DVD : Verdi - Don Carlo (Muti, Pavarotti, Ramey) [1994]

Rating: - Don't choose this one as your first or only recording of Verdi's finest opera!
This 1992 recording of Zeferelli's lavish production for La Scala, Milan, is an oddly unsatisfying set. All the vocal performances are sound, although none outstanding - all these monumental roles have been captured by others in better performances.
Pavarotti was at the end of his stage career here, and whilst vocally he still has that distinctive warm tone, physically he is unengaged and unengaging - hardly moving for most of his appearances except to enter or leave the stage (it was around this year that I saw him in Ballo in Maschera at Covent Garden when he had oxygen cylinders secreted around the set for a crafty breather mid-Act).
Daniella Dessi is in good voice but rather passionless; Sam Ramey is quite unconvincing yet vocally strong as Philip - in fact it is only really Luciana D'Intino's rather theatrical and melodramatic Eboli (at odds with the others' style of performance) that brings the recording to life and makes it worth keeping in my collection - although it is a gift of a role in which I've yet to see a mezzo fail to bring the house to raptures after O Don Fatale.
Muti's conducting is rather erratic - at times too ponderous, at others feeling rather rushed, seemingly in a hurry to get to the next interval. Zeferelli's direction appears non-existent at times, the singers all tend to 'stand and deliver' which, considering the hefty layers of fabric and costume they're carrying, is hardly surprising. The singers are dwarfed by the heavy, dark sets that, whilst intending to perhaps add gravitas to the human conflicts, simply reduce them to insignificance - there is little intimacy or claustrophobia in the private world to offset the ceremony of the big crowd scenes (compare this to the dizzying perspective of the classic Visconti Covent Garden production, where the King's Chamber was suffocatingly confined). There are a couple of unintentionally comical moments - the crowd gasping at Carlo's drawn sword against the King, before Pavarotti has remembered to actually draw the thing, and the final apotheosis where Carlo pops up on a throne at the top of the set!
Nothing about this set is terrible, but then nothing is wonderful either. An acceptable complementary version to have, but there are certainly several others available that are better.

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Rating: - An excellent production of the 4 act version of Don Carlos
This is probably the best Don Carlos that exists on DVD. Franco Zefirelli's La Scala production is lavish and correct in most details. (Some things may be missing like the fountain at the beginning of act II but this is a minor point).
The image is very good on the whole, not excellent, but better than most. Now for the cast :
Luciano Pavarotti may have a big voice, but on stage is totally unconvincing as the young rebel prince. Placido Domingo, on the new DGG release from the Metropolitan Opera in 1983 is by far superior.
Samuel Ramey is a superb Philip, by far the best so far on DVD, hard to surpass. He portrays the tormented King with great emotion and some incredible singing.
Daniela Dessi, is a good Elizabetta, adequate for the role, but nowhere as good as Freni on the new DGG release from the Metropolitan Opera in 1983.
Paolo Coni is a very good Rodrigo, very well sung and very well acted.
Luciana D'Intino is an excellent Eboli and Alexander Anisimov has the vocal power to deliver the role of the Inquisitor more than adequately.
Riccardo Muti conducts La Scala orchestra with great precision and emotion.
Since it appears that Covent Garden has no visual record of their legendary 1958 Visconti production of Don Carlos, this is then probably as good as we are ever likely to get on DVD.

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Rating: - buying it for Pavarotti?
It's a pretty good version of the opera on DVD (even though, it should be noted, not the only one - so do shop around). What's good on this particular DVD is the overall sound/vision quality. Many may be tempted to get it just because of Pavarotti. Well, both yes and no. Sing he can (as for being suitable to sing Don Carlo - that's an altogether different matter), act he most definitely cannot. What he can't is convey a single plausible emotion. It's exactly as though he went onstage not sure which opera he's in today, but since he (probably) has sung in most of them, this one will just have to do, then, too. Throughout the whole opera he does occasionally raise the left hand, then the right, but that's about all involvment there is. If that doesn't discourage you (and, speaking frankly it shouldn't - there are much, much worse crimes committed elsewhere), go ahead