Customer Reviews

Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala

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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.

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.

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.

This classic film from 1967, shot in an empty Scala theater, always has been well regarded and only has gained in stature with the passage of 35 years, capturing as it did five legends in peak or at least prime form (conductor Karajan and the four towering Verdians comprising the vocal quartet), along with the Scala orchestra and its excellent chorus. The great Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov anchors the team with a performance as authoritative and disciplined as it is suave and elegant; he is in better form here than on the celebrated Giulini-conducted recording of a few years earlier. Luciano Pavarotti, looking strikingly young and clean-shaven, was a last-minute and then-little-known substitute for the great tenor Carlo Bergonzi -- a turn of events that caused some anxiety on the part of organizers -- but in the accurate words of Karajan biographer Richard Osborne, "He sang like a god." His opening Kyrie eleison is the first, and certainly not the last, of the performance's stirring moments. Leontyne Price delivers all of the radiant vocalism one would expect from her at this juncture of her career, and while the lower third of her voice always was a relative weakness, in 1967 she could still give a respectable accounting of the Libera Me's depths. Throughout her performance, beauty and keen involvement go hand in hand; there is no hint of routine. But if this performance "belongs" to any member of this quartet, if we must select a star among stars, then the laurel must go to Fiorenza Cossotto, whose rich Verdian mezzo-soprano voice is heard at its ferocious, incendiary best here, in (among other places) the Liber Scriptus of a lifetime.

Karajan's view of the score is characteristically broad and cultivated, but it is a more lively, dramatic and immediate reading than we hear on his various recorded attempts with Berlin and Vienna orchestras (one of which has been issued on Sony DVD). It is difficult to say whether this can be chalked up to the occasion or perhaps to the conductor's interpretation's being filtered through a more directly idiomatic orchestra and chorus (the Italian chorus, trained by Roberto Benaglio, puts its Viennese counterparts in the shade). There is undeniably an element of showmanship in Karajan's elaborate, fluid gestures (he directs without baton, as was his custom in the choral repertory), but I believe it would be a mistake to dismiss this as showmanship alone -- there is also evidence of enormous expressive resources, a superbly finished and graceful technique, and clear-eyed, firm-handed control of the proceedings. Whatever else he was, he was a great conductor.

The film's director, the auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot, avoids many of the common pitfalls in documenting a classical-music performance. He is anything but static; indeed, he is consistently alert and enterprising in his choices. His camera whizzes cinematically from trumpet to balcony-borne trumpet in the Dies Irae; elsewhere captures the almost humorous aside of a wind player struggling to turn the page during a hectic orchestral passage, and, in a blink-and-you-miss-it felicity, finds Karajan (via stern facial expression and "whoa" gesture) reining in an unseen participant who apparently was about to jump a cue. On occasion, Clouzot also makes the interesting decision to "anticipate" a singer's entrance by several seconds, treating us to such sights as the regal Price standing motionless and awaiting a cue in the Offertorio, then finally letting loose with a perfectly shaped, shimmeringly beautiful "E" -- an ecstatic moment.

The transfer looks to be a video-to-DVD job, and this will disappoint those who had hoped for a ground-up remastering from the original film elements. To be frank, the quality is inconsistent from section to section, with blacks and flesh tones variable, and at times generalized fading or flickering. Nevertheless, this is probably the best the film has looked in a home-video format, and it always has been marked by a relative pictorial softness. One may well feel its mellow visuals are appropriate to the "time capsule" allure it has acquired with the passage of years. The audio news is happier: the highs are generally firm and accommodating (no small matter in a recording featuring such singers as Price and Cossotto), and the sonic blend is decidedly better than on the VHS version, whose obtrusive tape hiss shall not be missed. It is somewhat bass-light, but the timpani has an assertive presence at key moments, and definition is at least decent -- through high-end headphones, I could easily isolate various instruments in the mix.

In sum, incidental caveats (mostly on the video level) aside, this is a treasurable performance; essential viewing/listening for admirers of these singers, this conductor, or simply the magnificent work to which they gave their best in January 1967. Priced significantly lower than full-price audio-only recordings of the Verdi Requiem (only a fraction of which rival the artistic quality of this one), it represents a bargain of which I advise readers to take advantage with haste.

I have waited long for this, having seen it once, long ago.

