2h 7min | Music | Episode aired 27 March 1985
Director: Kirk Browning
Giuseppe Sinopoli ... conductor
Stars: Hildegard Behrens, Plácido Domingo, Cornell MacNeil.
Excellent dvd navigation, with each act on its own page, and all songs listed and accessible (separate chapters); especially nice: the characters involved in each song are also listed.
Very good cast, opulent production, gorgeous music.
I felt that HB did not hit that particular high note when she discovers Scarpia is dead. Maybe it was brief.
Mario is not onscreen enough, not when played by Domingo.
Scarpia was wonderfully evil.
I love the way Puccini telegraphs who is coming and what will happen by using leitmotifs, and adapting them. I love that the nature of Scarpia is shown to us in a church.
First performed in 1900.
Metropolitan Opera Assoc., distr. PBS, cond. Sinopoli; 8
