5/5 Perhaps the best performance of a Verdi opera at the Met
  by David Maxwell Anderson (London)
It is a tribute to my love of this production, which I already owned on video, that it was one of my first purchases on the DVD format. Like many people,I have long regarded Simon Boccanegra as a masterpiece on the same level as Otello and Falstaff, and indeed Verdi returned to revise much of the music and libretto after he had completed the former.
Here, each of the principals gives a marvellously involved performance, and the criticisms which can apply to some Met productions about a lack of dramatic credibility, fall by the wayside - del Monaco knows his job and, though traditional, presents a totally believable and visually sumptuous slice of late Renaissance Genoa.
Levine offers a lucid and fluent account of the score, tender and poetic in the scenes between Chernov and te Kanawa, majestic and implaccable with the entrance of Lloyd - without doubt the most moving and sonorous Fiesco I have ever seen.
Domingo defies age, and presents a totally credible Quattrocento figure. He sings with beautiful mezza voce tone in the first duet with te Kanawa and virile splendour in his aria and elsewhere, with only the slightest hint of strain towards the end.
Kiri is vocally pristine as Amelia and her physical beauty is as important an asset in this role as it was as Desdemona - the role of her Met debut.
The virtual disapperance of Chernov after these performances is, to me, incomprehensible. Perhaps his essentially lyric baritone was too slender for the House, but as recorded here he offers a Boccanegra of insight, depth and vulnerabilty. He is a subtler actor than either Milnes or the late, great Cappuccilli, even if he lacks their ringing tones in the Council Chamber scene.I defy anyone with a heart to remain unmoved in his final duet with Lloyd.
I cannot recommend the experience of this performance highly enough. May it convert many people to opera on DVD, Simon Boccanegra, and, above all, Verdi.

5/5 Tutti Brava
  by Spinto (ct)
Simon Boccanegra is greatly underappreciated. For the patient listener, it is an inestimable treasure. The opera may not be ecspecially tuneful, but its epic plot and moving composition, place it at the top of Verdi's Operas.
This production has no weak points, it delivers everwhere. First Chernov in the Title role. His voice is very french, with a nasal edge and quick vibrato. He is a Lyric Baritone, which worked very well. Simone is not a powerful and willing leader, he is a man of peace and reflection, who hates shows of force. He is an extremely concilliatory Doge, with a romantic heart. His place as Doge was taken only for the sake of his love for Maria. His Lyrical baritone made the character vulnerable and sypathetic. this something that Milnes could not do with his boccanegra. I cannot imagine the role acted more perfectly, Chernov pulls at your heartstrings all evening.
Robert Lloyd as Fiesco was very convincing. he was indeed a "real" bass (I heard his F just fine.) more importatly he is an exemplary actor. Whether playing the enraged old man, desperatley wishing for vengance, or the supplicant father, Lloyd is hauntingly convincing.
Bruno Pola deserves his own section as the evil Paolo. His is a baritone of great power. He can easily overpower the more lyric voice of Chernov which is extremely dramatically effective. From a dramatic standpoint, he is a short, fat, man, who was very evocative of the evil character. He was a perfect Paolo.
Te Kanawa sang very well as Amelia. It is almost stunning how her beauty completely belies her age. She does not look, or sound, old. She is a really wonderul Amerlia.
Domingo is the only bother visually. He is, and looks, 55. At first he looks silly in his youthful armor embracing Amelia. However, he sounds fabulous. And as the opera continues, you forget that he is old. He continues to act and sing like a 30 year old, and by the 2nd act you begin to believe him. his aria is Picture Perfect.
Enjoy this operatic treasure

5/5 Fantastic and moving
  by D. Smith (Toronto, ON Canada)
I love almost everything about this opera production. Chernov is a great Boccanegra, and the more I see the dying scenes, the greater I think he is. I was ready to hate Domingo as a young lover. But you know, once I listened, I forgot all about Domingo being older than Simone (Chernov). What he makes of the part is amazing, especially since it's not a very graceful character at all. Te Kanawa is very affecting and very good as Amelia. Their singing the parts of young lovers so well made me realize what great artists they both are. When Amelia and Simone find one another, the moment is magical and perfect.
Robert Lloyd was a very good Fiesco and when he and Simone were reconciled, it was a very powerful moment. THis scene is tremendous and the singers act very effectively here. Two fighting men reconciling --- in essence, a son and his father (in law). It is a great moment here; the singers show how important the moment is, without overplaying it either. Even Fiesco's embrace as Simone falls when he is dying, is exactly right because of course someone must catch Simone as he falls and it is right and necessary that it be Fiesco who has wanted him dead all this time. It made me think of how happy Romeo and Juliet could be if their families would stop warring.
Every scene was thoughtfully done and seemed right. If every production of this opera were this good, it would be among the most popular of Verdi's operas. It certainly is for me, and that's saying something given how crazy I am about Verdi!

4/5 A Good Traditional Boccanegra
  by Richard Chilson (Minneapolis, MN United States)
In keeping with a lot of MET productions this is largely traditional. No surprises here. It is well sung even though Te Kanawa is near the end of her career. Domingo does his usual excellent work. Chernov is a great singing actor in the title role. The sound is excellent; the orchestra under James Levine is a known quality. Here he allows the music breathing space, not pushing forward as he can do. Easily preferable to the only other DVD Simon - an earlier MET production with a much weaker cast.

