Luci mie traditrice, Opera in due atti, premiered in 1998, sung in Italian (short prologue sung in French)
Music by Salvatore Sciarrino (1947- )
Libretto by Salvatore Sciarrino, after Il Tradimento per L'Onore, by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, 1664, and an eulogy by Claude Le Jeune, 1608

Studio recording, done in Vienna, November 14 and 15, 2000
Conductor: Beat Furrer
Orchestra: Klangforum Wien

Cast:
Annette Stricker, soprano - La Malaspina (The Countess)
Otto Katzamaier, bass-baritone - Il Malaspina (The Count)
Kai Wessel, countertenor - L'Ospite (guest)
Simon Jaunin, baritone - Servo (servant)

Kairos Music release, 2001, in one CD, DDD, running time 68:41
Libretto included, in original Italian (small part in French), and translations into French, English, and German + production pictures, essay, synopsis, a message from the composer, biography of the artists with their pictures, history of the orchestra, fragments of correspondence and witness account between the real-life characters

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Salvatore Sciarrino is a contemporary composer of avant-garde opera and other musical genres, who lives in his native Italy in the Citta di Castella in Perugia, and teaches composition at the Florence conservatory. He is a prestigious composer who has held several faculty appointments in Palermo and Milan, and has received several prizes, with a catalog of more than 130 pieces (one of the most extensive body of works among contemporary composers). According to him, in addition to having been a disciple of Franco Evangelisti's, Stockhausen was a major influence on his music.

This is one of many of his avant-garde operas, played here by an ensemble of soloists specialized in contemporary music.

Sciarrino's music is very unique, especially his vocal writing, often using long extensions of the vowels and short bursts of the other syllables, completely altering the dynamics of the words, with added complex melismas. These techniques are not only intriguing, but also convey a very Italianate melodic sense. The orchestration and instrumental parts are vanishing and phantasmagorical, and evoke blowing winds, breathing, neighing horses, sounds of nature (birds, insects), and percussion. Silence occurs often, which then goes from this state of zero sounds to a multitude of microscopic sounds and whispers and soft noises that seem to reproduce the sonorous real-life universe that surrounds the characters.

The result in my opinion is *extremely* powerful. It starts with the exquisite, sensitive, and poetic libretto, which makes use of very short phrases, at times one-word sentences that parade in rapid succession, but still manage to perfectly convey the strong feelings that the characters of this opera are going through. Then, the music impacts on the work a very realistic sense of dread and doom, of emotional intensity and impending tragedy - affects like love, fear, jealousy, lust, horror are very well tone-painted.

The piece can be read and heard like a growing nightmare. It makes me think of Verdi's Otello, in its claustrophobic and inexorable progression to the shocking last scene. Of course, the musical structure of these two works couldn't be more different, but the atmosphere is quite similar. The musical style on the other hand reminded me of another piece I liked a lot recently, Itinerário do Sal by Portuguese contemporary composer Miguel Azguimes. While Azguime's opera is even more adventurous and makes abundant use of electronic music, these two pieces do share this ability to work with the sounds of a word and manipulate it to achieve expressive power.

Cicognini's text on which the composer based his libretto is about a real episode in the life of Renaissance composer Don Carlo Gesualdo, son of the Prince of Naples and heir to his father's court, who brutally murdered his wife Maria d'Avalos in 16th century Naples when he discovered that she had taken a lover, the Duke of Andria, Don Fabrizio Carafa. Don Carlo married his young and pretty cousin Maria in an arranged political marriage, and after fathering a son with her to secure to himself an heir, he turned to hunting and music and completely neglected his wife. Bored, she let herself be seduced by the Duke who was a guest in her home. Don Carlo learned about it from his uncle (not before the uncle also tried to seduce Maria and was rejected), staged a fake hunting trip, came back with three or four thugs, broke into his wife's quarters and surprised the two lovers in bed. The thugs brutally murdered the Duke under Maria's eyes using multiple weapons, and after he was reduced to a bloody pulp Don Carlo stabbed her to death. Given his noble birth and the fact that it was a "honor killing" Don Carlo didn't suffer any legal consequence of his action, but remained to his death haunted by what he had done and still in love with his dead wife.

