Reiner, you can certainly appoint yourself if you'd like.  

It wasn't an entire disaster. The sets had a 'Fellini' feel to them and were quite impressive, but the set changes took so long (a good five minutes each) that the tension flagged. It's probably best viewed on the OpusArte DVD - Hvorostovsky and (to a lesser extent, Cura) on good form, Veronica Villarroel less so.

I had exactly that in mind when I added my "prompt" for designer & lighting-designer   It might be that the transfer to dvd on the disk you have hasn't been achieved well?  To get ideal lighting balance on a dvd it really needs to be "shot for dvd" in the first place (ie without the public present, so that you can get a rostrum camera onto the stage and shoot super-quality close-up in-cuts) and lit accordingly.  The "result" will then "look like it looked in the theatre".   However, the economics of a long multi-camera, multi-take video shoot with a cast whose fees are measured using gas-pump gauges militate against such an operation in most cases.  The human eye remains a far more subtle and sensitive instrument than any piece of plasma yet devised, and can cope with nuances of lighting that utterly defeat the small screen

It always surprises me how little interest is paid to the work of the lighting designer?   If I had a budget of next-to-nothing,  I would scrap scenery entirely and spend every penny available on good lighting.   You can love or hate Peter Sellars, but watch the lighting in his shows?  It's always fabulous, because he understands how important it is.   There's no excuse for poor lighting, because the equipment and the crew is all there anyhow...  if a director fails to utilise superb resources, then only he is to blame. It's very rare to see good lighting credited in a review?   I sat through a TSARSKAYA NEVESTA last week and the friends with me commented that it "seemed a bit monotonous"?   I drew their attention to the fact that the lighting hadn't changed even ONCE from beginning to end...

Paul Pyant is the best in the business

Interesting points Ruth and IGI. Cura doesn't sing 'Di quella pira' in C, and Domingo commonly took it down at least a semi-tone and often a tone in live performance. Even in his studio recordings under Mehta, Giulini and Levine which are sung in C, the high C does not sound comfortable or produced without some considerable effort. Having said that, there is more to Manrico than a high C!

Still, it is interesting to compare tenors like Cura and Domingo, who are somewhat 'short' at the top of the range, with those like Bjorling and Corelli, for whom C (and higher) was not a problem. Corelli's live Salzburg recording sounds to me like it is taken down a semi-tone. And the only live recording where Bjorling sings the aria in C is at Covent Garden in 1939, the others he takes down a semi-tone too. Perhaps all that matters is a good, robust 'high note' that pings over chorus and orchestra, sung whilst brandising a sword and assuming a heroic pose! The actual pitch of the note is secondary given the excitement a fine performance of the piece can generate. 

The performers in this production, however, succeed in acting more realistically and naturally than most others:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PmfbyGvvh-A

That's never put off a tenor yet

"What was that? High C or vitamin D?" (Marx)