The Dallas Morning News
"Bold vision of 'grand opera': CDs set Verdi's 'Don Carlo' in the original French"
March 9, 1997
by John Ardoin

Grand opera has come to signify any large-scale operatic work, when in actuality the term has a very specific meaning. It is the name given to a type of mid-19th century, epic French opera in five acts that contained a ballet, stirring choruses, violent emotions and usually a strong religious or military theme.

True grand opera was virtually the creation of a German named Giacomo Meyerbeer, but it was an Italian, Giuseppe Verdi, who brought it to its zenith with his dark, magnificent masterpiece Don Carlo. Verdi worked on this score more than any other, perhaps because its style was dictated to him rather than having arisen from the story or his own dramatic perceptions.

Today we normally hear the opera in Italian, not French, and in either a four- or five-act version. But a year ago, Don Carlo returned to France in French. These landmark performances in Paris' Théâtre du Châtelet were recorded live by EMI to make up a three-CD set (56152) that was released this month. A video was made as well but has yet to be released in the United States. (Click here for a review of the video)

In his notes for the recording, critic John Higgins states that "those inside the Châtelet counted themselves privileged to be there." I can second his words, having been one of those so privileged. It was more than performance, it was a revelation. And it was not just because of the opportunity to hear Don Carlo in the original French and sung by a well-matched, stellar cast, but to experience some of the music that is nearly always missing from the two Italian versions.

What version of the opera best represents Verdi - a question he had qualms about - became an issue in 1970 when two musicologists uncovered music cut by the composer at the time of the world premiere in 1867, ever since this serendipitous discovery, the debate has raged as to how much of it should be reinstated into Verdi's version of the score and how much should continue to go by the boards.

Having heard various approaches to Don Carlo in recent years, I now believe that conductor Antonio Pappano, who led the Paris revival recorded by EMI, came up with the best choices yet, given the fact that there is no way to include every existing note of the opera. The "extra" music Mr. Pappano included had to do primarily with the character of Posa, a figure, as Mr. Higgins puts it, "who may have the best-known music in the opera but is the least firmly drawn of the principal characters."

Mr. Pappano returned to the original, longer version of the Posa- King Philip scene in Act 2 and restored the threnody led by the King after the murder of Posa. Mr. Pappano, like Verdi in his Italian editions, decided to suppress the ballet, which makes sense as dance was an obligatory element when it came to grand opera and one usually not integral to a story. And though it was a small matter, I was happy that Mr. Pappano added as well the encounter between Queen Elisabeth and Princess Eboli in the garden in which they exchange their cloaks and masks, for it establishes why Carlos, when he next meets Eboli, mistakes her for the Queen.

One could perhaps imagine a role cast with different artists, but I frankly could not wish for a more adroit and stylistically ideal set of principals than the one assembled in Paris. Its diction was clear and idiomatic - something that cannot be said for the DGG recording of the opera that is supposedly in French - and its singing ardent.

Heading the cast was tenor Roberto Alagna as Don Carlo. He is joined by Karita Mattila as Elisabeth, Waltraud Meier as Eboli, Thomas Hampson as Posa, José van Dam as King Philip and Eric Halfvarson as the Grand Inquisitor. All are in superb form with just the right sort of contrast in vocal timbre and weights to make sense of the story. There will be those who find Mr. van Dam too light in color for Philip and lacking the easy low notes the role requires. I cannot disagree, but in compensation I find his performance to possess a dignity, suavity and majesty that overrides all else.

There will also be those who feel that Ms. Meier comes on much too hot and heavy as Eboli, and here I must part company with them. Yes, there is an edge to much she does, but for me it is never a cutting edge but a thrilling one. This set also sets a seal on Ms. Mattila's emergence as one of the reigning sopranos of today. This radiant Finnish artist had blossomed in recent years in an impressive manner, and the world of opera now seems her for the taking.

Finally there is Mr. Pappano. In him we have a Verdian of dynamic dimensions, one who knows unerringly how to give musical line life and make it soar. As he is still a young musician, we luckily have years of instruction and delight from him still ahead.