Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Giuseppe Verdi: ERNANI (Met 1983) Levine/ Pavarotti, Mitchell, Milnes, Kraft, Raimondi

The story of this rarely staged 4 acts opera (premiered in 1844) is based on Victor Hugo’s dramatic play Hernani. Set in mountainous Aragon in 1519, it concerns a rather ridiculous love quadrangle between 3 guys (the outlaw nobleman Ernani, King Don Carlo, and Don Ruy Gomez de Silva) and a gal (Elvira, who is engaged to de Silva, but wants to marry Ernani)... Don Carlo, Ernani, and de Silva spend much of the opera either trying to kill each other or hiding another from harm... for different reasons. Carlo shields Ernani from de Silva in the first act mostly as a public relation grand-standing, and de Silva shields Ernani from Don Carlo in the next act in order to claim a terrible moral debt on him later. Sadly enough, when one of the boys, Don Carlo, finally does the generous thing for truly selfless reason by ordering the restoration of Ernani to his rightful noble rank (as Don Juan of Aragon) and giving his blessings to the younger man’s marriage to Elvira, it actually leads to the opera's tragic ending when the inconsolably bitter de Silva calls for Ernani to fulfill the oath he made when he accepted the aid of the older man and commit suicide... much to Elvira's distress.

Misguided chivalry and selfish lust pitted against justice and forgiveness... Amazing how the title character seems to land on the wrong side of the equation, doesn't it? This 5th opera by Giuseppe Verdi features some dramatic and musically explosive music... Something more similar to the style of the opera seria than most other Verdi operas, really. Instead of the familiar chorus- and ensembles- driven music, Ernani is propelled by solo arias (usually coming in 2 movements cavatina-choral interuption-cabaletta format) that allow the principal singers show stopping moments at the expense of dramatic flow. If you are familiar with the Verdi operas, you would be able to hear flashes of the musical ideas that the composer would develop to great dramatic effects in later operas such as La forza del destino and Macbeth. In this opera, though, they are still just flashes of things to come and the drama isn't sustained quite as well. But when the story is as contrived as this one is, it takes music like this to redeem the show!

CAST:
Ernani/Don Juan of Aragon ::: Luciano Pavarotti (tenor)
Donna Elvira ::: Leona Mitchell (soprano)
Don Carlo ::: Sherill Milnes (baritone)
Gomez de Silva ::: Ruggero Raimondi (bass)
Giovanna ::: Jean Kraft (mezzo-soprano)
Don Riccardo ::: Charles Anthony (tenor)
James Levine/ Orchestra & Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera
Directed by: Pier Luigi Samaritani

Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnJgZY_sh7s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsIlWkXN38U

Recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in December 1983, this is a rather dimly lit traditional production of the ‘stand and sing’ school of drama. It sets the story of the opera adequately without adding any new insight into it. While the chorus is moved around the stage well, the principals don't seem to be very 'directed' at all. The known ‘good acting singers’ (Raimondi and Milnes) of the cast act, and the others (Pavarotti and Mitchell)... well... not so much. The difference between them can be too obvious at times, since the staging is so static.

The DVD leaves little out from the live theater experience at the Met in the early 80's, and so the show is frequently interrupted with applause and curtain calls (they actually show the curtain call between the two scenes of the first act )... which can really take some getting used to if you are used to watching opera DVDs that show the performance from start to finish without interruption (if you actually go to live opera performances, though, this shouldn’t bother you too much).

In the title role of Ernani is the recently departed Italian superstar Luciano Pavarotti in the prime of his voice. ‘Pav’ was never much of an actor, and in this show he doesn't do much more than just standing at a spot and sings his love, lust, rage, sorrow, etc, with his eyes firmly fixed on the conductor. A more accomplished singer with such a ringingly beautiful voice you will have the hardest time finding. This is a musically marvelous performance that (and now I’ll get loads of hate mails from Pavarotti fans) doesn't really stick in my head after the show ends... This kind of beautifully clean singing probably serves Pavarotti better in ‘lighter’ roles like Nemorino, Tonio, or Rodolfo, but in this tragic opera, he just doesn’t convince me as the dashing leader of the anti-king rebellion who is so passionately in love with a woman that he is willing to die for her. The voice is majestic and ringing, but it nibbles rather than bites. Even when I just listen to this performance with my eyes closed, this Ernani still doesn’t come to life... It’s just Pavarotti singing Ernani’s music (with a special treat of an extra insertion aria, Odi il voto’ to end Act III instead of the usual ensemble).... And singing it exceedingly well. But isn’t opera something more than just good and beautiful singing?

On the other hand, Ruggero Raimondi, though also bounded by the same static staging, manages to convince as the incarnation of de Silva by making maximum theatrical use of his movements and his eyes. His voice takes a while to warm up, but you would hardly notice its initial pre-heated condition at all because his mere presence on the stage turns the temperature in the room up a few notches. The man can stick a knife into you just by a twist in his singing phrase... Though his self-pitying aria commandeers your sympathy (until he launches into his manic combative mode again, that is) making his de Silva more like a real person than an opera character. A real voice actor who tells much more than the words he sings, this is a de Silva you wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of.

As the just king Don Carlo is Sherrill Milnes, whose lanky stature and noble baritone make for a very royal performance. He is gentle and passionate in his scenes with Elvira, suitably superior and strong in the presence of Ernani and/or de Silva... and utterly humane in his own private soul-searching moment at Charlemagne’s tomb in Act III. It is just too bad that he isn’t the star of this particular opera!

The woman they all fight each other over, Elvira, is adequately acted though not so well sung by Leona Mitchell, a darkly beautiful woman with a strange voice. Her lower register is harshly masculine yet underprojected (no volume there), her top register acidly edgy and rather hard on the ears (which really sucks here since her role sings a lot in that range)... Sandwiched in the middle is a somewhat pleasant cloudy-amber and agile voice, though. She seems quite emotionally involved in the role, but any subtlety in her portrayal of Elvira is lost in her demolition derby style of singing, plowing right through the gorgeous ‘Ernani involami’ (her opening aria) as if she is duck-hunting with an Uzi. I’m not usually disturbed by register breaks (fragmented vocal range where the voice changes timbre as it moves up and down the scale)... as long as it is used to enhance the drama. In the case of this Elvira, it just doesn’t seem to work in her favor... At least not as it is captured on the DVD. The live audience seems quite enthusiastic in their reception... so perhaps she sounded better live.

Aside from a rather patchy opening chorus (I can't quite decide if it is weird singing or if something went south in the sound engineering department there... the voices are strangely imbalanced in that chorus), all the minor roles and the Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera deliver a fine performance over all. I wonder why I don’t see more recordings of the Act III chorus, Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia, along with the other great Verdian choruses. It is a splendidly combative wake up call of a song that would go really well at a soccer stadium just before a championship game All the singers and the orchestra are kept on a tight leash by Maestro James Levine, who keeps the show moving at a brisk (but utterly singable) pace.

This is a good but not great performance of this opera, and there is a more theatrically engaging DVD of it from La Scala with Placido Domingo and Mirella Freni as Ernani and Elvira. However, if you are an opera fan and have some bucks to spend, the sterling voice and musicality of Luciano Pavarotti and the spectacular overall performance of Ruggero Raimondi and Sherill Milnes are more than worth buying this DVD for. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with some really grating singing from the lady of the show... But hey, she's outnumbered three to one, so it isn't all that bad, really.

1 DVD. Run-time: 140 minutes. Sung in Italian with subtitle in: English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese.

Reviews of a few other Verdi opera:
Aida (Live - SDO 2008), Jerusalem (Genoa 2000), Nabucco (Met)

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12