Yes, the stuff for opera all right!:eek:

In the opera, the characters are simply called the Count and the Countess (Don Carlo and Maria in real life); instead of the uncle we get a servant who also loves the countess and out of jealousy denounces her to the cuckolded husband, and the Duke is simply called The Guest. The murder scene is toned down as opposed to what really happened - The Count brings his wife to the bedroom after the Duke has already been murdered and is laying on the bed under the bed covers; he pulls off the bed covers and shows her the dead body of her lover, then stabs her. There are no thugs and no scene with the brutal multi-weapon killing.

The libretto does not entirely convey the action. The verbal exchanges are more like snippets of raw emotions than real storytelling. One rather follows what goes on inside the minds of the characters. They talk to each other but it is the depiction of love and fear, etc., that comes through. Things are implied more than said. One needs the synopsis to follow what is going on, in the absence of visual media.

The opening scene - the prologue in French based on the eulogy mentioned above in the source material - is very poetic and sets the tone perfectly for what will happen, and is given an orchestral treatment that recurs later in modified form.

Singing by two of the three principals is truly excellent. This is extremely difficult vocal writing, requiring lots of agility, and Ms. Stricker and Mr. Katzameier do a spectacular job. Mr. Wessel on the other hand is not among the best countertenors I've heard. Mr. Jaunin has a small and simple role with no big vocal demands; basically his role calls for little more than a little declamation so it is harder to pass judgment on his voice.

Conductor and orchestra certainly perform this inventive score competently.

Those who are not familiar with or not fond of avant-garde opera may balk at this. I found it truly excellent, and highly recommended.

Attachment 2110

I continue to have trouble with Firefox and inserting images. Now I can do it, but they are small.

Anyway, let's focus on the DVD itself.

This was recorded live at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, in October of 2008.
Lars Ulrik Mortensen conducts the Concerto Copenhagen.

Inger Dam-Jensen is Partenope.
Andreas Scholl is Arsace
Christophe Dumaux is Armindo
Tuva Semmingsen is Rosmira (a.k.a. cross-dressing Eurimene)
Bo Kristian Jensen is Emilio
Palle Knudsen is Ormonte

Technically speaking this is a good product from DECCA, region zero, filmed in HD, with 16:9 anamorphic widescreen, LPCM and DTS 5.0 tracks (one laments that the subwoofer is not fully activated - but the surround effects are good, and sometimes when the singing comes from a corner of the stage it only comes from that side of the surround speakers and the effects are pleasant - oh well, I'm inaugurating my new higher-end set-up - not the highest end but a significant improvement over my old one - with this DVD and I'm very pleased with the sound). Good image definition and colors (although the staging doesn't take advantage of it). There are optional subtitles in numerous languages and a bonus feature (documentary of the rehearsals, 17 minutes-long). The opera running time is 187 minutes.

The Pros:

Exquisite singing by all principals, some better than others (particularly Andreas Scholl, Inger Dam-Jensen and Bo Kristian Jensen) but even the slightly - and I do mean slightly - less good ones (Christophe Dumaux, Tuva Semmingsen) do an excellent job.

Inger Dam-Jensen has good stage presence and is a good match for the role of the proud, powerful and sexy queen - she is an impressive lady although not a beauty.

There is some eye candy for the ladies who like gents or gents who like gents, but not so for gents who like ladies (my case) or ladies who like ladies, in spite of the suggestive cover picture (which is misleading).

HIP in period instruments.

The Cons:

They are numerous, in my opinion.

Unattractive staging with dark scenarios and even darker lighting.

