Category Archives: DVD review

When the going gets weird

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the-muppets-statler-and-waldorfA couple of years ago I produced a series of “best of” lists for video recordings, which I’ve updated from time to time.  One can find them on the Index of DVD reviews page.  So, for fun, I thought I’d put together a “weirdest” list.  Mostly this captures operas that are intrinsically weird but I’ve included the odd recording where the director has gone a bit nuts in an attempt to get something out of non too promising material.  So, in alphabetical order by composer, here is the “weird list”.   Continue reading →

The other Otello

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Just as Rossini’s version of Il barbiere di Siviglia completely eclipsed Paisiello’s version, so Verdi’s Otello sounded the death knell for an earlier version; ironically enough by Rossini.  It’s a bit surprising as the Rossini version is not bad at all despite having a rather patchy libretto and being hard to cast.  The first thing one notices is that the story isn’t even close to Shakespeare/Verdi.  This is because the libretto was based on a French play by Jean-François Ducis that was popular in the 18th century.  I don’t know whether the plot’s weaknesses are due to Ducis or the librettist but there are a few.  There’s no Cassio so the motivation for Jago’s plotting is unclear.  All the Venetian notables (bar perhaps the Doge) hate Otello but Jago doesn’t seem to have any special reason for animosity.  Between the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3 Otello is exiled.  There is no explanation.  The finale is abrupt and weak.  Immediately after Otello kills Desdemona the gang of notables burst in to the room and appear to be completely reconciled to Otello and to him marrying Desdemona, despite having spent the rest of the opera chewing chips about this.  In fact one could argue that the happy ending variant (yes, there was one) is the more plausible as it would only take the guys to arrive about ten bars sooner for that to be the logical outcome.  As it is, Otello listens with incredulity to the change of heart and, not unreasonably, kills himself.

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Rossini… with goats

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Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira is a rarity for a whole host of reasons.  There’s no definitive edition.  Many of the extant scores have much easier versions of the main arias for the tenor titular character.  Quite a bit of the music was reused for Il barbiere di Siviglia, often in ways that seem quite odd after hearing it in its original context.  Finally, the plot is a bit thin.  Not that that usually worries bel canto aficianados.

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Completing the Bechtolf trifecta – Le nozze di Figaro

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Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s stagings of the Mozart/da Ponte operas in Salzburg concluded in 2015 with Le nozze di Figaro.  I think it’s the most successful of the three.  Bechtolf’s strengths lie in detailed direction of the action rather than bold conceptual statements and Nozze is probably the least in need of, and the least amenable to, the big Konzept.  There aren’t any real dramaturgical problems to solve.  It just works as written.  I don’t think that’s so true for Don Giovanni or Così.

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Kaufmann’s Cav and Pag

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Jonas Kaufmann made a double role debut as Turiddu and Canio in the classic verismo double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2015,  The productions were directed by Philipp Stölzl and Christian Thielemann conducted with the Staatskapelle Dresden in the pit.

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Bechtolf Round Two – Don Giovanni

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Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s second Mozart/daPonte for Salzburg was Don Giovanni which premiered in 2014.  There are some similarities with his Così fan tutte.  He uses a symmetrical unit set again and shows a fondness for creating symmetrical tableaux vivants but there the similarities pretty much end.  I could find a consistent, believable set of humans in Così but not so much in Don Giovanni.  The problem is really the man himself.  Bechtolf, in his notes, seems to be arguing that Don Giovanni can make no sense in an age of pervasive accessibility and exposure to all things sexual.  Da Ponte’s Don requires a climate of sexual repression for his essence; to Bechtolf a kind of Dionysian force (he cites Kierkegaard), to make any sense as a human.  I think I get that but then, I think, the challenge becomes to create a Don Giovanni who does make sense to a 21st century audience as, in their different ways, do Guth and Tcherniakov.  Bechtolf seems to treat the character not so much as a human rather than as a kind of energy focus who exists by igniting aspects of the other characters; whether that’s lust or jealousy or hatred.  He caps off this idea at the end by having Don Giovanni reappear during the final ensemble as a kind of mischievous presence still chasing anything in a skirt, even if it’s, perhaps, from another world.  It’s an idea that I could not really buy into.

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Newbury’s Norma on DVD

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Kevin Newbury’s production of Bellini’s Norma made it to Toronto via San Francisco, Barcelona and Chicago with Sondra Radvanovsky singing the title role (at least some of the time) in all four cities.  It was recorded for DVD and Blu-ray at the Liceu in Barcelona in 2015.  Watching the DVD didn’t change my opinion of the production.  Here’s what I said about it on opening night in Toronto:

Kevin Newbury’s production is perhaps best described as serviceable.  I have seen various rather desperate efforts made to draw deep meaning from it but I really don’t think there is any.  That said, it looks pretty decent and is efficient.  The single set allows seamless transitions between scenes which is a huge plus.  So, what does it look like?  It’s basically a sort of cross between a barn and a temple with a back wall that can raised or moved out of the way to expose the druids’ sacred forest.  There’s also a sort of two level cart thing which characters ascend when they have something especially important to sing.  Costumes were said to have been inspired by Game of Thrones; animal skins, leather, tattoos (which actually don’t really read except up very close), flowing robes.  Norma herself appears to be styled, somewhat oddly, on a Klingon drag queen. The lighting is effective and there are some effective pyrotechnics at the end.  All in all a pretty good frame for the story and the singing.

There did seem to be far fewer pyrotechnics in the Barcelona staging though (either that or the video direction pretty much ignores them).

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Shattering Parsifal

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Dmitri Tcherniakov’s 2015 production of Wagner’s Parsifal recorded at the Staatsoper in Berlin in 2015 left me emotionally drained as I don’t think I’ve ever been after watching a recording.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to experience this live.  The combination of the production, exceptional singing and acting and Daniel Barenboim’s conducting is quite exceptional.  It’s not going to be easy to unpack it all coherently but here goes…

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Turandot with the Berio completion

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La Scala and Riccardo Chailly have embarked on a project to record all the Puccini operas.  The first one, recorded in 2015, is Turandot with a new completion of the third act by Berio rather than the usual Alfano version.  The director was Nikolaus Lehnhoff with Nina Stemme as Turandot and Aleksandrs Antonenko as Calaf.

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A new Salzburg da Ponte cycle – Così fan tutte

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Every few years the Salzburg Festival replaces the productions of the three Mozart/da Ponte collaborations with new productions.  At least in recent years they have entrusted all three to the same director but the “refresh” happens in different years and not always in the same order.  I reviewed Claus Guth’s offerings here (Le nozze di Figaro, 2006; Don Giovanni, 2008; Così fan tutte, 2009) and noted the way that certain linking elements developed over the course of the “cycle”.  I was interested to see whether the same thing held for the newest iteration by Sven-Eric Bechtolf.  All three have now been released on Blu-ray (though due to availability issues I have the Così on DVD) so I thought I should watch them in the order they appeared at the festival and see what transpires.  So here we go with Così fan tutte recorded in 2013 in the Haus für Mozart.

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