Opera on DVD

Started by uffeviking, April 08, 2007, 12:54:48 AM

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karlhenning

Quote from: uffeviking on July 11, 2007, 10:44:09 AM
Karl, did you miss reading the above quoted part of my post? Very straight and honest opinion!  ::)

No, no, I didn't miss it.  It still escapes me how this can be expressed as a preference.

But, to be sure, Lis, there's a great deal in the world escapes me very easily  ;)

uffeviking

Yes, Karl, there is, and it escapes me too. But from my experiences of watching many operas performed in many opera houses and conducted by many maestros, I have by now come to the conclusion that the dusty productions and Levine's slow, conservative, conducting are not my preference. I have seen a number of Met/Levine operas, enough to come to make my decision.  :)

marvinbrown

Quote from: uffeviking on July 11, 2007, 10:31:36 AM
I have the Sinopoli one and prefer it to the Levine, even though I have not seen the Levine! Shocked? Simple prejudice on my part.

No. 1: The Wolfgang Wagner direction is fresh, new, inspirational, compared to anything the Met can come up. I don't even have to see it to know the overall view of WW is perferable.

No. 2. The Sinopoli conducting beats anything Levin can come up. You got it, again: prejudice on my part.  ;D

  Thank you Lis (may I call you Lis?  uffeviking) for an honest recommendation regardless of how prejudiced it is  :).

  marvin

uffeviking

Of course you may call me Lis!  :-*

To my prejudice confession, I would like to add that it also has a lot to do with experience. As I said, I have watched enough operas, life and on DVD to make judgements. It's the same with my 'prejudice' about the tenor Treleaven. I have watched and listened to him often enough to refuse to buy any recording featuring him the cast. It's not my personal prejudice, a number of my friends are of the same opinion and I too am wondering why this man is still being given major roles by world famous opera houses. Maybe he signed thousands of contracts twenty years ago when he could still hit a note, without starting looking for it at his kneecap.  ::)

Solitary Wanderer

Watched this last night [part of my prep for tonights performance].



This was my first Opera on DVD and I thought it was wonderful. I throughly enjoyed the music, drama, costumes, sets etc. It was a real treat and I look forward to collecting more operas on DVD  :)

Question: I hadn't seen the performers taking curtain calls after each Act before ??? Is this the usual routine :)
'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

marvinbrown

Quote from: Solitary Wanderer on July 11, 2007, 01:56:54 PM
Watched this last night [part of my prep for tonights performance].



This was my first Opera on DVD and I thought it was wonderful. I throughly enjoyed the music, drama, costumes, sets etc. It was a real treat and I look forward to collecting more operas on DVD  :)

Question: I hadn't seen the performers taking curtain calls after each Act before ??? Is this the usual routine :)

  Glad you enjoyed the performance Solitary Wanderer.  With regrads to your question, in most live operas I have seen on DVD the performers take curtain calls after each Act, and with Wagner's operas sometimes that is necessary as each Act is very long.  I can live with that because I get a little rest between Acts.  That being said what I find quite irritating is when the audience claps after a great aria is sung and the Act isn't over yet.  Even more irritating is when the audience claps after a "celebrity" tenor or soprano singer enters the stage (I have only seen this once during Leontyne Price's entrance in the MET Levine production of La Forza del Destino), I couldn't believe that the audience was allowed to do that.   

  marvin

Solitary Wanderer

Yes, there were several lengthy delays due to clapping after arias during Lucia...

I thought it disrupted the flow :)
'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

marvinbrown

Quote from: Solitary Wanderer on July 11, 2007, 03:33:31 PM
Yes, there were several lengthy delays due to clapping after arias during Lucia...

I thought it disrupted the flow :)

  It does which is why I personally do not approve of it!!

  marvin

Iago

Quote from: marvinbrown on July 11, 2007, 02:21:14 PM
  Even more irritating is when the audience claps after a "celebrity" tenor or soprano singer enters the stage (I have only seen this once during Leontyne Price's entrance in the MET Levine production of La Forza del Destino), I couldn't believe that the audience was allowed to do that.   

  marvin
ALLOWED??  What do you mean "ALLOWED"?
What should they do?
Should they stop the performance and throw out the audience?
Should Mr. Levine have turned to the audience and threatened not to proceed?