Overacting by many principals - yes, I understand that opera often includes overacting in order to reach the back of the theater but with the frequent close-ups of this camera direction it gets really distracting. And then, with the misguided attempts at humor (see below) the singers seem to be always indecisive between portraying the true complex feelings that the libretto calls for, and making a joke of it all which results in very uneven acting. This is stage direction gone wrong, folks. I don't mind at all updated stagings (this one is done with modern clothing and modern props) but it's gotta be well done. This one is not. It is not Eurotrash. There are no excesses. It's rather a question of guiding the acting into a coherent whole which definitely does not happen here.

It's the kind of product that would be better enjoyed with the TV monitor off, a good candidate for our project of good musical aspects of a DVD (except that I'm less than thrilled with the orchestra so I wouldn't include it there - I mean, the orchestra for me doesn't stand out as a strong positive for this performance as much as some efforts by, say, The English Baroque Soloists or Les Arts Florissants can be). I'm not an authority in orchestras, and maybe someone will say that this Concerto Copenhagen is very good. Maybe I'm just being influenced by the reputation of some other ensembles, but I do think I've approached this performance with an open mind and just wasn't awed like I've been when listening to an opera by some of the other baroque orchestras, when I can't stop dropping my jaw and saying "oh wow!" to myself about the instrumental playing. This awed feeling just isn't there for me, regarding this orchestra. Another way to say this is that conducting and playing in this production, while very good, like brilliance. I'd like to hear the opinion on this from people who know these things better than I do, like emiellucifuge. I'd be willing to reassess my understanding of this orchestra's playing if I'm flat wrong about this, but I repeat, there seems to be something missing for me.

Slapstick kind of humor that falls flat and is detrimental to the enjoyment of this rather dramatic work - case in point the battle scenes which in my humble opinion tried to be clever and ended up being ridiculous. The public seems to have loved it since they can't stop applauding at all little "clever" tricks, which is in itself distracting, I'd like to shout "shut up" when they applaud *during* the singing/playing just because the direction came up with something "clever" like a singer entering the stage by sliding down a rope. Yeah, big deal. Can we listen to the music, please??? Not to say that the laughing at the lame slapstick acting is also distracting since it happens during the singing. I don't know what is wrong with this public. Do they want to watch a comedy? Go to the movies, then, there are plenty of silly Hollywood comedies playing in multiplexes. Do they want to watch dramatic 17th/18th century opera? Then listen to the opera, dammit!!!

Too much stage noise. One would want the sound engineer to have generated some noise cancelling waves to compensate for those, before releasing the final product.

Abuse of close-ups and too many camera cuts that get to be shaky and dizzying. Some of the camera work (fortunately not a lot) is done with handheld cameras. Damn, this trend that spoils so many films is getting into opera as well??? I mean, I like the old efforts started by Lars von Trier and his pals, but the craze of action films with handheld cameras became very annoying and I'd hate to see it penetrate the world of opera as well.

The opera itself:

The libretto is one of the most convoluted ever set to music by Handel, and we know how some Handel operas have a knack for convoluted libretti (while some others - the ones I tend to like more, like the recent - for me - example of Hercule have more clarity and directness). This one overdoes it. There are so many plot twists and so much ambivalence and changes of mind and multiple shifting love allegiances that at one point it all becomes a turn-offish mess, to the point that one thinks - "oh, whatever, let me just listen to the music."

Musically of course the opera is very satisfactory. I'm still to find a work by Handel that I don't like musically. The man was a genius.

So, what is the verdict? It's a tough one. I guess I'd say recommended, given the excellent singing across the board and the formidable performance from Inger and Andreas (the latter is a singer who can't go wrong, he's consistently excellent in everything that he does), plus the good technical quality of the product. So, just the pleasure of listening to and watching two gifted singers/actors in the two main roles justify the buy. But certainly I've seen better in terms of camera work and updated stagings of Handel's operas.

Oh, I forgot to mention the culprits for the weak stage direction and the weak direction for TV: respectively Francesco Negrin and Uffe Borgwardt - so that others who think like me avoid their future works (although obviously there are some who love what they do, given the wild applause from the public - If I were there, it would be hard for me to restrain from booing the stage director - I never do this, but I'd be tempted).

