Unitel Classica and C Major may be just slightly jumping the gun with its celebration of the bicentenary of Giuseppe Verdi's birth, but
their plan to release all of Verdi's vast collection of operas probably could have used a little head start in order to make sure everything
came out by the end of 2013. This new Tutto Verdi collection is marked with matching cover inserts, logos and other branding "magic",
but as with any project this large and varied, there are going to be differences in quality, not all of them directly attributable to the
performances. Even a major composer like Verdi occasionally produced less than spectacular pieces, and despite his assertion that
Giovanna d'Arco was his "finest opera", history has not been so kind to this early piece, and it has long been relegated to either the
second or maybe even the third tier of Verdiana. It's to Unitel Classica and C Major's credit that they're willing to expose audiences to a piece
that perhaps even some rabid Verdi aficionados aren't all that acquainted with, but the fact remains this is not the Verdi of Rigoletto, Il
Trovatore or La Traviata, despite the promising subject matter of building an opera around the legendary life of Joan of Arc.
This 2008 Teatro Regio di Parma production features some sumptuous playing under the baton of Bruno Bartoletti, and Svetla Vassileva makes
an appealing, if sometimes too vocally strident, Joan. But the libretto (by Temistocle Solera) so radically reinterprets the well known story of
Joan of Arc, especially her tragic demise, that Verdi struggles to really find a dramatic hook on which to hang his usually glorious music. This is
one of those cases where curiosity will probably be enough to spur ardent Verdi fans on to check this out, if only because they've never seen it
before. Most of them will be fitfully entertained, but will probably come away from the experience feeling a bit disappointed both in the opera
and the production.
Giovanna d'Arco is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Unitel Classica and C Major with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. The
production design here alternates between scenes in a kind of burnt umber brown tone and those in an ice cold blue. Strangely the blue scenes
offer the superior fine detail, when blue often robs the image of that very same fine detail. The brown scenes by comparison just look kind of
middling and overly soft. The opera is not overly gorgeous from a production design standpoint anyway, perhaps suiting its subject, save for
one ravishing scene set in a petal strewn stage that really pops quite nicely.
Giovanna d'Arco features both a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track as well as an LPCM 2.0 stereo track. Both of these tracks
provide excellent fidelity and nicely burnished reproduction of the orchestral aspect, but they just as surely display some of the vocal failings of
the cast, many of whom aren't quite up to the demands of their roles. The overall mix is quite well handled, though, and the 5.1 track offers
some very nice hall ambience to boot.
The Tutto Verdi project is extremely admirable, but it also means that you have to take the good with the bad, or in this case, the kind of
middling and underdeveloped. This release will no doubt be of interest to Verdi fans who have never seen this rarely performed piece. Others
will probably want to start their Verdi journey with one of the undeniable classics of Verdi's inestimable oeuvre.
Blu-ray bundles with Verdi: Giovanna D'Arco (1 bundle)
Verdi: Giovanna D'Arco Blu-ray, News and Updates
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