Claudio Abbado In Rehearsal DVD

Claudio Abbado in Rehearsal has the eminent conductor rehearsing Verdi's Requiem Mass both at the La Scala Opera House and the church of San Marco in Milan where Verdi's choral masterpiece was first performed. This new performance was given in 1985 to mark the 200th birthday of the Italian national poet Alessandro Manzoni, with whom Verdi shared aspirations for a united Italy. The camera dwells a good deal on Abbado, whose concentration seems well nigh tangible as he raises his arms and throws out his chest to communicate the power of Verdi's music. Abbado takes much... care with his soloists, gives strong leads, checking the reverberant acoustic of San Marco with a lift of the head during the thunderous "Dies Irae". We eavesdrop on a piano rehearsal with two of his soloists as he keeps the rather musically wayward mezzo on course and works with Samuel Ramey, his bass, to intensify his hushed delivery of "More stupebit" ("Death and nature stand aghast"). We also see Monserrat Caballe, who can float a note pianissimo like no other soprano, have an unexpected fit of the giggles when beginning her "Libera me". Some reservations in director Norbert Beilharz's treatment of the "Lux Aeterna" require comment. His concept of juxtaposing a well-dressed audience with pictures from tombstones and statues as a reminder of the transience of human life grows wearisome after a while, as does his commentary and translation of the Latin, already on screen as subtitles, which masks some of the most poignant music in the score. On the DVD: Claudio Abbado in Rehearsal has one major disappointment: the lighting. Neither the San Marco Church or the interior of La Scala is well lit. There are brief trailers for three other ArtHaus Musik productions, including a film about Callas and Abbado conducting the Mozart Requiem in a splendid baroque church in Salzburg where the brilliance of the picture, stunningly lit, really shows up the deficiencies of this film. To hear Abbado conduct the Verdi Requiem where everyone performs as though their lives depended on it, try the version he recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2001. --Adrian Edwards [show more]

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