RANKING THE BEST "ANDREA CHENIER" VIDEOS

Some operas reward repeat listens, but relatively few reward back-to-back repeat watches. Many librettos boil their stories  down to the essentials, with a love triangle at the center and little historical or imaginative detail going on around it in the words. And they can be long, with the longest operas running six hours. (Hi, Wagner.)

Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, however, is a rare counterexample. With a libretto by Luigi Illica (Tosca, La Bohème), the opera runs just two hours but gives a sweeping account of the cultural and political life during both the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The experience is often more like watching a play than an opera, with an emphasis on dialogue that does not interrupt the sweep of the melodies but explores many details outside of the standard love triangle (which can be found here as well for those who love that). This packing of detail into a tight package might help explain why, in the last two years alone, at least three bloggers have attempted to rank the many, many recordings of this opera: It’s fun to revisit, and one almost always catches something new in revisiting it. This is the third of those blog posts. Unlike the other two, which focused on records, I am focusing on video versions as I find the opera immensely rewatchable.

The first of my predecessors in this oddly obsessive enterprise is Andrew Knapp on Parterre Box, who ranked several LPs but only a small handful of video performances, on June 14, 2024. Knapp does a great job but I disagree with him on many points and notice almost a dozen video performances that didn’t make his list. A second ranking appeared while I was researching mine, on February 8, 2026. It was compiled by Carlos Manuel Delgado Nule and Yehya Alazem on interclassical.com. Nule and Alazem reviewed 11 audio recordings of Giordano’s opera but no videos, which left me an opening.

Like both Parterre.com and Interclassical, I have neither seen nor heard every version of Andrea Chénier. For an opera performed somewhat infrequently compared to others in the canon—for example the Metropolitan Opera staged it last fall for the first time in a decade—Andrea Chénier has certainly been blessed with a lot of great recordings. Still, though it’s not all-inclusive, below is a ranking of the top 10 video performances I have seen. All are available for purchase online, either on DVD or Blu-ray, or on streaming services.

Here are the top 10 versions of Andrea Chénier I’ve seen:

1.      Year: 2017

Cast: Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, George Petean
Director: Philipp Stölzl 
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Venue: Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich

I don’t pick this version as my favorite because all the choices work, or because they are all historically accurate. I choose it because it is the most consistently interesting. In this production Stölzl, who directed the feature film Young Goethe in Love, presents us with the best mix of realism and symbolism, interesting choices and faithful storytelling, conceptual bang and performance integrity. Stölzl’s Andrea Chénier is set in a Paris that is bursting to the seams with people. The aristocratic estate in which the first act takes place is usually presented as an enormous château, with the living room taking up the whole of the massive stage. In this production, the di Coigny estate looks more like a vertically stacked New York townhouse. The impetus for this re-envisioning is to incorporate an upstairs, occupied by the aristocrats, and a downstairs, occupied by the servants, all on one stage. The effect is to create a crowded and combustible Paris, one in which the city is literally too small for its competing classes. Not a bad vibe for 1789, when the French Revolution exploded. The first act of the opera takes place on the eve of the revolution, shortly after the storming of the Bastille, and the aristocrats at the party that constitutes the action in act one are clueless as to the severity of what is going on around them. When, in the middle of act one, the servants pound on the ceiling with broomsticks, we see how dangerous the situation is for everyone concerned. A few minutes later the working classes storm through the house. This happens in every production of this opera, but here it feels more explosive than ever. The second ahistorical choice that nonetheless works even better than in some traditional productions is the costume of the titular protagonist, here played with likability, eccentricity, and power by Jonas Kaufmann. Usually, Chénier is dressed to the nines like everyone else at the di Coigny’s party. But in this production, while his attire is (barely) appropriate to the event, it is noticeably shabbier than the surrounding celebrants. He is the only one not wearing a powdered wig. The real-life poet André Chénier (whose first name is Italianized in the opera, but on whom the operatic character is based) came from a wealthy family. It was his parents who set him into the aristocratic social scene, where he made his name. Giving Chénier a scruffy outfit imports a post-19^th century notion of the penniless romantic poet to the 18^th century. But it makes the awkwardness of the poet’s social situation pop like in no other production, setting up the power of the drama better than any other version. Kaufmann is the best cast Andrea I’ve seen; his acting is both particular and powerful. Harteros lends a wonderful snarkiness to the opening scenes and has movie star good looks that make it easy to believe she is a fatal temptation both for Chénier and Carlo Gérard, the complicated villain of the opera (played by an able Petean). The only choice that threatens to sink this production is the decision to paint a minor character in identical makeup to Heath Ledger as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s movie The Dark Knight. But even that choice works visually even if it doesn’t intellectually: The color, menace, and familiarity of the image provide an objective correlative that helps us instantly absorb the violence of the era. This Chénier is the most vivid, immediate, and intriguing of the videos on this list.