2008(LI) - Antonio Florio - Orchestra Barocca Cappella della Pietà dei Turchini (period instruments)

Opera House: Teatro Municipale Valli di Reggio Emilia

Singers:
Filippo Morace - Giangrazio - excellent
Maria Grazia Schiavo - Faustina - excellent
Maria Ercolano (trouser role) - Luigi/Ascanio (Alidoro) - excellent
Valentina Varriale - Zeza - good+
Gianpiero Ruggeri - Meo - good
Francesca Russo Ermolli - Elisa - good-
Giuseppe de Vittorio - Don Marcello - so, so; clearly the weak link
Nino Bruno - Cicco - silent role



Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) was a Neapolitan baroque composer (actually, born in a small town - San Vito dei Normanni - that then belonged to the Kingdom of Naples) who studied music at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchinni, after which the orchestra that plays in this performance is named.

Leo is relatively obscure in the world of opera, and is better known for his sacred music compositions. His claim to fame is the fact that he was the first composer of the Neapolitan school to master modern harmonic counterpoint. Still, he composed a large number of serious and comic operas (42 in total). His serious operas are said to suffer from a coldness and severity of spirit (Demofoonte, Farnace, L'Olimpiade - the latter, not to be confouded with Gallupi's version). His comic operas, on the other hand, have a reputation for a keen sense of humor, and include his most famous one, La Finta Frascatana, (a.k.a. Amor Vuol Sofferenze) as well as a pair of comic operas with libretti in Neapolitan dialect, La 'mpeca Scoperta, and the one that I'm reviewing today, L'Alidoro, which premiered in 1740 and was lost for centuries. It has been recently rediscovered during a cataloguing of art finds, in the Abbey of Montecassino during the early 21st Century. This DVD contains its first staging in modern times.

The libretto is by Gennarantonio Federico. Here is a link to it, with English translation:

http://www.dynamiclassic.it/area_pub...20Libretto.pdf

The work explores a divided world in which the characters speak and sing in different languages, according to their station: Neapolitan for the servants, and Tuscan for the masters. The masters are erotically attracted to the servants, while the servants are only attracted to their own.

Delightful overture, delicately and beautifully played by the period orchestra.
Surprisingly good singing by this completely unknown, all-Italian, local cast.
Charming period costumes, but with minimalist staging with some anachronisms (iron patio furniture).



The arias and ensembles are very, very pleasant.
Oh boy, this looks very good indeed.

OK, folks: this is a WINNER!!!
It's dynamic, witty, funny (in a reserved kind of way, not funny haha, but smart funny), varied, entertaining, masterfully put together.

The multiple intrigues are quite interesting.

A rich man (Gingrazio) has a playboy good-for-nothing son (Don Marcello). He brings from Naples a suitable bride for his son (Faustina) who comes with her sister (Elisa) - apparently they are his nieces; weird, no taboo about marrying inside the family?? He's got a servant (Luigi, who for some misterious reason likes to call himself Ascanio, it's never explained - and is the Alidoro of the title role, meaning Golden Wings). The female inn keeper (Zeza) and the miller (Meo) complete the list of characters, with a silent role for the inn busboy (Cicco).

So Marcello is promised to Faustina, but loves/lusts over Zeza - who is in love with Meo and vice-versa, but neither one will confess it to the other, and Meo keeps suspecting Zeza of willing to drop him for the rich pretender - which she's not about to do, and she keeps whining about the fact that Meo doesn't see her love for him and doesn't give her any attention.

Gingrazio is unhappy because his son is not accepting the rich bride Faustina but rather has his eyes on poor girl Zeza; then he goes to the field to investigate, and falls for Zeza himself, who gets even more desperate at these two rich men, father and son, flirting with her while all she wants is the miller Meo. Meanwhile, the servant Luigi/Ascanio/Alidoro loves Faustina and vice-versa, and is hoping that playboy Marcello will get Zeza and leave Faustina for him. But Faustina's sister Elisa loves Luigi too, and aggressively pursues him, and Faustina is jealous and afraid that Luigi will fall for her sister.