If you mean, "why did they allow that to reach the DVD". I can only say that a recording at a "live" event is a true document of what happened at that event. In that sense the applause belonged there, and was an honorarium to Miss Price for a long and distinguished cafeer.
"Good", is NOT good enough, when "better" is expected

yashin

I have the Met version with Cassilly and Marton-conducted by Levine.  To be honest there is not much wrong with it.  Big Budget set, in your face-olde style Met megabucks performance.  Marton and Cassilly sing well.  I got it fairly cheap so i think it is good value.

I prefer the DVD version with Sieffert.  A modern dress performance.  Lots of close-ups which i know some people don't like.  Good performances though.

The other one with Richard Versaile-there is a clip on Youtube and it looks terrific.  I would like to have this one too.

If you are looking for a definitive DVD i would wait longer.  If you are looking for an introduction or just a good DVD then i can recommend either. 

marvinbrown

Quote from: yashin on July 12, 2007, 04:33:55 AM
I have the Met version with Cassilly and Marton-conducted by Levine.  To be honest there is not much wrong with it.  Big Budget set, in your face-olde style Met megabucks performance.  Marton and Cassilly sing well.  I got it fairly cheap so i think it is good value.

I prefer the DVD version with Sieffert.  A modern dress performance.  Lots of close-ups which i know some people don't like.  Good performances though.

The other one with Richard Versaile-there is a clip on Youtube and it looks terrific.  I would like to have this one too.

If you are looking for a definitive DVD i would wait longer.  If you are looking for an introduction or just a good DVD then i can recommend either. 

  Thanks Yashin.

  marvin

marvinbrown

#191
Quote from: Iago on July 11, 2007, 09:39:07 PM
ALLOWED??  What do you mean "ALLOWED"?
What should they do?
Should they stop the performance and throw out the audience?
Should Mr. Levine have turned to the audience and threatened not to proceed?

If you mean, "why did they allow that to reach the DVD". I can only say that a recording at a "live" event is a true document of what happened at that event. In that sense the applause belonged there, and was an honorarium to Miss Price for a long and distinguished career.

  Iago, Yes I agree with you that there is nothing anybody can do about an audience's adulation for a celebrity singer and the show must go on as they say....and yes Ms. Price has certainly earned her well respected reputation as a bona fide Verdi soprano singer...but I do not prefer operas that are "adulterated" by needless noise (ie. an audience clapping at the most inappropriate moments)...let the lady sing thats what I say....let the lady sing!!!!!!

  marvin

marvinbrown

Quote from: uffeviking on July 11, 2007, 01:21:06 PM
Of course you may call me Lis!  :-*



  I just realized this was a kiss...well I shall do the gentlemanly thing and reciprocate :-* . Any fan of Wagner is a freind of mine  :).


  marvin

Lethevich

#193
Heinrich Marschner - Hans Heiling (Dynamic DVD)

I recently saw this and unfortunately it was a disappointment, and I am not surprised that this opera fell into obscurity. A shame, as the supernatural aspects sounded fun.

The plot is annoying (not merely silly/implausible, which a good composer like Verdi could easily get away with in for eg. Rigoletto). To set up the inevitable final confrontation in Hans Heiling, these things happen first:

Heiling leaves his mother (who is some kind of empress of the underworld) despite her protests, so that he can be wed to a mortal (Anna) who he is in love with (this beginning is a little like the start of Tannhäuser, hehe). This is fairly normal, and a good scene setter. The next scene, he meets Anna, she finds his "magic book" and is disturbed by it, then orders him to burn it. He has a monologue debating whether or not to do it, as to do so would lose his powers, etc. etc. etc., and eventually he does. This also seems fine, this shows that his love is "true" or whatever. She then admires his necklace, and he immediately gives it to her as well. He says that he doesn't want to, but is persuaded to go to a gathering/dance.

Next scene. At the gathering/dance, a love triangle emerges when it is revealed that another character is interested in Anna (Konrad). She then asks Heiling if she could dance with him. He says no (not entirely unreasonable given that he wants to get into her pants) and she flips out; he storms off. Next scene: Anna has an incredibly tedious self-pitying "IT'S NOT MY FAULT" (she actually said that) monologue. Then when the love interest comes across her, it soon becomes apparent that Heiling is in fact the "bad guy", and for very little reason given other than Anna's sudden inherent dislike of him.

