Verdi: Simon Boccanegra.(Video Recording Review)

VERDI: Simon Boccanegra Mattila; La Scola, Guelfi, Gallo, Konstantinov; Orch. and Ch. of Maggio Musicale, Abbado. TDK DVD DVUS OPSIBO (Naxos, dist.), subtitled, 143 mins.

The 1977 studio recording of Simon Boccanegra, based on La Scala performances conducted by Claudio Abbado and directed by Giorgio Strehler, remains one of the glories of the record catalogue. If Boccanegra is often disappointing in the opera house, it is because Abbado set the bar so high. He revisited the work for this 2002 production in Florence, this time with director Peter Stein. Abbado's performance still has sections where he demonstrates the ideal management of a Verdian line, the long elastic reins on an entire scene that make all the difference in this difficult work. He binds the sections of the concluding trio of Act II into a single, beating organism, and his control of the Act III scene of Simon's entrance and the Simon-Fiesco duet is the work of an Old Master. But Abbado, who looks very frail and thin after a bout of health problems, is less fine elsewhere. His conducting of the prologue in 1977 is one of the most brilliant performances of an opera act on records. But here, in an effort to wring every last bit of mystery and atmosphere from the score, he sacrifices staccatos and accents, and the choral conclusion is ridiculously fast--the latter perhaps resulting from Stein's questionable conception of this section as a mad scene.

Steins work is best when there are two characters onstage. The calibration of the changing distance between characters as emotions shift, and of who looks at whom versus who does not, is minute. Amelia's reaction when Simon first tries to touch her is perfect, as is Gabriele's tender touch on her back when the identity of her grandfather is ...