Elisa feels scorned and insists that Gingrazio must fire Luigi, which he is willing to do, and does.

Things heat up. Meo openly suspects Zeza of making love to Gingrazio and under the pressure of complaining out lout about it, confesses his love for Zeza. Gingrazio calls him off on his delusional jealousy, insists that he never did such thing to poor Zeza, who runs away crying.

Faustina goes to battle for Luigi, confronting Elisa on why she wanted Luigi fired. Elisa says she could revert it all, as long as Luigi would agree with loving her.

Faustina goes to Luigi and tells him about it. He says he could fool Elisa into thinking that he loves her. Faustina declares herself very confused, says that when she is with him, she feels that she's losing him and doesn't know what to think.

Gingrazio meets Luigi and tells him he will reinstate him if he can help him. He wants Luigi to get Marcello to marry Faustina the same evening. Gingrazio will "pretend" to be in love with Zeza to chase Marcello away from Zeza and get him to marry Faustina. Gingrazio exits. Luigi says to himself he will never let this happen - in a magnificent, heroic da capo aria!

Marcello goes flirt some more with Zeza who turns him down in no equivocal terms. Still, Meo is jealous and continues to think that she is willing to give herself to one of the two rich gentlemen.

Marcello tries again and Zeza hits him and breaks his shoulder. Now Meo starts to believe that she is not as fickle as he thought. Gingrazio comes in and tries to earn Zeza's love, who rejects him just as strongly, threatening with an iron spike (this is witnessed by Meo who is looking at the scene from behind stuff). She exits.

Gingrazio asks Luigi to get Zeza to comply with his demands. He does the messenger between the two of them, which enrages Meo, who denounces what Luigi is doing and engages in a sword fight with him. People calm them down, get in between, Meo leaves, but Marcello continues the sword fight against Luigi (why??? OK, folks, this is opera).

Zeza goes out looking for Meo and finds him. He says that he saw how she rejected both rich gentlemen and how he is sorry of having doubted her, and they declare their love for each other; embrace. Lovely love scene, lovely music. The silent page dresses like a priest and seems to bless their love.

Meanwhile Luigi has been injured during the sword fight. When Gingrazio goes to tend to his shoulder wound (just a scratch) he sees a birth mark - two golden wings on his shoulder - and realizes that Luigi is his long lost son Alidoro. He and his late wife had lost him while vacationing in a beach town near Genoa. He was found by a Genoese gentleman and given the name Luigi, but he is really Alidoro.

Marcello and Alidoro are introduced to the fact that they are brothers, and stop their fight. Alidoro declares his love for Faustina, and Gingrazio blesses their love and agrees that they should marry. Meo and Zeza say that they're getting married too.

Gingrazio tells Marcello that he should marry Elisa. Both Elisa and Marcello, realizing that they had lost plan A, decide that plan B (getting married to each other) is a good idea. The three couples and the benevolent father rejoice. Curtain.

Pretty good, exciting libretto.

Excellent music, always lively and enticing, with good pace.

On top of it, the production is beautifully staged with tasteful choices, and exquisitely sung, conducted, and played.

A+, highly recommended. Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!

One wonders what else is out there lost in history. This is a true operatic masterpiece. Now I look forward to other works by Leonardo Leo. It is interesting - how can fame be so random? Why is Leonardo Leo so obscure, when this opera, not even considered to be his best, is as good as many of the top operas in the repertory that have endured the test of time? Why was it forgotten??? Maybe it is a question of being on the right place at the right time, and Leonardo Leo seems to have lost the train and didn't make it.

But maybe now, 250 years later, we'll give him his due.

Bravo, Leonardo Leo, as belated as this is.:tiphat::clap:

1996 - William Christie - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Glyndebourne Chorus

Stellar cast of exquisite singers - Upshaw, Hunt, Daniels, Croft as principals, and minor roles also very good.

