Category Archives: DVD review

Woe unto him who conceals deserts

Posted on by
Reply

coverWolfgang Rihm’s Dionysos is described by him as “eine Opernphantasie”.  It certainly isn’t an opera in the conventional sense lacking, as it does, anything resembling a plot.  It’s a staged setting of poems by Nietzsche written just before his final descent into madness (if one considers that’s not where he was from the start!).  Rihm conceives this as four scenes each dealing with a different “element” in Nietzscean terms.  The four are Water, a scene set on a lake; Air, a mountain scene; Intimate Space, a scene in a brothel; and Public Space, set in a town square.  So, episodic and linked only by a certain kind of mood and the characters.  The weight of the piece is carried by “N”, a baritone role.  he interacts variously with  a amle guest who doubles as Apollo and a high soprano who doubles as Ariadne.  In addition there is a trio of ladies; high soprano, mezzo, contralto, who play various roles from pseudo Rhinemaidens to tarts.

Continue reading →

Petitbon’s Lulu

Posted on by
Reply

Vera Nemirova’s production of Berg’s Lulu was recorded in the Haus für Mozart at Salzburg in 2010.  It’s presented in the now conventional three act version completed by Friedrich Cerha.  The sets are painterly, including in Act 1 a giant painting of the title character.  Lighting is used to create a very distinct palette for each scene and the detailed direction of the actors is careful and effective.  I didn’t see any big ideas but then on this video recording, if there had been any, they would likely have been lost in the incessant close ups and strange camera angles.  One “trick” perhaps is that much of the action in Act 3 Scene 1 takes place in the auditorium with a fair bit of confusion as the actors hand out fake cash to the punters.  This is, of course, the scene where the glitterati go broke so perhaps some irony is intended.

1.ass Continue reading →

Die Soldaten

Posted on by
4

Berndt Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten was something of a sleeper hit at the 2012 Salzburg festival and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.  It’s a peculiar work.  It’s very episodic and requires massive forces.  There are 16 singing and 10 non-singing roles, a 100 piece orchestra, a jazz band and more.  At Salzburg the scale was magnified by staging it in the Felsenreitschule, using the full 40m width and enormous height of the stage.  I’ve included some full stage shots in the screen caps to give an idea of how huge this all is.  They can be expanded to full size Blu-ray caps (roughly three times the size of the image in the review).

1.mummy Continue reading →

Orlando Paladino

Posted on by
Reply

Haydn’s Orlando Paladino is a “heroic comedy” based, of course, on Ariosto.  In this version Angelica, queen of Cathay, and her lover Medoro have fled to a remote castle to get away from Orlando who is in love, of course, with Angelica.  There’s a shepherd and shepherdess, a sorceress, a squire and Rodomonte, the king of Barbary thrown into the mix and various misadventures ensue until the sorceress, Alcina, dips Orlando into the waters of Lethe causing him to forget being in love with Angelica and it all ends happily.  There are also a bunch of non-singing characters who, I think represent the “dangerous” people of this remote country.  For reasons I haven’t quite fathomed they include a bishop and a bearded air hostess.

1.eumillaetc Continue reading →

Cunning Little Vixen short on magic

Posted on by
1

The 2009 Florence recording of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen is bright, colourful, straightforward and fun but it doesn’t quite have the magic of the older Théâtre du Châtelet version.  Laurent Pelly’s production is quite straightforward with attractive sets and costumes and interesting choreography from Lionel Hoche.

1.vixen_frog Continue reading →

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

Posted on by
Reply

Where better to record a production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette than in the spectacular Arena at Verona?  The productio, dircted by Francesco Micheli with sets by Eduardo Sanchi and costumes by Silvia Aymonino, is as spectacular as the setting and also quite weird in a space opera sort of way,  The characters wear huge collars and are colour coded; Yellow for the Montagues, red for Paris and his entourage and blue for the Capulets.  Only the non-feuding characters escape this schema notably, of course, the two lovers and Friar Lawrence.  There are also lots of colourful cage like structures that character pop in and out of or sing from and a huge chorus and crowd of supers flow all over the vast space.  It’s amazing to look at and actually suits a straightforward telling of the story quite well.

1.cages Continue reading →

Sex and violets

Posted on by
2

Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur isn’t performed very often and, when it is, it’s usually because some great diva of the day wants to do it.  That’s the case with the 2010 Covent Garden production which was created by David McVicar for Angela Gheorghiu.  Actually I am a bit surprised it’s not done more often.  It’s not a great masterpiece but it’s no worse than a great many commonly done pieces and, if the plot is a bit implausible, it’s not as offensive as half of Puccini’s output.  I would have thought it would have great appeal to that opera middle ground to which I don’t belong.

1.actresses Continue reading →

Bosom stirring

Posted on by
3

Chabrier’s one act opera Une Éducation Manquée has possibly the most implausible plot in all of opera.  It concerns a young aristocratic French couple on their wedding night.  The whole plot turns on them having no idea what they are supposed to do.  Not only are they French but they rejoice in the names of Gontran de Boismassif and Hélène de la Cerisaie.  Titter ye not!  Fortunately it only takes them 47 minutes to figure things out because a Wagner work on this theme would be quite intolerable.  I’m not sure why anybody would bother with this piece of fluff but it made it onto DVD in a performance recorded in Compiègne in 1994.  It’s probably the most amusing thing out of there since someone faked up a video of Hitler dancing in front of a train carriage.  Which isn’t saying a lot.

1.bed Continue reading →

Albert Herring

Posted on by
1

Britten’s Albert Herring is mysteriously under represented in the DVD catalogue.  The work is performed quite often being relatively inexpensive to mount and suitable for smaller venues but the many productions haven’t led to many recordings.  I have only been able to find one and that dates back to 1985 when it was recorded at Glyndebourne.  That’s appropriate enough as that’s the house the piece premiered in in 1947.  At least it’s a  fair and effective representation of the work.  Peter Hall’s production takes few liberties with the libretto and is a rather literal and effective, if necessarily somewhat caricatured,  representation of life in a Suffolk village.  The sets and costumes are evocative; especially the hall of Lady Billows’ house which really evokes a 17th century Great Hall and, as the view through the window tells us, is set in or close to the village, not in an isolated park.  There’s quite a lot of that kind of attention to detail in this production.

1.window Continue reading →

You think this is funny, Beauty?

Posted on by
1

The DVD version of Michael Sturminger’s Giacomo Variations was recorded at the Ronacker Theater in Vienna in 2011.  With the exception of Florian Boesch in the baritone role it’s the same line up as the performance in Toronto that I reviewed earlier this year.  Watching the DVD didn’t change my views about the piece or the performances materially.  It still feels a bit undercooked and schematic.  I did like the quote on the DVD box about Malkovich’s singing from the Kürier “closer to Tom Waits than to Fritz Wunderlich”.  I wish I’d said that.

1.cherubino Continue reading →