Filmed in 1967, in an empty La Scala Opera House after a concert commemorating the ten year anniversary of the death of Arturo Toscanini, this is a performance for the ages. Great, legendary voices - Price in her prime; Cossoto, whose work alone is worth the cost of this DVD; Pavarotti, almost svelte, here you can honestly see what all the fuss was about so long ago; and Ghiaurov, whose voice is so well suited to this work. And then there is Karajan. Not the enfeebled shadow of himself, hardly able to walk and unable to gesture, that we see in so many of the Sony DVD documents from the 1980's. This is a younger, healthy Karajan, vigorous, committed and imploring the singers and orchestra to play their hearts out. Again, as with Pavarotti, ones sees what the fuss was all about.

The La Scala orchestra is not on par with Berlin or Vienna, particularly in the brass, but the chorus is rich, full and expressive.

The "but.." in my review concerns the inattentive, sloppy and sometimes dishonest editing. There are not a few moments in the performance where the sound and picture are not in sync. Any musician could see this immediately. For one example, there is a great climax in the "Tuba Mirum" where the sound clearly lags the picture by more than a half of a beat. Later, at the beginning of the "Ingemisco", Karajan is clearly conducting something other that what we are hearing. The same shot is used later in the same movement at the proper time. Retakes are also obvious, in that the orchestral seating changes within the same movement: at one moment Leontyne Price is standing in front of a row of trumpeters used in the "Tuba Mirum", and a moment later they are gone, then they are back!!! These are not as disturbing as the occasionally poor sync between music and picture.

Ultimately though, this is a valuable DVD to have. Five great artists at their best, on film. That's enough for me.

If there is one absolute essential to be had in your
video/DVD library, it is the 1967 film of Verdi's Requiem,
recorded at La Scala.

The lineup:

Starring:
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan
Herbert Von Karajan

(with: leontyne price, luciano pavarotti, fiorenza
cossotto, and nicolai ghiaurov)

Let's get one really serious bugbear outta the way. I LAUGH
when reading that the directorial credit is ascribed to one
Henri-Georges Clouzot. It's plainly
obvious that the Master Controller here of All Things
Camera is Herbie The Self-Love Bug. He's a camera-hogging
poseur, putting on these lofty faces of beatitude and
self-reverence, doing a virtual ballet with his arms and
hands. It's a frustrating state of affairs to hear the
singers' most crucial lines going forth expressively whilst
we want to take an elbow and knock the camera off Herr
Herbie toward what we're missing. The Von does a fine
conductorial job, tempos usually well-judged; in particular
the sensitive moments are beautiful texturally, and
eloquent. Elsewhere, in the more fiery damned-to-hell
sections, he rather sweetens them with Deutscher Zucker,
and misses out on the terrifying thunderous sweep of the
Italians, Toscanini and De Sabata, or the weeping wrath of
Giulini.

The Scala forces are as always, right on top of this music,
and the chorus, well highlighted here, demonstrate their
inborn affinity with this music.

What makes this a near-definitive version are the soloists,
all at their Spring-of-life prime.

It's a jolt to see a clean shaven, ineffably boyish
Pavarotti, comparatively trim and well turned-out. It is as
well refreshing to see him in state before he became The
Pav. Forced into this formalized surrounding, and absent of
the later self-conscious self-awareness, he looks part of
the ensemble, and for all intents and purposes, like a
serious artist. For all of that, he is not very expressive
in face, looking slightly out of it, with a sort of worried
little frown - apropos? But, for compensations, there's
the voice, fresh, pingy and with that characteristic combo
of silver and gold. And under Von Karajan's eagle-ear, he
manages some fine modulation of tone, without resorting to
the breathy attempts of later years. "Ingemisco" peals out
quite eloquently.

This is Ghiaurov's best account by far of the bass part. In
the Giulini recording I felt he lacked depth at the bottom
of his range, and his sense of rhythm was a bit slack. Even
in this film he is more bass-baritone than true bass; to my
ears he lacks the forbidding blackness in the lower reaches
(Siepi on the De Sabata set is my ideal). He frequently has
to alter vowels in a conspicuous attempt to achieve depth;
for example 'suplex' becomes 'soaplex', 'natura' becomes
'na-toh-ruh'- yet when he has to sing the high-lying
'responsura' - the vowels are all pure. The final
'stupedit' is breathy. The upper range is magnificent; the
opening of 'Confutatis maledictis' thunders out splendidly.
Moreover though, he sings with a great deal of feeling, and
puts a lot of care into his phrasing.

