Puccini - Madama Butterfly - Freni, Domingo - Karajan 1974DVD9 - NTSC - 4:3 - All Regions - Italian - PCM, DTS - 146min.
Subtitles: German/English/French/Italian/Spanish/Chinese
Deutsche Grammophon 073 4037 0, released 2005
Mirella Freni · Plácido Domingo · Christa Ludwig · Robert Kerns · Michel Sénéchal
Wiener Philharmoniker · Herbert von Karajan
Staged, directed and designed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
This is Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's sensitively stylized vision of "Madama Butterfly". It is not a memento of a staged performance, not an ode to singing heads, not an analytical essay in laryngeal close-ups. Thank goodness. Abandoning kitsch clichés, it manages to be illuminating and original at virtually every turn. The final scene conveys wrenching agony . . . Pinkerton -- a young, devilishly handsome, brutally athletic Plácido Domingo . . . Ponnelle's camera dwells lovingly on the expressive features of Mirella Freni, a Butterfly whose exquisite frailty masks essential strength . . . Most striking, perhaps, is the prelude to the last act. During Cio-Cio-San's vigil, the heroine envisions a new life with Pinkerton in a naively romanticized America . . . The musical elements, perfectly synchronized, are predicated on refinement and introspection. Herbert von Karajan coaxes extraordinarily delicate nuances from his cast; one isn't likely to hear so many pianissimo phrases in an opera-house "Butterfly". The maestro also sustains extraordinarily slow tempos that never seem to endanger tension. And the vaunted Vienna Philharmonic plays with warmth and brilliance that make Puccini sound like a great symphonist. Record Review / Martin Bernheimer, Opera (London) / 01. October 2007
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