User Reviews

La Forza Del Destino is not my favourite of Verdi's operas, however it is a great opera with sublime music, an interesting story and Verdi's best overture. This 1958 Forza is superb, with a dream cast and it is just phenomenal musically.

The picture quality does lack crispness at times. However, when you look past that you have I feel the best Forza you will find on DVD. I did love the 1984 production with Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Giacomini and Leo Nucci, but even that doesn't have the high calibre that this cast has.

When it comes to costumes and sets, it looks suitably sumptuous, and the lighting helps to enhance the atmosphere. The camera work is very good, not always fluid but never too jerky. I wasn't entirely crazy about Christoff's make-up, but it wasn't a big enough flaw really considering how amazing the rest of the performance is.

Musically, this is one of the main reasons why this to me is the best Forza available. There is so much power and poignancy in the orchestral playing while Francesco Molinari-Pradelli proves himself one of the better Verdi conductors at the same time.

Likewise dramatically. The dramatically intense Invano Alvaro is definitely a high point, as is the haunting Pace Pace Mio Dio, but I found Solenne in Quest'Ora very moving, Corelli not lies on his back but he both looks and sounds like he is dying from his wounds, something I don't always see or hear from Don Alvaros.

The singing and acting is superb. I love Renata Tebaldi and I thought she was splendid here. The beauty of tone, the exquisite pianissimo singing, the legato lines and care to diction comes through loud and clear in her singing, and her acting is stylish, gracious and noble which brings out the complexity of Leonora wonderfully. Her Pace Pace Mio Dio is one of the best renditions of that aria I've heard, in terms of sincerity and musicality to me only Leontyne Price and Anna Tomowa-Sintow have matched Tebaldi.

Franco Corelli always was a thrilling tenor with also an ability to move me with his distinctive timbre to his voice. His Don Alvaro is up there with Corelli's best. His singing is as you would expect thrilling and nuanced, and I was really impressed with his acting too. Here he shows luminosity in his hopeful duet with Tebaldi, enthusiasm and tenderness in the marriage proposal and pain and poignancy in Solenne in Quest'Ora.

Ettore Bastianini was one of the best Posas and the best Count DiLuna to me. Allow me to say the same for his Don Carlos DiVargas. Dramatically, it is a very convincing interpretation, and he shows off his velvety voice that was so ideal for Verdi so well. He blends with Corelli better than a lot of other tenors and baritones in the roles(even more so than the legendary partnership of Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes), and he is superb in Morrir Tremenda Cosa...Urna Fatale, vocally he's rich with no signs of pushing in the exciting albeit difficult Caballetta, and how brooding and vengeful he is in this aria is something to learn from.

This Forza is also special for Boris Christoff. Fans of his- like me, he is my favourite bass due to his dramatic intensity, firm voice and depth to his characterisation- will appreciate this, as it is the only complete performance where you see him acting. Well there is footage of the 1956 broadcast of Boris Godunov, rare footage of King Phillip's lament, Le Veau D'Or and a scene from Attila but as far as I'm aware of they're not complete. This one though is, and any fans of this great bass will find the firmness and expressiveness of his voice, and the reverence, nobility and sympathy of his acting here very special.

Last but not least, Oralia Dominguez. While her voice doesn't quite come across as big or powerful, that said she still sings very musically and with attention to diction and tone.Throughout the comic scenes are very well done, and the contrasts of the sacred and profane well emphasised.

Overall, a brilliant Forza, dramatically and musically unmatched on DVD as far as I'm concerned and with one of the best dream casts you can ask for. 10/10 Bethany Cox

There's no dancing around it: La Forza never makes it to the top of anyone's list of favorite Verdi operas for good reason. The story is silly, and takes far too long to play out, due in part to padding with pageantry on more than one occasion. And yet...anyone who perseveres is rewarded by some of the most beautiful music in the operatic repertoire, which is to say some of the most beautiful music period. The pilgrims' chorus in the second scene of Act I, the swelling accompaniment to Leonora's reception into the monastery later in the act, and Leonora's final solo aria immediately come to mind. In fact, if there ever were an opera tailor-made for the selective playback capabilities of a DVD, it's this one. (I would say the same about most Wagner operas, but don't get me started.)

The lynch-pin holding together the three musical diamonds in the rough I've already mentioned is the voice of Leonora, and with Renata Tebaldi, the role could not be in better hands. Her approach will forever be associated with craft and finesse, qualities in abundance in this performance. Tebaldi's artificial gestures and posturing may at first seem jarring to a modern audience, but before long, there is no question that the listener is in the presence of genius. In this recording she was at the height of her power, and for my money, only Leontyne Price can match (exceed?) her artistry in the heartrending 'Pace Pace Mio Dio'.