The ladies, though, take top honors here.

Fiorenza Cossotto is right smack in her most
refulgent-voiced period of her career, just a few years
before the nap wore off her upper register and turned hard
and narrow. Here though, she is in shining, full tone.
Cossotto is in the same period as her recorded Santuzza
with Von Karajan, unfailingly demonstrating a rapt, finely
detailed musical expressivity, and her voice obeys her
every wish. She follows the score markings scrupulously.
The portamenti at 'proferetur' is simply ravishing;
Cossotto at this time was capable of real modulation, and
she imparts an ethereal "tubular'sound for those high-lying
lines where there is an ideal purity. 'Lux ęterna' is
ravishing, spiritual. On the other end of the scale, that
immediately identifying plum-burgundy colored tone has
never etched the lower lines more satisfactorily than here.
Absent of any coarseness, the mellow richness is a pleasure
in this music. Best of all: she is a perfect match for
Price in their sections in unison. In the 'Recordare,' you
will not believe your ears when you hear their harmonizing
on the word 'redemisti'. Or their shadows-and-light effect
in 'Agnus Dei' - eerie, haunting, otherwordly! Timbres and
vibrations ideal in a way that they rarely are.

Prepare yourself for my words on Price. To my ears, this is
the greatest account of the soprano part I have ever heard.
I have heard nearly every commercial and a few live ones,
and no soprano can beat Price for sheer ease and beauty of
tone. It may even be Price's finest recorded document.
Challenge me if you wish, this is a personal observation,
but I have practically memorized the score, and her
attention to the special, specific dynamic markings is
unparalleled. Why? Because she CAN. From soft to swelled,
back to soft again? Pfftt. No problem at all, sure,
anything you want. And I'll make it easy for you; she can
boast of hitting a hallmark standard because it is
fulfilled as it rarely is in vocal music. In this account,
there is no strain or struggling ANYWHERE. The top sails
forth with a rapturous abandon, ease and purity you won't
get in any other soprano. And if anyone had a patent on
beauty of tone, it was Price. It was the voice from heaven.
Clichéd and kitsch metaphor aside, I never cease to be
amazed at how anyone can float and send out a high tone
with such lack of effort. One thing about Price's top
notes. You know how a lot of sopranos seem to reach for
their upper notes in an interval, as if they were
"climbing" in a sense? They hit the note, but it seems to
be where the vibrations are on the underside of the pitch;
with Price, she seems to drop squarely from the sky right
onto the note. Not necessarily on the upper side of the
pitch, but just the ability to gently land on it. That's
how secure she was.

Price once said (and I paraphrase) "Sometimes I just move
myself to tears. That sounds so conceited, doesn't it, but
I can't help it!" Well if anyone had a right to say it,
she did. Especially on this occasion.

How beautiful is Price's singing here? So beautiful, that
the andante section `Requiem, ęternam' in the "Libera me"
still has the power after all these years, to jerk the
tears out of me.

In the dramatic opening section of "Libera Me" you can see
how involved she is, really investing into the text and
emotions in a very personal way. For once, that dusky, not
always focused lower register works just right here:
somehow the absence of chesty bellowing sounds apropos for
this religious piece. The fear and recoil is vividly
projected, and it is therefore more effective.

But nothing will prepare the listener when Price does the
`Requiem ęternam.' It is an amazing circumstance, when you
follow the score, to see how conscientiously she is
following the gradations of p, pp, ppp, and pppp, executing
them flawlessly, and yet with such an abundance of feeling,
such a malleable, unforced legato line. When she's asked to
start softly, swell, and then pull back on the first
`ęternam,' your ears pin back at Price's staggering ease.
And on top of that, a tone so buoyantly glistening, such
joy in the gilding of a line where so many have audible
trouble just to keep up with it.

The most boneheaded decision though, a serious editing
mistake (one for which you feel like smacking Von Karajan
upside his head) is denying us the pleasure of seeing Price
sail out the climactic high C at the end! Did Herbie wish
to upstage her? He succeeded. What more criminal thing to
do?

If you already haven't done so, do yourself a favor and get
this release. It is a legendary document of
all the artists involved at the pinnacle of their careers.

