Product Details

• Actors: Herbert von Karajan, Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nikolai Ghiaurov
• Directors: Henri-Georges Clouzot
• Format: Classical, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: Latin (DTS 5.1), Latin (PCM Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Philips
• DVD Release Date: September 13, 2005
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009DBXXQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,042 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

VERDI:MESSA DA REQUIEM - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Priceless Document In Classical Music History, October 4, 2005

By 

Rudy Avila "Saint Seiya" (Lennox, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala (DVD)

I support everything said by the other critic in the previous review. This 1967 filmed performance of Verdi's Requiem is a long awaited treasure of classical music. For years it was not commercially available and now thanks to modern digital technology, it's available on a fine DVD. The DVD itself is not to blame for the lack of synchronization in sound and film; it was Karajan and his people's fault since they were working with primitive camera technology. It was filmed in the Teatro A La Scala, Milan, Italy, sans an audience, providing the performance with a studio recording feel, perhaps to make the singers feel more comfortable. And what an ensemble well-endowed singers! Soprano Leontyne Price, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Cossotto and bass Nikolai Ghiaurov. These singers are captured in their glorious prime and at this time their careers were taking on a meteoric rise to fame in the opera scene of the late 60's and would continue well into the 70's. The Verdi Requiem continues to be a staple of sacred music repetoire and it's a work of tremendous power. The chorus and soloists have music written to sound operatic but the traditional Requiem form is maintained- Requiem Dona Est Domine (Peace Grant them O, Lord), the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) Rex Tremande (Tremendous Majesty) Tuba Mirum (A Trumpet Shall Sound) Libera Me (Free My Soul) etc. Verdi wrote the Requiem for his deceased friend the author Manzoni. It is his most beautiful and stirring non-operatic work, one of the last things he ever composed. It was an ambitious project and many times it resembles the grander requiems from before Verdi's time- Mozart's, Beethoven's Mass in C, Berlioz's large-scale Requiem and Brahm's German Requiem. But Verdi's signature is clearly on it.

Leontyne Price was championed by Karajan and at this time she was probably a close friend of his, having worked with him in studio recordings and Vienna Opera productions of Tosca and Il Trovatore. In '67, Price was still in great shape vocally. Her radiant high register was marked with a supersquillo quality and her lower chest voice had not yet developed that disturbing depth it would have in the 70's that plunged into the mezzo soprano/alto range (which is why she was able to sing Carmen). Her voice is beautiful and dramatic, angelic and noble, furious and vulnerable all at once. Toward the end of the Requiem, in which her voice dominates even the orchestra, Price becomes a goddess. I wonder what it was like for Price to work with Fiorenza Cossotto, rumored (by Maria Callas) to be an insufferable diva. Cossotto was the hottest item in La Scala at that time in the late 60's. While I never cared for her voice, she is doing a fine job here, and it is superior to her studio recordings under RCA with Price and Domingo (Trovatore, Forza Del Destino). Cossotto did not possess a dark enough lower voice and many times she resembles a wannabe soprano. Even Price has a darker range in this performance.

Luciano Pavarotti is VERY YOUNG here. He is not my favorite tenor but from his effulgent voice on this Requiem, a voice that can break glass with its piercing "ping" quality, we know exactly why he rose to the top. Ghiarov is also young here, and had not yet married Mirella Freni and his bass voice is dark and god-like. Karajan is also in his prime and he moves with agility and conducts with more energy than I have ever seen (except for the Carmen film with Grace Bumbry also around this time at the Salzburg Festival). Karajan has a tendency to close his eyes when he is most involved in the music. He is still able to push his musicians to perfection and in this DVD we see exactly what Karajan did when he was probably able to conduct every one of Mahler's Symphonies in the course of a single year! Without hesitation buy this DVD. It is a fine documented moment in classical music history. By the way, Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto are still alive. Karajan passed away in 1988 and Ghiurov passed away a few years ago around 2003.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, hair-rising Requiem, March 30, 2006

By 

Plaza Marcelino (Caracas Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala (DVD)

This may well be the Verdi Requiem you always waited for; in spite of its almost 40 years of having been recorded, it is only now that it gains legal and therefore more widespread circulation. Thoroughly idiomatic, with a cast the stuff dreams are made of, a marvellous and authentic-souding choir and orchestra. If Karajan's antics and mimics, the maestro ever the grand poseur, annoy or distract you, turn the telly off and just listen to the sound through a good sound system. The sound is remarkably fresh and proportions or sound planes between soloists, orchestra and chorus well managed. The La Scala orchestra may not be the Berlin Philharmonic -at the time an awe-inspiring virtuoso body of orchestral musicians, but Karajan still ventured ocasionally out of his Philharmonie to conduct elsewehere and other ensembles, his love affair with the Dresden orchestra is well documented- but they were long accustomed to the maestro's ways (they had often worked together since the war and through the 1950's and 1960's) and their enthusiasm and commitment do compensate for their lack of finesse -again, compared to the berliners of the time, I don't want to imply they play sloppily or inaccurately, nothing of the sort, they may well have been, and by far, Italy's best orchestra at the time-. The vocal quartet is beyond belief and has been sufficiently praised in these pages by others.