2.      Year: 1973

Cast: Franco Corelli, Celestina Casapietra, Piero Cappuccilli
Director: Vaclav Kaslik
Conductor: Bruno Bartoletti
Venue: Film for television, made in RAI-TV studios, Milan

If this motion picture rendering was as strong throughout as its first act, it would be the definitive Andrea Chénier. As it is, it has been described as the “gold standard” for the opera. The only color film version of the opera, and the only one with English subtitles, director Vaclav Kaslik’s dreamlike, colorful TV movie emulates the surreal, eye-popping style of Powell and Pressburger’s 1951 opera film Tales of Hoffman. That’s a high bar to aim for, and the first third of the film lives up to its influences. The camera work is bold and distinctive, zooming out for example from a distorted and angular view in a mirror to find Maddalena at her dressing table and then swiftly further out to find Gérard spying on her. The bright pinks, yellows and greens and unusual angular shapes of the set are somehow simultaneously very 1970s and (like Tales of Hoffman) timeless. It’s surprising how well the presentational approach works, given that Andrea is an opera that benefits from realism. The costumes and makeup, however, are not unrealistic or out of period, and the style remains unobtrusive. Unfortunately, the second, third and fourth acts drop the colorful approach and give us dark, uncreatively shot sets and static direction. When we land in a town square in the beginning of act two, the screen is so crowded with people and so unspecific in design that we don't know where we are. Still, there is a lot to love in this recording. A scene in which the aristocrats at the di Coigny party are told for the first time of the unrest outside their windows is more effective than any other rendering of the moment, as the camera gives ultra-closeups of the aristocrats’ nervousness. Then just as suddenly they absent-mindedly pop pastries, guzzle port, and indulge blithely in a pastoral ballet that shows their obliviousness to the seriousness of the moment, a scene that is always one of my favorites in the opera. Corelli is commanding, if occasionally a little over the top, and Casapietra gives some of the best readings of Maddelena’s lines that we have on video. When she tricks Andrea into reciting a poem, she is delightfully malicious. A few moments later, she plays perfectly her humiliation as the poet burns her by reciting a pointed poem about the aristocrats’ ignorance of the needs of the poor. (If she hadn't held the pose too long, it would have stayed perfect.) It’s one of the best depictions in the opera’s full discography of that crucial scene. Cappuccilli is the most sympathetic and multifaceted of all Gérards, partly because he is so well filmed. Some have complained about the lip-syncing in the opera, which is troublesome but somehow did not bother me. The one thing that threatens to destroy the first act is the choice to have Giovanna Di Rocco in a particularly awful (both visually and morally) blackface as the loyal servant Bersi. Also, Bartoletti’s orchestra is muffled and muted. Nonetheless, this television rendering is a highlight of the bunch.                        

3.      Year: 1961

Cast: Mario Del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi, Aldo Protti
Director: Not listed on the DVD
Conductor: Franco Capuana
Venue: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo

If all the productions on this list happened in the same year, I would rank this one much lower. But what an amazing document of the past is this recording, which captures the mature Tebaldi at 39 in her last performance opposite Mario Del Monaco, 46. The two of them began performing Andrea Chénier together in 1949, and the liner notes of the DVD call the pair “the most golden-voiced duo of that golden age of operatic singing that blessed the world in the years after the Second World War.” At the point this was filmed, Tebaldi had been playing Maddalena for 22 years, which is a reasonable guess as to how old the real Maddalena was when she met the real André Chénier. (The poet was 27 when the revolution broke out.) So, some might say she is old for the part, but she is majestic in the role. Her maturity adds gravitas. If you read much about opera on the Internet, you know there are big crowds of fans who believe the modern singers can’t match the old ones, that voices are no longer trained as well as they once were, and that the modern director has killed the opera by being creative with time and place. (A Facebook group dedicated to hating on modern opera stagings has tens of thousands of “friends.”) I’m not in any of those camps. But this is certainly the DVD for those who are. The director, if there even was one, is not named on the DVD box. The singing is old school. And the production is traditional. I found the set, which in this black and white format looks like an old 1950s TV show set, to tell the story with a clarity as well as a realism that exceeds that of many more recent “traditional” stagings. The crowd, in Tokyo, is more enthusiastic than any crowd on any recording on this list. Japan had only been a touring spot for western opera since the mid-1950s, and Tokyo was new to a love affair with opera that (as the liner notes say) lasts to this day. Tebaldi, after a classic performance of the majestic aria “La Mamma Morta,” had to wait a full two minutes and 38 seconds before the action could move on (yes, I timed it), a longer ovation than any among these productions. Del Monaco, as Andrea, tops out at two minutes, tying the 1981 Domingo production that ranks below. Apparently the older the production the longer the ovations; perhaps audiences appreciated live performance more in the days before high fidelity and high definition. Del Monaco is a ham, frequently throwing his arms open or clasping his hands dramatically while singing. He also throws his arms wide to accept the wild applause after his final aria in act four. His voice is weaker than we’re used to from the great Andreas. He also literally trips, almost falling to the floor, while marching upstage to his death. This is hilarious, but wonderfully endearing, as it marks a time before polish was everything. Tebaldi delivers a regal, affecting performance for the ages. She has more vocal control than Maria Callas (who never recorded a commercial video of this opera) generally had. But one can see why Maria Callas’ acting made such a big difference in the public’s reception of opera: The cast here is sometimes stiff and sometimes over-exuberant, totally unaccustomed to the camera. The recording captures this naked moment in opera history vividly. Meanwhile, as Gérard, Aldo Protti notches a minute 40 second ovation for his great act three aria, an underrated gem that in terms of writing ranks with the great soliloquys of the theater. Protti delivers it with stern, stolid seriousness. If that’s your thing he nails it. Capuana’s conducting is lacking in energy compared to some other performances; while I was watching I happened to stop the DVD briefly and play James Levine’s 1996 performance. The difference was inescapable: Levine was more lively, more dramatic and more engaged. But this video is easily the most irreplaceable on the list. 

4.       Year: 2015

Cast: Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-Maria Westbroek,  Željko Lučić
Director: Sir David McVicar
Conductor: Antonio Pappano 
Venue: Royal Opera House, London

Kaufmann manages to appear in two of my top five selections. McVicar’s productions tend to be handsome but somewhat uninventive, often with unnecessarily dark lighting. I’ve seen almost a dozen of his operas (including his excellent Medea, his uneven Salome and his atypically strange Macbeth), and have noticed of late that McVicar upsets few opera fans but often excites them even less. The critics likewise are often more tepid than one might expect for someone who has directed more operas at the Met than any other. He is even more successful in his native England, where the Queen went as far as to knight him. This production shares some of the qualities to which I referred, with its attention to traditional staging and historical detail over ideation. But of the purely traditional Chéniers, this is one of the best. I choose it for number three in part because it is such a good contrast to my number one pick, in that the historical detail has been lauded for its accuracy. Meanwhile, McVicar has always been dynamite with singers, who apparently love to work with him, and the single best performance of the concluding scene—a duet beneath the guillotine by the romantic leads—is easily this one, with Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek so desperately in love with one another that I questioned the nature of their off-stage relationship, which I never do. Westbroek’s effervescent, half-crazy, indestructible smile breaks your heart as she sings of her willingness to die for love. The pair capture both the insanity and the reason in the couple’s logic so well that it’s possible to understand (for once!) why someone would make such a macabre choice with such passion. In other productions, the death wish seems so improbable that it seems Illica only doomed his heroine because the death of the female is what's expected in the end of every 19th century opera. Here, though, this scene is the main reason I rate the production so highly.

5.      Year: 2011

Cast: Hector Sandoval, Norma Fantini, Scott Hendricks
Director: Keith Warner
Conductor: Ulf Schirmer
Venue: Bregenzer Festspiele, Lake Constance