I'm a little puzzled - if I understood correctly, some of our members object to this production (probably mainly due to the updated staging).

I find it absolutely spectacular. First of all, this an oratorio, not an opera. So, the staging shouldn't be considered subversive in any way, because it is there just adding visual elements, and they are strikingly beautiful. It's not like Sellars was tampering with Handel's stage instructions. I don't know if you all consider this to be a valid point, but for me it is. I think in a way that it is more acceptable to add some striking imagery to an oratorio than to frontally contradict the author's staging instructions for an opera. In this case there are no staging instructions, so, I feel that letting the imagination soar up to the sky is less upsetting; at least, to me. I'm fully aware of the internal contradiction in what I'm saying, since Handel never intended this to be staged in the first place, so some will say that it is even worse tampering... but strangely enough, the above is the way I feel.

Second, I've rarely seen such a spectacular MUSICAL performance on DVD. You all know that I prefer opera (well, generally speaking, because it's an oratorio here, but done in a very operatic way) with the visual/theatrical aspects, but I'm fully aware that my choice prevents me from spending as much money on the top recordings with the best singing artists (I spend enough on DVD's and blu-rays, I can't afford both my collection of opera on visual media - by now, somewhat extensive - AND an equally extensive collection of CD box-sets).

So, when I see a DVD that has exquisite singing, it's the best of two worlds, and I surely won't fault this production for what some will say it's objectionable staging.

You get a formidable conductor, a spectacular historically informed period orchestra, top singers in all roles and what you get is lots, lots, lots of pleasure.

I feel that I don't even need to write up a detailed review of this product. It would just be a boring gushing endless string of praise. I'll just say, A+, highly recommended!!!

My dear friend Natalie loves this, so, I approached it with high expectations.

2009(LC) - Nicholas McGegan - FestspielOrchester Göttingen

Admeto - Tim Mead
Alceste - Marie Arnet
Ercole - William Berger
Orlindo - Andrew Radley
Trasimede - David Bates
Antigona - Kirsten Blaise
Meraspe - Wold Matthias Friedrich

Mamu Dance Theater - Solo dance and choreography - Tadashi Endo

Staged by Doris Dörrie

Technical quality of this product: impecable. Perfect Hi-Def image (a blu-ray is also available) with vivid colors in 16:9 format; PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 sound with excellent balance; sutbtitles in Italian, English, German, and French, bonus feature with a 21-minute film on Baroque and Butoh dancing; insert with short essay and synopsis in English, German, and French.

Staging: Very interesting. The director is Doris Dörries of Cherry Blossoms fame. She has staged this Händel opera with a Greek mythology subject matter in a Japanese Samurai culture setting. The images are stunning, although some parts have humor that I find to be misguided and distracting (such as the scenes with the sheep), and some satirical costumes fall flat in my opinion (such as Ercole's ridiculous Sumo wrestler padding).

And then, I have some strong feelings about the use of boobs in this staging.

I haven't read all the credits attentively, so it is possible that at some point there was a phrase saying "no boobs were harmed during the making of this production." Fine, but then, you have to consider psychological damage as well.

Boobs are very delicate things. They are the most beautiful creatures on Earth, and they deserve worship, adoration, gentle squeezes and licks, and they must be displayed in all their glory.

Instead, Ms. Doris Dörries has allowed lovely naked boobs to be displayed by grotesque characters like the ghosts and spirits in the opening scene (people with crossed eyes and evil looks), and even worse, displayed by sheep!

I know, I know, isn't it despicable? I mean, lovely boobs being displayed by women disguised as dumb sheep??? Get out of here, Ms. Dörries, have a sense of eroticism, please!

Boobs are deservedly narcissistic creatures. I'm sure that these otherwise finely shaped boobs were deeply hurt by being forced to appear in such disgusting ways. Yeah, right, your lawyers must have inserted the phrase about no boobs being damaged; I'm sure they weren't physically hurt, but no self-respecting boob will fail to feel psychologically devastated by the way she was treated in this production!:mad:

Rest assured, Ms. Dörries, that I'll be talking to my lawyers, and to the AAABB (the American Association for the Advancement of Beautiful Boobs). You'll get a knock on our door one of these days, you boob hater!!:scold:

Conducting, orchestra - period instruments, competent conducting, very appropriate (no fireworks, though).

