Opera Films

[Mozart]

Do you like them or hate them? I've seen about 5 now, and really enjoy them. It makes it more real and entertaining to watch. Is there many? I've seen La Traviata, Don Giovanni, Figaro, and I just got 2 new ones Rigoletto and Cosi  Fan.

[val]

I liked Parsifal (conducted by Jordan), Tristan und Isolde (Böhm, with Vickers and Nilsson), Otello (Karajan, with Vickers), Aida (Maazel) and, last year, a superb Moses und Aron in Wien.

But most of them were just films of an opera performance, on stage.

[Wendell_E]

Usually, I prefer live performances.  I have the Parsifal conducted by Jordan, but usually listen to it with the picture turned off.  I do like the films Salome (Stratas/Böhm), Powder Her Face, and Owen Wingrave (with Finley).  The last, of course, was written for television, but can be staged.  I really love Julie Taymor's film of Oedipus Rex, which combines live performance footage with non-performance shots.  I recently rented the DVD of the film of Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet.  It was hilarious (probably unintentionally).

Hated: Zfrlli's Trvta and Otlo.

[Tsaraslondon]

Usually, I prefer live performances.  I have the Parsifal conducted by Jordan, but usually listen to it with the picture turned off.  I do like the films Salome (Stratas/Böhm), Powder Her Face, and Owen Wingrave (with Finley).  The last, of course, was written for television, but can be staged.  I really love Julie Taymor's film of Oedipus Rex, which combines live performance footage with non-performance shots.  I recently rented the DVD of the film of Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet.  It was hilarious (probably unintentionally).

Hated: Zfrlli's Trvta and Otlo.

I too would generally prefer live performances. I'm not sure that opera and film, being too such different mediums, actually go together. That said, I actually really enjoyed Zeffirelli's Otello and, especially, La Traviata. Though I deplored the cuts in Otello, it did represent a valid attempt at creating something on film, not just filming a staged performance. La Traviata was even better. Other singers may have sung Violetta better, but few have approached Stratas's wonderfully touching acting. The minor cuts bothered me less than they did in Otello, and who's to say that Verdi wouldn't have been open to certain cuts in order to adapt a stage piece to a different medium, had he been around to oversee it.
Talk of Stratas reminds me that she takes very well to the film medium, witness her superb Salome in the Friedrich film, and also her Nedda in Zeffirelli's Pagliacci, a much more complex and multi-faceted character than the heartless cocotte she is often portrayed.
I also rather liked Joseph Losey's film of Don Giovanni, another director, who tried to create something fresh, rather than just filming a stage performance.

[Mozart]

Personally I love them, it adds another level of depth to the stories. I hate when they make cuts to operas, but I'm willing to overlook it. I'll have to find that version of Otello, I had no idea it existed!

[knight66]

Quote from me from 16th Jan.

I watched the Zeffirelli film of Otello today. He butchers the music. No duet is complete and bars are removed all over the place. The entire concept of through-written music is ignored and there are silences between truncated bits. The singing is all first rate, the visuals also are excellent; but the snipping is really awful. Even the Vengeance Duet is cut. Stay away.

Mike

[marvinbrown]

Usually, I prefer live performances.  I have the Parsifal conducted by Jordan, but usually listen to it with the picture turned off.  I do like the films Salome (Stratas/Böhm),

  Yes and the R. Strauss movie opera ELEKTRA with Rysanek/Böhm is Remarkable, in a very frightening way.

  marvin

[Tsaraslondon]

Quote from me from 16th Jan.

I watched the Zeffirelli film of Otello today. He butchers the music. No duet is complete and bars are removed all over the place. The entire concept of through-written music is ignored and there are silences between truncated bits. The singing is all first rate, the visuals also are excellent; but the snipping is really awful. Even the Vengeance Duet is cut. Stay away.

Mike

And, unlike the soundtrack of La Traviata, the Otello soundtrack (or the recording they use) is note complete, right down to the ballet. I have to say that I have never understood why Zeffirelli, a man of the theatre, and a renowned stage opera producer, deemed it necessary to make those cuts in a score which is virtually note perfect. I seem to remember him saying something about the Willow Song holding up the action, but I was never convinced. That said, as you rightly point out, the film does contain some great performances and some stunning visuals.

[Tsaraslondon]

Don't know whether it counts, but I've just watched Paul Czinner's film of the Salzburg Rosenkavalier, with Schwarzkopf, Jurinac, Rothenberger, Edelmann, and Kunz. Though a record of the stage production, the soundtrack was recorded separately and the opera filmed without an audience, the singers singing along half voice to the recording. I must say I enjoyed it immensely. I slightly prefer Ludwig on the 1956 studio recording to Jurinac, but Schwarzkopf is even better when seen, and Rothenbeger (as pretty as a picture as Sophie) I prefer vocally to the rather white voiced Stich-Randall. It reminds me that many great performances have been preserved in this way. Czinner also made a film of Fonteyn and Nureyev in the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, and Janet Baker's Julius Caesar was filmed in the studio, but based on the ENO stage production.

