Category Archives: DVD review

Distorted mirrors

Posted on by
1

Watching the recently released recording of the 2017 production of Giodarno’s Andrea Chénier from La Scala had me wondering why this piece isn’t done more often.  If it had been written by Puccini, and it might well have been, it would get done as often as Tosca, with which it has many similarities.  In the conscience stricken revolutionary Gérard it has one of the few multi-dimensional characters in verismo opera and the music, for Chénier in particular, has all the qualities that people listen to Puccini for.  I guess perhaps one needs at least a rough understanding of the events of the French revolution to really follow the plot as Giodarno, unlike Puccini, roots his work in actual history but still.  Opera fashion is very odd.(*)

1.ball

Continue reading →

Harnoncourt’s Mozart cycle

Posted on by
3

Back in 2014 Nikolaus Harnoncourt launched a project to present all three Mozart/da Ponte operas, concert style, on the stage of the Theater an der Wien in a single month.  They are now being released on DVD/Blu-ray.  The first is Le nozze di Figaro and it comes with a 52 minute documentary by Felix Breisach; Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Between Obsession and Perfection – part 1.

1.bed

Continue reading →

Carsen productions of Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana

Posted on by
Reply

Robert Carsen’s productions of the classic pairing of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, filmed at Dutch National Opera in 2019, are an attempt to extend the meta-theatricality of the former to the latter. To this end he reverses the normal order which allows the prologue of Pagliacci to apply to both works and elements of the Pagliacci to be extended in Cavalleria Rusticana.

1.clowns

Continue reading →

A modern take on Gay’s classic

Posted on by
1

John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera has been around since 1728 and is revived with some regularity but has never quite made into the opera canon. The latest incarnation is a version heavily rewritten by Robert Carsen and Ian Burton with a musical concept by William Christie. It first saw light at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in 2018 before touring extensively.

1.peachums

Continue reading →

McVicar’s Faust revived

Posted on by
Reply

It’s quite unusual for a production to be released twice on video but that’s what has happened with David McVicar’s production of Gounod’s Faust for the Royal Opera House.  It was originally released in 2010 with a cast that included Roberto Alagna, Bryn Terfel and Angela Gheorghiu.  It’s now been released again in a revival directed by Bruno Ravella with a cast headlined by Michael Fabiano, Erwin Schrott and Irina Lungu filmed in 2019.

1.crucifix

Continue reading →

Agrippina

Posted on by
Reply

Agrippina is definitely one of the most interesting of Handel’s early operas. It has very good and very varied music including a ravishing love duet in Act 3 which reminds one of Monteverdi; perhaps not surprisingly since Poppea is one of the characters singing it! The libretto, too, has something of L’incoronazione about it. It’s smart, sexy and utterly cynical which I suppose is about par for an 18th century cardinal. It’s said that Grimani based the character of Claudio, here portrayed as an oversexed buffoon (oace Robert Graves), on his arch enemy Clemens XI. s a bonus in Robert Carsen’s version there’s a rather shocking ending in which Nerone, literally, gets the last laugh.

1.desk

Continue reading →

Alceste in Munich

Posted on by
Reply

I really wonder why Gluck’s Alceste gets as many productions as it does.  The plot is essentially dull (summarised in this review) and I really can’t see an angle that could be used to make it interesting and relevant to today’s audience in the way that one can with such classical stories as Antigone,  Medea or Idomeneo.  The music, bar a handful of numbers, is not very exciting either.

1.people

Continue reading →

Cavalli at the court of Louis XIV

Posted on by
Reply

Cavalli’s Ercole Amante is an oddity.  It was intended as a wedding present from Cardinal Mazarin to Louis XIV but got hijacked by Lully who inserted a bunch of ballets for the king to dance stretching out the piece to something like six hours.  It wasn’t a great success.  It’s also a very odd story for a piece intended for a royal patron as I explained in reviewing an earlier recording.  It’s also in Italian which may make the only French court work to be performed in that language.

1.allegory

Continue reading →

Fidelio 1806

Posted on by
Reply

There were, of course, many Beethoven 250 events planned for 2020 and few of them happened.  One, planned for Vienna, was to stage all three versions of Beethoven’s only opera; Leonore (1805), Fidelio (1806) and the final form that modern audiences mostly know, Fidelio (1814).  As far as I know the only one that went ahead was a production of the 1806 version at the Theater an der Wien that was filmed in an empty house and has just got a release on Blu-ray and DVD.  Now, it happens that the 1805 Leonore was staged and recorded by Lafayette Opera in New York the year before.  So we can look at all three versions and the evolution of the piece despite the Vienna cancellations.  For those who want more details on the New York production, it was reviewed by Patrick Dillon in the summer 2020 edition of Opera Canada and there will be a review, by myself, of the recording in a future edition (probably soon).

1.marcellina

Continue reading →