Singing: homogeneously good, but again, no big thrills. The male alto in the title role does a good job. Everybody sings beautifully.

The opera itself: lovely, of course. It is Händel. Has Händel ever composed anything that is not sublime?

And here is where this production doesn't earn my praise as much as it did for Natalie: doing it the Japanese way doesn't make it memorable per se.

The problem with staging Händel operas is that they are *all* very good. One after the other, you have this gorgeous vocal music, this thrilling orchestration, these finely nuanced characters, this good dramatic/theatrical impact.

But the problem with them being all so good is that then, each single one seems to be more of the same. When I try to rank the dozen operas by Händel that I know, I tend to be a bit confused; they are all so similarly enjoyable!

This is why, in my opinion, there are so many rather extreme stagings of Händel's operas. I believe that stage directors feel that they have to rescue the piece and make it somehow unique, as opposed to the consistently good, always sublime, always reliably beautiful operas that Händel used to churn out, one after the other.

Case in point, the spectacular, dynamic, thrilling, vivacious, lively staging of Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne.

Has Ms. Dörrie achieved the same effect here? I don't think so. Transposing the opera into Samurai culture is not enough, as strikingly beautiful as the images are. You need more intensity, more dramatic power, and this staging for me is more visually stunning than substantial.

And then, there is the misuse of them lovely boobs, dammit!!!

I give to this production a score of about 85, or B. Recommended. But not highly recommended (which I reserve for those that I score at 90 or more, or in other words, A- or more).

OK, folks, this is it, again. This is opera.

Some cognoscenti will tell you that La Favorite(a) is Donizetti's best opera. While I don't entirely agree (I'd say Roberto Devereux is more melodious, and L'Elisir d'Amore is more fun), this is one darn good opera.

So here I am today, Friday evening; the wife is asleep, we have watched the delayed tape of the Royal Wedding on TV together, and then she went to bed and left me alone with my second passion - after her; she is my absolute first passion; my beloved wife, and she does share my second one with me as well, but not as much: opera.



As I'm watching this, I'm a little depressed. I'm questioning the operatic path I've taken - going for the visual media, believing in the "entire work of art" concept, rather than going for the best vinyl/CD recordings.

Because, see, great opera requires great singing. And with the overwhelming new media - YouTube, DVD's, blu-rays - we got plenty of images, but I'd say that the singing is not entirely there.

Case in point, this DVD.

This is a perfomance recorded live in Tokyo in 1971. Forty years ago. The NHK Symphony Orchestra is exquisitely conducted by Oliviero de Fabritiis.

Fernando is Alfredo Krauss. Leonora is Fiorenza Cossotto. Baldassarre is Ruggero Raimondi. Alfonso XI is Sesto Bruscantini. The minor roles of Don Gasparo and Ines are respectively sung by Augusto Pedroni and Marisa Zotti.

Technical quality of this DVD: appaling. It is, frankly, worse than many non-professional DVD's I've seen. Grainy image, primitive camera work, and a damn prompter who can be heard out loud in many essential moments. Oh God, this is so annoying!! This 40-years-old product seems as bad as any home movie I've recorded with a shaky hand-held camera on the occasion of my kids' birthday parties.

But then, like I said, great opera requires great singing.

Alfred Kraus delivers one of the most impressive tenor performances I've ever seen/heard in my entire life.

Oh! My! God!

I've seen this guy many times on YouTube videos, mostly past his prime. I've heard many recordings with him, some good, some bad after wear and tear got him.

But I had never seen Alfred Kraus at the very peak of his ability, in full control of his artistry, in his absolutely top prime time, singing like God's gift to humankind. You have it all right here, folks, on this La Favorita DVD.

