[Met Performance] CID:275870



La Forza del Destino
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, March 24, 1984 Matinee Telecast
Broadcast Matinee Telecast





La Forza del Destino (210)
Giuseppe Verdi | Francesco Maria Piave
Leonora
Leontyne Price

Don Alvaro
Giuseppe Giacomini

Don Carlo
Leo Nucci

Padre Guardiano
Bonaldo Giaiotti

Preziosilla
Isola Jones

Fra Melitone
Enrico Fissore [Last performance]

Marquis de Calatrava
Richard Vernon

Curra
Diane Kesling

Mayor
James Courtney

Trabuco
Anthony Laciura

Surgeon
John Darrenkamp


Conductor
James Levine


TV Director
Kirk Browning





Telecast: Live From The Met
Available for streaming at Met Opera on Demand
Rebroadcast on Sirius Metropolitan Opera Radio
This performance was broadcast and telecast live to Europe. It was televised later in the United States.
Photograph of a scene from La Forza del Destino with Leontyne Price as Leonora by Winnie Klotz/Metropolitan Opera.

Review 1:

Will Crutchfield in The New York Times
Price in ?Forza? on PBS

?La Forza del Destino," Verdi's dark-hued tragedy of vengeance and honor in 18th-century Spain, will open this year's "Live From the Met" series tonight at 8 on Channel 13 (simulcast over WQXR-FM). It was taped at the Metropolitan Opera last March 24, during a series of "Forzas" that did not exactly meet with rapturous critical acclaim at the time. But it shows the Met doing about as well by mature Verdi as is done by the great opera houses these days, and it oftfers one of our century's greatest singers in one of her greatest roles. No soprano has emerged to wear her mantle as becomingly as Leontyne Price still wears it. For her, this should not be missed.

All voices age, and there is no point in pretending that Miss Price sounds as she did when she recorded the opera about 20 years ago. The low notes have lost focus, the high ones strength and vibrancy. But in between she has preserved to an extraordinary degree the core of beauty that made her unique. With a broad lyrical line she can still bring tears to the eyes. And since "Forza" is full of such lines, viewers will be getting the essential Leontyne Price for much of the opera.

In other spots, she gets through as best she can, and where possible the camera work sensitively avoids closing in at moments of difficulty. I for one would far rather have this combination than hear a lesser singer who can handle every line but is special in none ? although one might wish it were possible in our literalist age to do some of the sensible musical editing that would have been a matter of course in Verdi's. Some of those difficult spots could easily have been avoided.

The rest of the cast makes much the same impression it did last spring in the theater. Giuseppe Giacomini does not have a golden tenor voice, but he is a singer of some dignity, and more sensitivity than one can usually expect from a Verdi tenor today. The others are acceptable or better. James Levine's conducting is full of drive and fire. The acting is, unfortunately, not riveting; this is not a telecast to win the unconverted to opera. Nor is the physical production, one, of the Met's very oldest, as screen-worthy as some others that come to mind. But the grandeur of the magnificent score comes through. One feels more inclined to forgive imperfections than to rail against them when, as here, a dedication and seriousness of intent is sensed.



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