This means that 50% of the opera has been completely wasted due to this schizophrenic librettist. I mean, why not at least add some hints that Heiling is a bad guy rather than making him look like frankly the nicest person you'd ever want to love you. Anna is massively unsympathetic and the rest of the opera as a result just doesn't work.

The plus points:

The childrens choir sounds nice and is suitably "spooky" for a paranormal themed opera. The choir was also used in the action, not just on a sideline, and were outfitted with makeup to give them pointy noses and ears like goblins.

The singer playing Heiling (Markus Werba) really looks the part.

Negative points:

The music was adequate but unexciting, and the between-scene interlude music really dragged at times. The singing is fine, as usual on DVD (even small companies performing obscure operas are at a very good technical level nowadays).

The production bounces between abstract surrealism to traditionalism and is not very enjoyable. Sometimes it can look impressive (the underworld; the forest), other times messy and confused (Heiling's "house"). For some reason the backdrop landscape to the gathering/dance had an erupting volcano ::) The costumes are strange also. Anna's costume is traditionally-themed but minimal, her mothers is very traditional, Heiling's bounces between traditional and "leotard" (usually a combination).

There is no libretto supplied (as per usual), and it's not the kind of opera you could find a translated version online, but at one point what was likely to be "steel" (given the context of a dagger attack) was translated in the subtitles as "steal", which wasn't very good.

I suppose I have a lot of learning about opera to do, as I later noticed that Heiling was a baritone and Konrad a tenor. This OBVIOUSLY means something :P

Edit: Oh, and I can take some screencaps if anyone wants.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

knight66

Lethe, Thanks for going to the bother of both seeing the piece, then of writing about it. I think I will give it a body swerve.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

yashin

Just found a nice review of Lohengrin starring Emily Magee, John Treleaven amongst others.  Recorded in Barcelona.  Just released on DVD.

After a slow but intensive prelude the half transparent curtain – looking almost like a TV screen – slowly rises. We are in a classroom from anno dazumal, as they probably would have said in Hamburg a decade ago when this production had its premiere. The 'school children', in school uniforms and short trousers, are clearly pupils who haven't been moved up. They are now middle aged – some even older, but they're still rascals, running about, disturbing the peace, throwing paper swallows and fighting with wooden swords. A group of brass players is seated next to the open window and stand up now and then to play fanfares. The 'King's Herald' is something between form master and class monitor. Everybody knows at once when the King pays a visit that he is the King. He is in short trousers, too, and with a Royal Crown in gilt paper on his head. In a big cupboard a shy and nervous girl is hiding; she answers to the name of Elsa. No, this is neither a students' farce nor an amateur variety show but a production of Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin. Strange, I thought it dealt with a supposed brother-murder case somewhere in the Middle Ages and with the arrival of the pure knight of the Grail brotherhood to defend and save the accused Elsa. Do we have yet another whim of a director who wants to clear away old conventions, to show that he doesn't give a damn for tradition and that dignity and solemnity aren't worth a fig? Well, the director is Peter Konwitschny, regarded as one of the foremost in his trade and a 'deep' innovator, and Claus Spahn goes to some length in the liner notes to stand up for his cause. My reaction is: I have read it – but I don't buy it. I may be conservative, conventional, intellectually dwarfed, narrow-minded – but I don't buy it! I have seen – in the theatre as well as on video and DVD – lots of productions that have been radical, unconventional, intellectually deep-probing and broad-minded. Some I have liked, some I have loved, some I have loathed and some have left me completely indifferent – which possibly is, for the director, the most embarrassing state of affairs. My reactions this time? 'No, not again!' 'What's he after?' 'This is ridiculous!' 'Is it a parody?' 'He must hate Wagner!'. My wife uttered just the right words: 'Where is the music? He drags Wagner's music through the mud!'


There are, to be honest, places where it works – provided one can disregard the sets and the costumes – and that is in the more private scenes. This means most of act 2, the Telramund–Ortrud scene and the following meeting between Ortrud and Elsa. Here the emotions and the manipulations are exposed in a way seldom encountered in more conventional productions. The Elsa–Lohengrin scenes also work, but here there are other inhibiting factors, which I will come back to.


I have already touched on Weigle's conducting of the overture. Generally this is a rather taut reading and the orchestra play well. I have heard better opera choruses in this music, though. I presume that it was sometimes a hard nut for the singers to sing properly while at the same time being asked to perform quite complicated actions. This is also something that to some degree afflicts the main characters.