[Sarastro]

Ponnelle's "La Cenerentola" with Araiza and fon Stade
Ponnelle's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" with Alva and Berganza
Ponnelle's "Madama Butterfly" with Domingo and Freni
"Tosca" with Corelli, Caniglia, Guelfi and someone else actually playing Tosca and Scarpia
"Tosca" with Alagna, Gheorghiu, and Raimondi
"Tosca" with Olivero, Fioravanti, Misciano
"Boris Godunov" with Raimondi and also one Russian film
"Turandot" with Corelli, Udovich, and Mattiolli
"La Boheme" with Freni, Ramondi and von Karajan conducting
"Il Trovatore" with Gencer, del Monaco, Bastianini

These are I am certain about; surely, there are several others which I can't remember by now, and some other rare ones I do not even know.

[knight66]

"Tosca" with Alagna, Gheorghiu, and Raimondi
Have you seen this one and if so, what did you think of it? Having read about the film within a film aspects of the DVD, I did not go for it, instead I bought the CDs.

Mike

[Sarastro]

"Tosca" with Alagna, Gheorghiu, and Raimondi
Have you seen this one and if so, what did you think of it? Having read about the film within a film aspects of the DVD, I did not go for it, instead I bought the CDs.

Mike

Well, there are some aspects that I didn't like and that disturbed the action and worsened the impression of the opera, imho. I'll write about it later, now I'm going to bring my computer to a repairing office.

By the way, what about these ones:
"The Magic flute" by Ingmar Bergman (in Swedish; with Pamina smoking during the break time)
"Tosca" with Domingo, Milnes and Kabaivanska
"Andrea Chenier" with Domingo and Cappuccilli
"Don Giovanni" with Petri, Bruscantini, Gencer, Stich-Randall, Alva, Sciutti
"Eugen Onegin" with Weikl, Hamiri, Ghiaurov, Burrows and Solti

[knight66]

Thanks, I will wait until you get a chance to post thoughts on it. The CDs are very good.

Mike

[bhodges]

Some recent favorites:

R. Strauss: Salome (Böhm/Vienna)
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (Gergiev/MET)
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Jansons/Concertgebouw)

And Bergman's Die Zauberflöte is wonderful, although I haven't seen it in a very long time. 

--Bruce

[knight66]

The newly released Bohm Ariadne with Janowitz is very fine. The Bohm Elektra is an astonishing performance, visceral and involving. I have slighly lost the plot here as to whether we have restricted ourselves to productions that are NOT live.

Mike

[T-C]

Some recent favorites:

R. Strauss: Salome (Böhm/Vienna)
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (Gergiev/MET)
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Jansons/Concertgebouw)

Bruce,

The new Eugene Onegin DVD from the Met with Gergiev is a recent favorite of mine too.

For my taste, this is currently the best DVD version for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and one of the very best opera DVDs that were released lately. Robert Carsen's production is lovely with a successful blend of conservative and new ideas. I know this opera for years, and have quite a few recordings of it. But never before did its closing scene move me, as in this performance. This is mostly because of the singing and acting intensity of Hvorostovsky and Fleming.


P. S.

I read your very favorable review of the Met recent Peter Grimes. This performance will appear as a commercial EMI DVD, so you have already convinced me about the necessity of the purchase...

[bhodges]

Bruce,

The new Eugene Onegin DVD from the Met with Gergiev is a recent favorite of mine too.

For my taste, this is currently the best DVD version for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and one of the very best opera DVDs that were released lately. Robert Carsen's production is lovely with a successful blend of conservative and new ideas. I know this opera for years, and have quite a few recordings of it. But never before did its closing scene move me, as in this performance. This is mostly because of the singing and acting intensity of Hvorostovsky and Fleming.


P. S.

I read your very favorable review of the Met recent Peter Grimes. This performance will appear as a commercial EMI DVD, so you have already convinced me about the necessity of the purchase...

I was in the (movie theater) audience on the Saturday afternoon when they snagged that Onegin, and saw it several more times during the run.  But the one they taped was by far the best, with all the principals in excellent voice.  (E.g., on another night Fleming had a cold, although she still sang and sounded fine.)

And I just love that Robert Carsen production, too; it's one of my favorite productions of anything.  And I completely agree: the way Fleming and Hvorostovsky do that final scene is fantastic.

And thanks for reading the Grimes piece, and I am delighted to hear they will release that on DVD.  Even though I wasn't all that happy with some of the filming decisions, never mind.  Musically, that Saturday performance was superb. 

--Bruce

[Siedler]

Mostly hate them. I just cannot stand the lipsynching.

[Tsaraslondon]

Mostly hate them. I just cannot stand the lipsynching.

Mostly I agree, but Stratas, for one, is particularly good at it. I have seen her Salome, Violetta and Nedda, all filmed in the studio, and I'd swear that she was actually singing live,  with the orchestra actually there in the studio with her, although I know this is not the case. Which brings me to another point, the actors in filmed musicals usually also sing a long to their pre-recorded voice track, or, as was the case with many of the musicals of the past, someone else's pre- recorded voice track, but we seem to mind it much less. I personally find both Audrey Hepburn and Deborah Kerr most convincing in My Fair Lady and the King and I, respectively, even though I know that most of their vocals were provided by Marni Nixon.

[Mozart]

I just got la clemenza di tito film. I don't know the opera so well but it seems interesting. Ponnelle just uses closeups of peoples faces way to much.