencer, Cossotto; Bergonzi, Colzani, Giaiotti, Pugliese; Orch. & Ch. of the Arena di Verona, Capuana. August 1966. Hardy Classic DVD HCD 4010 (VAI, dist.), black & white, subtitled, 160 mins.

This may be a DVD, but the performance is about singing, singing and singing. The visuals are primitive, partly owing to the technical limitations of filming live opera (and outdoors at that) at the time, and partly because the acceptable traditions of the era included scary blackface, grotesque costumes, and semaphore for acting. Nonetheless, this is spectacular, thrilling vocalism.

Carlo Bergonzi enters, looking like an accountant dressed as an Egyptian for Halloween, and, in magnificent voice, sings a noble "Celeste Aida," full of both power and shading, albeit without the morendo on the final B-flat he often managed at the Met; grandstanding, not subtlety, is the order of the day at the Arena. The camera director manages to miss the vocal entrances of both Fiorenza Cossotto, as Amneris, and Leyla Gencer, as Aida, focusing for long periods on the wrong character. Never mind--Cossotto is so vivid vocally that you'll think you can see her, and her voice emerges superhuman in its combination of sumptuousness and power. Conductor Franco Capuana keeps things moving along, but it sounds as if he's rushing Gencer through "Ritorna vincitor," not allowing her to get her vocal footing or to contrast her agitated no-holds-barred opening of the aria with the prayer at the close.

After Bergonzi is joined by the sonorous Bonaldo Giaiotti for a stirring temple-scene duet, we move into Act II, where sparks don't quite fly between the two ladies, despite Gencer's ...