There was criticism in the press at the time of the concert this film was connected to about Karajan's overly theatrical approach, but in a way the work calls for it, Toscanini being the obvious model. Southern european warmth and commitment, roman catholic awe before the inevitability of death ot the ever announced day of wrath and a musical setting much imbued of the pomp and circumstance the Vatican Council would do away with a century later? That is the cultural environment the performance takes place in, the performance inheritance Karajan and his musicians performed under, barely three years after Vatican II strongly frowned upon the liturgical context Verdi wrote for, regardles of whether you think this Requiem better suits the church or the theatre. In some way or another, most of the great recordings of the work throughout the 20th century are closely associated with italians or roman catholics (Toscanini, De Sabata, Serafin, Abbado, Muti), practising or not but definitely bred and raised within a solid roman catholic conception of what a Requiem Mass is about and what it means. Does the work prove elusive to non-catholics then? Perhaps, but Karajan extracts wonders from his performers, Price and Cossotto the undoubted stars of the event. The would-be Parma footballer, Luciano Pavarotti, (thank God he exchanged the ball for the voice) is hard to recognise without his familiar beard and (for his later standards) slenderness, rendering a Kyrie and an Ingemisco that announce why he was starting to make a lot of noise in italian musical circles (and proves Karajan's hindsight as regards promising singers), Ghiaurov was by then an established figure, sought by all great houses on both sides of the Atlantic.

There is no way for me to sufficiently praise this recording. There are visual flaws as the work was studio-recorded to a large extent (if not in its entirety, there's no way to tell accurately) and the sound later dubbed in onto the image, which of course allowed Karajan to concentrate substantial film time on his image, gesturing and playing the mesmeriser to orchestra, soloists and chorus before an absent audience. He was, as I said above, a grand poseur but no doubt a fabulously equipped musician, to borrow somewhat from Harold Schonberg's remark on Bruno Walter, as this Verdi Requiem recording amply proves.

Full 1960's glamour then, weird female hairdos and all, all fully dressed up in full gala costumes for a truly memorable experience.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Karajan's Verdi Requiem - a religious experience., April 10, 2006

By 

Janos Gardonyi "jgarch2002" (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala (DVD)

If the readers will forgive me, the following is a reprint of my 2004 review of the VHS tape that was sporadically available at exorbitant prices. It is now re-issued on DVD for fraction of the price with vastly improved sound and picture quality.

"This is Herbert von Karajan's first video of the great Requiem by Verdi. It comes from 1967 when he was still relatively young, only 57 years old. He collected all the best forces available: the Orchestra and Chorus of the Scala of Milan and some of the greatest soloists of all time. It is a magnificent performance. There is total commitment throughout, an almost religious devotion to the conductor and the work itself.
That Karajan does this with the Scala forces immediately dispels the notion that he achieved all his fame due to the Berlin Philharmonic. The Orchestra plays with fierce intensity and precision that has rarely been heard from them. And the Chorus of serious and devoted Italian women and men sing like angels.
Karajan's concentration and total control is astonishing. His beat is almost unnoticeable, but his tempi are always perfect and relentless. His delicate hands, featured often in the film, shape the melodies and inspire the entire ensemble. But he is also capable of the superhuman hammer blows of the Dies Irae sequence, which are shattering. Tuba mirum has rarely sounded more awe inspiring, sending shivers down on everybody's spine. One could go on and on...
The soloists certainly do justice. Leontine Price , who sings without score, is showing intense sorrow throughout and great drama at the final Libera me section, her crowning achievement in this performance. Fiorenza Cassotto, one of the most underrated singers, is wonderfully mellifluous with her rich dark hued mezzo soprano voice (she also sings without a score). A young Pavarotti, his voice in its prime, is very impressive indeed.(he hasn't got the famous beard yet!) and Nicolai Ghiarov, probably the best basso of our generation, is beyond praise.
Unfortunately,for some reason, Deutsche Gramophone, after releasing it in DVD, seems to have withdrawn or discontinued it. Right now they are only available onVHS and not too many of those either, so the price is exorbitant. Hopefully DGG will realize the problem and re-release the DVD soon.
In spite of all this I still highly recommend it.. It is an other worldly experience."

That being said, I urge you to go for it while supplies last.