You don’t have to agree with John Eliot Gardiner’s suggestion that Monteverdi’s Vespers may have been written as a kind of audition piece for Venice (while the composer was trying to escape Mantua) to admire his bold theatrical vision of the work – as famously realised in St Mark’s in 1989. This DVD reissue realigns us to the achievement of this complex and admirably enterprising project, a once-in-a-lifetime event with folkloric tales of musician fatigue and, in Don’t Look Now mode, an elusive barking dog sabotaging nocturnal recording. The discrepancy between reviews of the original video and CD (1/91) was marked, the latter a distant, chaotic and muddy aural landscape, the former a resplendent spatial feast of the kind Gardiner clearly sought to realise.

Here, the DVD merely provides an alternative medium for the video without a significant visual improvement to the quality of the event. However, not even a professional curmudgeon could doubt that Gardiner’s festive luminosity (instrumental doublings, etc) remains strikingly appropriate to the dazzling photography of the Basilica’s gold altar screen, radiant ceiling mosaics, and so on. And there is no reason why Gardiner’s peculiar eye for how Monteverdi is enriched in this context should be eroded over the years. The problem on reacquaintance is just how dated is the production, with its contrived piety and the heavy, posed gestures, all exacerbated by the static camera work. Yet, the atmosphere of the occasion is still strongly communicated by the imaginative disposition of solo and instrumental groups around the galleries and pulpits, seen at its best in the breathtaking ‘Duo Seraphim’.

The unique acoustic is presented here on its own terms, not reined in to ensure acute ensemble precision. The solo and instrumental performances are uniformly outstanding (note the young Bryn Terfel) and the Monteverdi Choir seemingly mesmerised by the way their homogeneous sound lifts the Nisi Dominus, Magnificat and Lauda Jerusalem incisively heavenwards. If the production has not completely survived the ravages of time, this DVD still ensures that posterity can witness the special nature of an extraordinary project. The 20-minute bonus documentary by Gardiner is informative and illuminating.