When I saw the cover of the Blu-ray of this peculiar production, I thought it was surely too weird to succeed. But it is actually one of the most interesting and entertaining productions to watch. The set, built on Lake Constance at the foot of the Alps at the border of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, features a massive, possibly 30-foot-high sculpture of Marat’s head and shoulders, peering out of the lake to depict the French Revolution leader assassinated in his bathtub. The revolutionary leader Marat is not a character in the opera but appears briefly at the beginning of act two as a sculpture: a character declares, “This Marat’s head is getting dusty.” The three stages are dwarfed by the giant head, requiring sweeping staircases up Marat’s torso for the actors to navigate between them. At several points the singers literally leap off the giant sculpture into the lake below. Even Hector Sandoval’s Chénier jumps into the water, to escape a mob after he stabs Gérard at the end of act two. Near the end of the show, giant pins emerge from the head of Marat to signify (I suppose) the violence done to him and by extension to France and Europe. The production is bookended by the scythe-carrying specter of Death himself, first in person on the stage and then projected into the center of a massive mirror just off Marat’s right shoulder. There is no reason all these high-concept shenanigans should work, but most of it does, and I recommend it to anyone who is tired of traditional Chéniers. Other than Stölzl’s semi-realistic production it is the only nontraditional production available on DVD. I’m barely skimming the top of director Keith Warner’s innovations, and some do not work: For example, Chénier is strangely isolated from the rest of the cast, performing above the rest of the party in a small stage designed to look like a big open book of poetry. He is the only occupant of the book for most of the show, which makes meaningful interactions with the cast below a significant challenge. Even without this challenge the competent cast is not quite up to the level of the starry competition from other productions on this list. But there is nothing boring about Warner’s crazy production.  

6.      Year: 1985

Cast: José Carreras, Eva Marton, Piero Capuccilli
Director: Lamberto Puggelli
Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Venue: Teatro alla Scala, Milan

The vast, sweeping exterior settings in Paolo Bregni's set design are the most dramatic contrast to Stölzl’s cramped stage among the lot. This is the only production in which we get to see the outside of the di Coigny estate: a giant, rectangular hôtel particulier (as grand urban mansions are known in France) surrounded by a cour d’honneur (an entrance court). When the poor march into the mansion, we see the exterior view. This is not the only remarkable vista we witness, with great sets in the middle acts and a knock-out conclusion as our view of a cold and cavernous jail cell zooms out to a moving view of the guillotine against a heartbreaking sunrise. The music is overseen by my favorite Chénier conductor, Riccardo Chailly, for whom this opera seems to be a particular specialty. His punchy, profound performances on Decca Records’ 1984 Andrea Chénier LP set with Luciano Pavarotti and the National Philharmonic Orchestra set the standard for me, particularly as remixed on Pavarotti’s classic Verismo Arias album. Carreras is not opera’s most stirring Chénier, but his performance is more than capable. I found it hard watching Eva Marton’s Maddalena not to recall the verdict of the character Mendy in Terrence McNally’s great play The Lisbon Traviata that Marton "screams her way through" this role. But, to be fair, that has more to do with the memorability of McNally’s wordsmithing than my reaction to Marton’s slightly shrieky, stiff Maddalena. Still, the sets give both singers such a dramatic backdrop that any weaknesses in the performances are forgotten, and this is often a breathtaking Chénier. 

7.      Year: 2017

Cast: Yusif Eyvazov, Anna Netrebko, Luca Salsi
Director: Mario Martone
Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Venue: Teatro alla Scala, Milan

Chailly returns to conduct this uneven but sometimes exciting production of what he aptly calls “that magnificent libretto.” The highlight of this version occurs in the opening moments, as Gérard gives his opening soliloquy, a moment that can be too talky. Here Luca Salsi’s Gérard is surrounded by the nobles of the di Coigny party, frozen in partying positions as he describes what aristocratic social life is like in 1789. I’ve always found the first lines of Illica’s libretto fascinatingly chosen: First “Let’s put this blue couch here,” establishing Gerard as a servant of the estate, and then suddenly a description of the then-current practice among young courtiers of courting older women and widows. These interesting words often get entirely lost in a haze of Italian singing in other productions. But when this Gérard actually grabs the hands and bodies of the frozen aristocrats and shapes them into flirtatious positions, it is impossible not to comprehend the lyrics. It gives us a chance to contemplate Illica’s construction of the libretto: Why, since the opera is not ostensibly about the courting of older women, does he start here? His other librettos are too disciplined for this to be mere local color, though the libretto is full of color. It feels more like thesis, setting up immediately that artists in this world survive by pleasing power. These matured ladies’ expensive dresses and poofy wigs, an artifice adopted in an effort to stay young and beautiful while retaining their power and pleasure, are symptomatic of what brings about the revolution. Plus the moment sets up a contrast with the romance between Andrea and Maddalena, which is what we’d now call age-appropriate rather than the then-fashionable May-December courting. Martone sets up that contrast better than any other director I’ve seen. Unfortunately that grabbing opening is not matched by the rest of the production. One might expect more romantic fireworks from Eyvazov and Netrebko, who are married in real life, and while their singing is powerful the pair are somewhat unfocused actors. The set is too dark and crowded with knick-knacks. I’m not sure why Andrew Knapp on Parterre Box picked this as his favorite video. For me it is a middling selection, after that brilliant opening.