Starting from the top of the social ladder, and from the bottom voice-wise, King Henry the Fowler is portrayed as warm and rather naïve. Reinhard Hagen's singing is just as warm and steady. His herald is noisy and rather strained. Hans-Joachim Ketelsen is a fairly conventional menacing Telramund. Apart from the fact that he runs about in schoolboy clothes and lacks any scrap of the dignity we could have expected of this Brabantian count. He is strong-voiced but too strained. This also goes for his scheming wife, Ortrud. Luana DeVol is a splendid actor, as I have noticed in other productions, and she has an especially expressive face. Even vocally she is impressive for her way of colouring the voice. One does not expect so evil a woman to sing like an angel. After a somewhat hesitant start Emily Magee finds the silvery tone and the steadiness one expects from a good Elsa. Her singing is the best reason to hear this performance. Unfortunately her Lohengrin has little to recommend him. John Treleaven sounds worn, wobbly and wooden and his acting is little better. Perhaps he heartily disliked the whole production, which doesn't let him arrive in shining white armour. Instead he has to walk about in a white coat, looking like a lost district medical officer.


In my view this last point illustrates perfectly what's wrong with this production. The surgeon has – in his view – made a successful operation. Sadly though, he has managed to kill the patient – and Wagner is mourning in his Heaven. For his and your own comfort, get Götz Friedrich's Bayreuth production instead, with Peter Hofmann and Karan Armstrong. END

Poor old John Treleaven-getting a bit of a bashing these days.
My only version of this opera is with Domingo in the old Vienna DVD.  Would love to have a look at this one despite the not so glowing review

knight66

In which opera do we get the German and the British National Anthems set to new words? In that same piece we are also told that syncopation was well used by Beethoven, Haydn and Bach.

Il Viaggio a Reims by Rossini, that's where. Rossini must have been an odd man, even for a composer. This, at age 33 was his final Italian opera. Only four more were to follow, all in French and one of those is an adaptation of the Viaggio, refluffified into Le Comte Ory. Then an extended silence.

Whatever, this is a piece of fluff, consumate fluff. If you need your spirits raised, then this is an excellent good source. The production has been well described before on the site. It is a complete delight, utterly unstuffy and packed full of young talent. The Marinsky is the source for all the musicians and Gergiev brings the music to life with a light, fleet approach. The orchestra is on the stage and the singers engage with the audience; which is evidently as delighted as it ought to be.

Not all the voices are stellar, but this is an ensemble piece and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The best voices here are first rate and while only one is well known, others will surely be heard from frequently in the future. The piece flashes past in just over two hours, in one act described as a 'Dramma giocoso', but a long way from Don Giovanni; which is similarly described.

I guarantee a smile on your face while Gergiev puts his young telegenic cast through its paces. This is one I will want to watch again, rather than simply to listen to it.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Mozart

I was watching the first act of Aida with Pavarotti in Milan. It reminded me of an episode of boy meets world. "Im fatter than you" "No, Im fatter than you" hahha god Pavarotti was like a balloon.

marvinbrown

Quote from: MozartMobster on July 29, 2007, 01:45:53 AM
I was watching the first act of Aida with Pavarotti in Milan. It reminded me of an episode of boy meets world. "Im fatter than you" "No, Im fatter than you" hahha god Pavarotti was like a balloon.


  I've said this before and I'll say it again...I never buy Verdi opera DVD's with Pavarotti in them.  Always Domingo...why? because most of Verdi's opera have leading me who are either military men (soldiers, generals etc.) , Royal figures (kings, dukes etc.), playboys etc. and Pavarotti never looks the part despite his stellar voice.

  marvin

Mozart

Quote from: marvinbrown on July 29, 2007, 01:56:43 AM

  I've said this before and I'll say it again...I never buy Verdi opera DVD's with Pavarotti in them.  Always Domingo...why? because most of Verdi's opera have leading me who are either military men (soldiers, generals etc.) , Royal figures (kings, dukes etc.), playboys etc. and Pavarotti never looks the part despite his stellar voice.

  marvin

Ehh I don't really care much about the acting. Its musically not relevant. I mean not much is going on most of the time anyways. Good acting or poor acting, I couldn't care less if the sound was bad. It was a nice idea to set music to a play, but the music became the main attraction.