Search - Pergolesi - Stabat Mater / Barbara Frittoli, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Riccardo Muti, La Scala on DVD

A very deeply felt Stabat Mater

Milda Ruffo | Mount Royal, Quebec Canada | 07/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have always loved this work and have several CD versions of it. This DVD gave me goose bumps when I first played it. It is gloriously filmed and beautifully sung. The orchestra is also great. Sound and image clarity are both superb. You can feel the pain and passion in the words and music. The singers'voices blend very well. The Church is beautiful and we get to feel that we are there as the cameramen skilfully "show us the sights", the gorgeous artwork. The only negative is that the musical content is a bit short, at about 48 minutes. A "filler" piece to make the concert longer would have been nice."

Love the entire concept

James Cottone | NY, | 09/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD is truly beautiful in concept and in performance. I love everything Barbara Frittoli sings, and this is no exception. Buy it. The music and the artworks are magnificent."

Pergolesi Lovers Beware!

Michael A. Murray | 08/12/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"As much as I venerate Pergolesi's Stabat Mater (or maybe because I revere it so much) I found this DVD disappointing. Meastro Muti informs us in a rambling bonus track interview that he takes issue with the various historically informed interpretations of the Stabat Mater because they lack (and I am paraphrasing) the essential Neapolitan atmosphere and intuition that he, Maestro Muti, possesses in every fiber of his Neapolitan Being. Well, I'm sorry, Il Muti may feel very intensely about this work (he points out that Bellini regarded the Stabat Mater as Pergolesi's "poem of pain") but this performance plods not only in tempo but in a kind uniform temperment applied from section to section. The melancholy is there to a small degree but I heard no pain in those expressive suspensions found in the opening moments of the work. Neither is there is much of the fresh youthfulness and the what-must-have-sounded-so-modern-in-its-day galant sparkle that this Stabat Mater also possesses. In short, I found the performance very one-dimensional and not particularly passionate from the conductor's standpoint. Muti's detachment makes Antonacci's occasional histrionics rather at odds with the performance actually taking place. As for the singers (which make or break any performance of this work), they are lovely in their way but their way is, to my taste, more Verdian than Pergolesian. I mean when one can't determine the difference between a trill and a full-throated vibrato, I think we have Pergolesi dressed in the wrong musical garment. The bonus track of Muti is, as previously stated, rather rambling and full of self-serving rectitude that the performance simply does not support. The other bonus track of Pergolesi background is very short and not very illuminating. If like your Pergolesi Stabat Mater served up in the old tradition that was once so magnificently captured on vinyl by Mirella Freni and Teresa Berganza, you will probably eat this DVD up with a dessert spoon and think this review to be dead wrong. If you lean toward the CD version of Barbara Booney and Andreas Scholl or any of the fine male soprano and male alto versions, you should probably not splurge for this performance."