8.      Year: 1981

Cast: Plácido Domingo, Gabriela Benackova, Piero Cappuccilli
Director: Otto Schenk
Conductor: Nello Santi
Venue: Die Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna

Domingo wins the most contagiously enthusiastic response of any of the modern Andreas. He and his cast have to wait after each of his major arias through a literal two-minute ovation. The applause feels interminable when you’re watching it, but it helps one reflect on how powerful Domingo’s performance is. He captures the pride, the muscularity and the nerviness of the character, and his singing ranks with the best. The production is forgettable, however. With little to contribute to a thematic conversation, Schenk’s traditional production tells the story but is falling over itself unnecessarily not to get in its way. Benackova thrills the audience almost as much as Domingo does, though her ovations are a full minute shorter. 

9.      Year: 1996

Cast: Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Guleghina, Juan Pons
Director: Nicholas Joel
Conductor: James Levine
Venue: Metropolitan Opera, New York City

Pavarotti is vocally our best Chénier on recording, with an authority and beauty that remains unmatched, but his acting is stiff and unpenetrating. The Met’s production, which is still being revived to this day, can’t quite decide whether it wants to be realistic or stylized. The opening scene for example features an ornate blue set piece that might be a wall and might be a mirror; it’s unclear which. What is clear is that it’s at an odd angle, tilted just enough to symbolize the sinking aristocracy in the final stages of its prime. This is an interesting non-literal take, but the rest of the production is set realistically, causing a mismatch. However it is the first production I saw of this opera and I can’t help but retain some fondness for it. 

10.      Year: 2025

Cast: Piotr Beczala, Sonya Yoncheva, Igor Golovatenko
Director: Nicholas Joel
Conductor:  Daniele Rustioni
Venue: Metropolitan Opera, New York City

This video will become available on the Met On Demand app later this spring. It ran in movie theaters in December, as part of the Met in HD series. It’s a revival of the same production that featured Pavarotti 30 years ago, and it’s really time for a new one. Beczala is handsome as always, robust in voice and an intentional student of other Chéniers (as his social media marketing pointed out). But his acting is not as stirring as most of the others, and there is a stolid colorlessness in his affect. His performance of the key aria in the first act, known as “the Improvviso” because in it the poet stirringly composes a poem on the spot, blends in with the surrounding music and consequently comes off as recitative. Golovatenko repeatedly gets a particularly big reaction from the crowd, but he treats his character like a villain with no redeeming qualities despite Illica’s careful mixing of decency with devilishness. In an interview during intermission in the HD broadcast, Golovatenko was asked whether he thought his character felt guilty for all the mischief he causes. No, not at all, the singer replied. But half of his character’s lines are about the guilt he feels for putting the poet in the line of danger. It’s a beautifully written part, but we can see Golovatenko’s reduction of his character in the way he plays his role. His singing, though, is impeccable, and clearly thrilled the crowd. Yoncheva as is often the case is better than competent but almost blends into the scenery. Her “La Mamma Morta” is powerful but not distinctive. 

Conclusion

Perhaps in 10 years the Met might grant us a new production to replace this one. The current one is engaging enough to capture new fans of the opera (as it once caught me) but limited enough in its appeal to drive fans, perhaps, to these other productions. Whatever the ranking of a given production, it's clear to me that Andrea Chénier has a special place in the repertoire. In addition to the above-mentioned virtues of Illica's libretto, the script is unusual in its originality. While most opera librettos are adapted straightforwardly from a single source like a novel or a play, this one has its origin in several sources, and Illica's own imagination. The libretto draws on a novel also named for the poet, but for example neither the novel nor the historical record contains a character named Gérard, and that character is one of Illica's greatest contributions. (The character is in the spirit of history, however, as it's been said he is modeled on a true-to-life leader of the revolution.) The libretto is a throwback to the period dominated by Eugène Scribe, whose librettos fashioned history, fiction and invention into something similarly new. Andrea Chénier is also a distinctly visual opera, with guillotines, salons, trials, and prisons, and thus perfect for the camera. Now someone needs to make a full-blown motion picture.