Martha, sell all my clothes I've just died and gone to heaven! (That was my reaction after viewing and hearing this performance of Verdi's Requiem.) My god what a performance this video is. The words "Golden age" does NOT begin to describe what is on this DVD. If Leontyne Price's glorious voice does not dissolve you to tears you do not have a heart!! The sound of her voice soaring over (and I mean over) the orchestra and chorus had me prostrate on the floor completely dissolved in tears. (Good thing I wasn't at a live concert; it would have been rather embarrassing.) In this performance, she proves, once again that she was the greatest Verdian soprano that there has ever been--period. (END of the discussion!)
Cossotto has never been a particular favorite of mine; however, she truly shines in this video giving a most moving account of her music. Perhaps Karajan kept her in line getting the very best, from her that she had. Her voice blends very well with Price's voice. Their duet is exquisite.
A very young (pre-superstar status) Pavarotti looks scared to be in front of Karajan and surrounded by some of the world's greatest singers, of the time, gives a wonderful performance singing with sweetness and care even if he is glued to his score. He shows why he was to become superstar material.
Ghiaurov sounds like rolls of thunder anchoring the whole quartet of soloist with his deep resounding bass voice.
Karajan seems to be literally pulling out the beautiful sound of the orchestra, soloist and chorus, with his bare hands. He even sheds tears when Leontyne is singing--who wouldn't?
If you love beautiful music and want to hear what a once-in-a-lifetime performance is all about, run (don't walk!) and get this DVD. It will change your life or in the least make it so much better, and isn't that what music is all about?

I find this to be the best modern (i.e. stereo) recording of this work either on CD or DVD. The conducting by Von Karajan is both dramatically effective and lyrically sensitive, comparable, I feel, to the well known Giulini EMI recording of five years earlier, the orchestra and chorus are excellent, and the sound quality is of superior clarity, very good, moreover, by present day standards, even though this recording dates from 1967. Finally, all the four soloists are among the leading singers of Italian opera, captured in their vocal prime and in excellent voice for this recording. I take particular pleasure in Ghiaurov because with him you have a true basso voice of ample weight and resonance, not a pushed down baritone (as is Raimondi on the Abbado DVD), who also sings very expressively.
As to its video qualities, the direction by Clouzot, one of the leading French film directors of the time, skillfully keeps one focused on the salient aspects of the performance, as one of the other reviewers, Todd Kay, has explained in greater detail. The only caveat I would offer in this regard is that the colors appear to me both rather washed out and tinged with a greenish hue, but what, after all, does that really matter?
Finally, the price is less than the full priced CD sets of this work, so do yourself a favor and get this one for yourself and/or your family.

This show can be described as one of the most important moments in history of music. Maestro Verdi would REALLY be very proud.
I must confess that i bought this REquiem because i'm a huge pavarotti fan. But, what a great surprise!!! We all know the great singers that Ghiaurov, Cossoto and Price are, but they are even better than one could expect. They sing near perfection! Pavarotti is just a detail if you compare to the other solists. Ghiaurov is really a GOD! Cossoto is MUCH, MUCH better than i though she would be singing the Requiem. I'm not saying that i thought she would be inaddequate singing the Requiem, my point is that she is outstanding! Any compliment i use would not be enough to express her majesty! And Price, oh my god...! Price is unbelievebly great!!! The concert was recorded in 1967, and it's astonishing how the quality is so good! The whole DVD is really amazing. I couldn't be more satisfied. karajan did a terrific job too ! The orchestra and chorus are fantastic! It's really hard to imagine a better recording of the great Verdi Requiem.
BUY IT IMMEDIATELLY!!!!

After soaring with von Karajan's treatment of the Verdi Requiem with singers Tomowa-Sintow, Baltsa, Carreras and Van Dam, I read the reviews of this version, produced more than 15 years earlier, and decided to buy it for comparison. Price, Cossotto, Ghiaurov and the very young Pavarotti are great singers, and the La Scala orchestra is maybe more expressive than the Vienna. Pavarotti has an effortlessly pure voice, compared with Carreras', which can seem forced at times. Ghiaurov's bass is stronger than Van Dam's, although the latter has a more subtle quality in some passages. Price is more powerful than Tomowa-Sintov, but Baltsa has a lovely, dark quality not present in Cossotto's. I'm glad I have both, because von Karajan proves that he can produce two different things from the Verdi score with different resources.