4/5 Immenso
  by TODD KAY
A then-new Met BOCCANEGRA production that was panned in 1995 (and earned a retrospective eye-roll from former GM Joseph Volpe in his memoir) benefits from being cut down to size for home viewing. There is much to fill and dazzle the eye in Michael Scott's vast, elaborate, and no doubt frighteningly expensive sets; the problem is what director Giancarlo Del Monaco has his stage-savvy cast do (and not do) in front of them. The principals desultorily wander about the large staging area when not striking vacant, all-too-familiar poses. When one longs for them to generate sparks by locking eyes and building on one another's expressions, they are just staring off into the middle distance (or, in the case of Kiri Te Kanawa in her first scene, at the conductor). The production is not stupid or infuriating, just dull and underfelt in the well-funded, big-house way -- all picture-book effects, lavish upholstery, and heavy, ungainly costumes. Moments such as Simon's realization of the depth of Amelia's love for Gabriele (Act II), which beg for strong dramatic marking, pass as if insignificant. On the few occasions Del Monaco ventures to galvanize, the choice usually is a strange one (there is swordplay between Simon and Fiesco during their conversation in the prologue, unsupported by the libretto and unlikely for these characters). In the final scene, when Simon asks why Fiesco has turned his face away, it is difficult to resist the cheap shot, at least to oneself -- faces turned away have been the norm all evening. Only very late in the game, in the bass/baritone reconciliation duet, Simon's blessing of the lovers and his subsequent expiration, does the anesthesia of the direction lift, and we begin to get involving human interaction. It could be argued that Verdi and Boito, in their 1881 revision of BOCCANEGRA, provided music and words of such power that the opera needs little assistance from a director. This is fortunate, if true, for little assistance is what it gets here. Video director Brian Large brings his considerable knowhow and ingenuity to bear, and his own work is as enterprising as Del Monaco's is flat. He does sophisticated, drama-enhancing things with compositions and shifting focus, and he generously covers every visual diversion Scott puts within range of his cameras (including a live falcon in Act I and a working fireplace in the Doge's quarters).

The principal lure here, more than superficial visual splendor, is the musical presentation. Plácido Domingo, who sang many Verdi tenor roles on stage, came to Gabriele Adorno surprisingly late in his career (he even had made it to Stiffelio slightly earlier). He need not have waited so long, for it proves a fine fit -- the performance has class, finish, and musicianship of the highest level. In Act I, when informed by Fiesco that (as Fiesco mistakenly believes) Amelia Grimaldi was not of noble birth but was a foundling, Gabriele has a short response that translates roughly to "I love this orphan!" In an opera full of sublime music, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the line Verdi wrote there, but Domingo, in that voice as singular and recognizable as any in the history of opera, inflects it in such a way that it shines forth like a shaft of warm sunlight. It is a small moment, but it is in the accumulation of thousands of those moments, and the knowledge that each new night could bring a dozen more, that legends are built. Only a few notes of Gabriele take him into the part of his range that had become thin and pinched by the mid-1990s; mostly he is in spectacular voice. Robert Lloyd (Fiesco) and Kiri Te Kanawa (Amelia/Maria) were at a comparably advanced point in their respective careers in 1995, and their instruments do not hide the ravages of time so well as Domingo's does. The soprano's middle range had lost much of its native loveliness, although the high notes still float; the bass has neither the most powerful nor the most glamorous sound a seasoned BOCCANEGRAphile will have heard in the role. Both, nevertheless, make virtues of their experience and their comfort with the style. Bruno Pola brings a novel comic touch to Paolo. There is nothing of the Satanic Boito heavy in his jolly impersonation, but in an unconventional way, he is effective. The youngster among the principals, Vladimir Chernov in the title role, did nothing better in his Met heyday. His is a finer, more slender baritone than that possessed by some illustrious predecessors in this Mount Olympus of Verdi baritone roles, but it is an attractive one and serves him well in a performance of dignity and eloquence.

Eloquence is also the watchword in the pit. Although for atmospheric, nearly pictorial effects (such as the sea music of the Act I prelude), James Levine is not the equal of Claudio Abbado on his famous DG audio recording (probably his more recent TDK DVD as well, although its dreadful male cast keeps me from listening again to find out), his conducting leaves nothing to be desired for verve or point. I also will be so bold as to state that no commercial BOCCANEGRA in any format, not even the Abbado/DG with the Scala forces of the late 1970s, provides such a thrilling virtuoso demonstration of the score's possibilities as the Met Orchestra and Chorus provides here.

Though this is kept at the level of a very good performance, rather than a great one, by its stage director's anemic limning of the drama, the other DVD options available at the time of this writing (an earlier Met with Milnes in decline, the Solti/Covent Garden, the Abbado/Florence, and the newest one with Hampson) all are less desirable for various reasons. The assets of this one -- especially the tenor, the brilliant video direction and technical quality, and the splendid orchestral and choral response -- make it a first choice one can get behind with at least reasonable enthusiasm.