(wrote about this in two different social media spaces - one my own, one somebody else's)
I don't believe it. Here is the mythical 'more Verdi than opera.' More Verdi even than a Toscanini performance, and all the moreso pure Verdi because it's live opera rather than a concert performance and has a little bit of rubato flow that Toscanini would rarely if ever allow. This performance from a (then) very new opera company makes even Don Carlo sound perfect, Verdi's loose baggy monster.
Votto goes against every instinct of romantic music and follows the majority of Verdi's metronome markings to the letter. In Rigoletto and Falstaff, Verdi's tempi are generally slower than we hear, but In Don Carlo it's mostly faster than it's ever played, except for the fast turbulent passages, which are generally indicated to be played slower.
The end result is a completely different pacing that is far more classical - it feels like Haydn, and steers us directly into opera's pro-forma cliches. And yet by leading us there, it gains us all the inner feeling, those little twists of individuality that Verdi, like Chopin, gives us within the formula he sticks to like glue. For once, every note feels like it matters and has its own moral mission. So many conductors try to play up the excitement and passion, and the end result does not feel like music. The pacing feels completely out of joint and there are 20 minute dead spots that we (I) have no idea why we're listening to. The accompanying figures just feel purposeless, there's no cumulative impact, and everything simply sounds haphazard. If you have singers who are REALLY that great, as they were before WWII, they can make every moment count. But if you don't, it's a long slog. Would that we had singing actors today who equalled Boris Christoff and TIto Gobbi, but you can't tell me Richard Tucker (no relation) has the intelligence to carry an opera purely on his musical insights.
I'm clearly not an opera person....
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I just listened to this today. Again, I don't know if this is the 'best' Don Carlo, but this one is the most 'perfect' I've ever heard - and can convince you that Don Carlo is a perfect music drama like Otello. 'Perfection' is obviously not a virtue in Don Carlo, which has plot contrivances that make Trovatore seem like Tolstoy, but Votto can convince you that it's Toscanini or Cantelli in the pit.
Again, look at Verdi's MM's. Most of the tempi are faster than we generally hear, except for the fastest passages, which are inevitably slower. This completely changes the pacing and structure, and makes you realize how necessary each instrumental detail is. Verdi is a much more symphonically minded composer than he generally gets credit for being, and it's the fault of the many conductors who play him for maximum visceral thrills, like Muti, who has somehow hoodwinked the public into thinking he closely follows Verdi's scores - I generally like Muti's Verdi, but it's absolutely not Verdi's Verdi.
THIS is Verdi's Verdi, and has much better singers than Toscanini generally allows, lest their egos upstage Toscanini's adherence to the score. Votto's ever slight departures for rubato or accomodating singers wishes are entirely worth it, and gives an ever so slight bend to the necessities of live theater. The rewards spur this unforgettable cast to far more memorable singing.
I'm sure that in this of all scores, Verdi meant for more interpretive freedom. How can Verdi expect adherence to a score whose definitive version he couldn't even decide on? But this is an unforgettable performance with an absolutely unmatched grasp of what makes Verdi Verdi and not 'just opera.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr4EtAaklmM&fbclid=IwAR068gfkEQ13WkMHb1y0Xiu_BlAxu_Yj7GXETNb_YoD0D7qmSVckSi4eeLI
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