Tebaldi is here well-matched vocally and stylistically by the legendary Franco Corelli. Eschewing the excesses of a "bad boy" interpretation, he crafts a dignified and aristocratic Don Alvaro, a character clearly proud of his exotic heritage, and unbroken by the vicissitudes of fate. Corelli's clear, bright tonality is at its best when paired with the dark intensity and undercurrent of menace in Ettore Bastianini's take on Don Carlo di Vargas, particularly in the sickbed scene and their final confrontation.

The production is quaint by modern standards, with backdrops painted on tapestries that billow faintly from time to time. The video can be grainy and streaky, but there are no noticeable skips or static in the soundtrack.

Verdi's La Forza del Destino is a very long opera with great music but poses a bit of a problem scenically. The plot is convoluted and hard to believe, think Il Trovatore, but much longer. The comic scenes were intended to lighten up things but sometimes drag on. So most performances have (sometimes heavy) cuts. This performance is no exception and yet still comes in at over 2,5 hours.

The opera was recorded at the San Carlo in Naples on 20.03.1958 (the date 15.03. On the Hardy Classics DVD is wrong, that was Corelli's role debut of which there is only a private audio recording in bad sound). The audio of 20.03. (with the prompter audible) is from the radio broadcast, the video was filmed at the same time, without sound, and had been lost. When the film resurfaced it turned out to be very dark and had to be lightened considerably which impacted the picture quality. The film also had to be aligned to the audio. Considering the technical challenges the result is good enough though of course it cannot be compared to modern videos.

Production and costumes are traditional and very much representative of what opera used to be in 50ies Italy and earlier. For viewers used to modern Regietheater the acting may at first look strange, but the singers' gestures are meant to be seen and understood in the furthest reaches of the house and so may look exaggerated or static on screen. The singing also was different, microphones (usually only one high above the orchestra pit) were only for backstage purposes and for the broadcast, none amplyfying into the auditorium, so the voices had to have squillo (ring) to project above the orchestra and into the house.

Orchestra (a notoriously undisciplined one) and choir of the San Carlo are ably conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. There is the odd misalignment between stage and pit typical of live performances and sometimes there are brief disagreements over tempi between conductor and soloists. The rowdy Naples claque also make themselves felt by throwing cabbages at Corelli (Northerners weren't always welcome in the South).

Renata Tebaldi sings Leonora di Vargas, one of her best roles, and in 1958 she was still in her prime. The voice is huge but capable of the most ethereal pianos, with a still solid top, an all enveloping velvety middle range and strong chest voice- this is simply great singing! Her big aria and the final trio are out of this world. Tebaldi was a tall woman (nearly 1,80m) and had suffered from Polio in her youth. She has always (undeservedly) come in for a lot of flak from Callas supporters saying her acting was static and her singing unimaginative. It's true she doesn't do much running around on stage yet her acting always has dignity and sincerity and her Leonora is completely convincing. In a way she can appear old fashioned but Tebaldi's role portraits both vocally and on stage are just as valid as Callas'.

Franco Corelli's Don Alvaro (only days after his role debut) is already a fully realized characterisation and vocally the role fits him like a glove. He has the mezza voce and long sustained breaths but also the ringing high notes and the raw power for the dramatic outbursts.

In the aria you can detect a touch of the (in)famous Corelli nerves, as the performance goes on the nervousness disappears. In Solenne in quest'ora which he sings lying on his back you can hear the voice of a man close to death, perfection! (Except maybe for the last needlessly aspirated addihios, but Bastianini does just the same;-) The last duet with Don Carlo is the test for every Don Alvaro, it has a low B flat (under C) where voices too light for the part simply go under/ are inaudible. Corelli passes with flying colours and apart from vocal glory also pulls off some convincingly sincere acting in a monk's robe.

As Don Carlo di Vargas Ettore Bastianini's dark baritone ideally complements Corelli's tenor, in this case I really regret that their second duet was cut. The beauty of Bastianini's voice was always indisputable but at times he could sound a bit stolid and uninvolved. This is certainly not the case here, he is fully into the action- like Corelli he was usually much more inspired live than in the recording studio.

Boris Christoff lends his unmistakeable bass to Padre Guardiano. The beard and hair seem a bit outdated even for the 50ies but his performance is certainly impressive. Vocally I prefer Cesare Siepi in this role but that's a matter of personal taste.

The part of Preziosilla is a very hard one to pull off, her music is rather formulaic and not Verdi's most inspired. Oralia Dominguez is a luxury cast and she does all that can be done with the role.

Renato Capecchi as Fra Melitone has a much more thankful role which he acts and sings with gusto, this is real comic relief amid the drama and tragedy.

The whole cast is one houses today can only dream of and as such the performance is an invaluable document. Apart from that it is the only live video of a full opera that we have of the great Franco Corelli (all the others are lip synched TV films).