Scotto, Renata

Puccini - La Boheme / Pavarotti, Scotto, Niska, Wixell, Plishka, Levine, Metropolitan Opera

Verdi - Luisa Miller

Gounod - Faust

Puccini - Manon Lescaut (remastered)

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor

VAI DVD 4418 -Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Mario Zanasi, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Bartoletti cond,, Live September 1967, 130 min., Color, All regions, Optional subtitles in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Callas - A Documentary Plus Bonus / John Ardoin, Franco Zeffirelli

Extensive performance footage including some real rarities.

Newsreel footage: her funeral cortege; the Rome Walkout ("I would spit in the faces of my enemies...and make them go on their knees in front of me! I can! I will! And I must!"); her break with Ghiringhelli, Callas reading Bing's telegram firing her ("I cannot do routine"); Meneghini, Onassis and Churchill; Callas hounded by the press on her private life; Callas dancing with Onassis; her return to New York (1965); press conference about the Medea film (plus clips from the film); Callas as co-stage director with Di Stefano, directing Vespri in Turin; in a bathing suit with Onassis; Onassis's death.

Interviews: Bing ("She became intolerable!"..."She was more difficult than others because she was more intelligent"); Nicola Rescigno ("Her body was like that of a pachyderm"); Menotti; Scotto (on Sonnambula and Medea--"Cut Glauce's aria"); Caballé; Gobbi on her lost confidence and unhappiness; De Hidalgo on Callas as a student; manager Gorlinsky on the Callas-Di Stefano concert tour; Tebaldi on their rivalry; Visconti in discussion with Callas, including the "radish" incident.

Other topics: Sound vs. the use of sound; her debut at 15; "No agent would give me a job because immediately after my debut I wasn't loved that much. I was something new to listen to and they disliked anything that took them away from tradition"; her history at La Scala; her weight loss; Jackie Onassis; Zeffirelli and Gobbi on the London Toscas, her loneliness, her death.

Zandonai - Francesca Da Rimini (remastered)

Giacomo Puccini - La Bohème / Franco Zeffirelli · James Levine - T. Stratas · R. Scotto · J. Carreras · MET

The first recording of Puccini's La Bohème to be issued on DVD is the best visual treatment of this opera that anyone's ever likely to see. Director Franco Zeffirelli always seems to have television in mind when he directs an opera production, and his orientation toward visual impact and acting skills comes across effectively. Teresa Stratas (Zeffirelli's soprano of choice in one unforgettable production after another) is totally convincing as Mimi, and José Carreras is nearly as impressive as Rodolfo--most notably in the frequent closeups where acting skills are most crucial. Renata Scotto's Musetta is properly flirtatious, fickle, and verbally violent in Acts II and III, and warmly sympathetic in the heartbreaking finale. The supporting cast is superbly chosen and directed. There have been slightly better voices in some other Bohèmes (Pavarotti, for example), but the solo singing here is good, the chorus and orchestra are wonderful, and the visual treatment is magnificent. This should be considered a first choice among available DVDs. An interesting alternative is the fresh, innovative Australian Opera production, directed by Baz Luhrmann and updated to the 1950s. --Joe McLellan

Few operas enjoy the widespread popularity of Puccini's La Boheme. In the Metropolitan's more than one hundred years only Aida has received more performances, although La Boheme was not even premiered there until 1900. For this Metropolitan Opera production Franco Zeffirelli designed both sets and costumes of extraordinary realism and beauty. Perhaps even more astounding is Zeffirelli's direction that mirrors the music so closely in the action taking place on stage. Appearances by: Richard Stilwell, Jose Carreras, James Morris, Allan Monk, Italo Tajo, Teresa Stratas, Dale Caldwell, Renata Scotto, Glen Bater, and James Brewer.Conductor: James Levine

Opera Stars Sing Broadway

Renata Scotto Live in Budapest [DVD Video]