This is amazing. Incredible. Extraordinary.

This DVD couldn't be more faulty. Every single technical aspect is a disaster. Many of the other singers are mediocre at best. I don't like Fiorenza Cossotto in this production at all. Marisa Zotti as Ines is painfully weak.

And yet... and yet...

You have three male singers - Alfred Kraus, the tenor, in the role of Fernando. Sesto Bruscantini the baritone as Alfonso XI. Ruggero Raimondi the bass as Baldassarre.

They are all three simply spectacular. You guys need to see it to believe it.

This is sublime singing. We don't see this kind of thing these days. We have to travel back in time 40 years to get to this level of expertise.

Alfred Kraus has me in tears. Listening to his PERFECT delivery of every single damn note is an orgasmic experience, and in itself justifies the fact that this otherwise very faulty DVD should be an obligatory item in any serious opera lover's collection.

Not to forget that Donizetti's opera in itself is fabulous.

Highly recommended. For Donizetti's incredible score and vocal writing. For Ruggero Raimondi's Baldassarre. And over everything else, for Alfred Kraus' Fernando, a performance for the ages.

Bravo. Bravo. Bravo. Bravo.

And thank you for reminding me that great opera takes a great composer like Donizetti, and a great tenor like Kraus.

Franz Schreker premiered this opera in 1918. The production I'm watching is from the Salzburg Festival in 2005, conducted by Kent Nagano, with the Deutches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The title means 'the stigmatized' or 'the branded ones.'



Impecable technical quality of the DVD with 16:9 anamorphic widescreen, linear PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS 5.1 (I love it when there is DTS). Subtitles in German, English, French, and Spanish. Image and sound are simply gorgeous, almost blu-ray quality. The text in the liner insert is insightful but short and there is no synopsis. Camera direction by Andreas Morell is expertly done. One regrets that such a quality DVD doesn't have extras, interviews, documentaries. Oh well, we can't have it all. The running time is 135 minutes.

Conduction and orchestra are phenomenal, making the best out of Schreker's outstanding overture which is said to, in itself, justify his claim to fame (I'd agree).

It is profoundly regretful, however, that there are approximately 20 minutes of cuts in the orchestral parts. There is no third act pantomime, and second act vocal lines about the painting of Alviano's portrait have been eliminated.

Sound balance between singers and orchestra is good, but sound engineering is one of the only faultive aspect of this EuroArts DVD with microphone placement in the huge stage not always capturing the singers' voices with the same relative volume when there are too many characters singing simultaneously. The problem doesn't happen when only one or two characters are singing.

Stage design by Raimund Bauer is strikingly beautiful. Direction by Nikolaus Lehnhoff is impressive, in the matter of placement of singers on stage as well as the dynamics of the various spaces. Costumes are creative and interesting. But then, there are problems. The original opera does start with the main character engaging in cross-dressing, but the staging takes this too far by continuing it beyond the initial scene (not the case in the original opera) and makes the painting scene unrecognizable - instead of painting Alviano on a canvas, Carlotta instead removes his pieces of feminine clothing, leaving him wearing a body stocking. It is interesting in terms of conveying the baring of his soul (which *is* in the libretto) but for those who don't know the plot, it all becomes quite incomprehensible - the inevitable bit of Eurotrash staging.

Acting is first rate. There is very good casting in the sense that the singers very much look their parts. Singing is mostly of high quality, with some exceptions.

Robert Brubaker as Alviano is particularly good with a powerful, sonore voice very well projected above the very extensive orchestral forces, and also nuanced with good musicality, as well as excellent articulation. He does falter in a couple of moments but when you consider the fact that he's got a lot of stage time, he does extremely well. Michael Volle is Tamare and does his part very well too, with a sort of raw brutality, but he seems to be less musically savvy than Brubaker (or maybe his vocal writing is just less subtle, given the character's boorish persona).

The numerous secondary male roles for the most part do a very good job - Robert Hale, Wolfgang Schöne, and various others.

The leading soprano in the role of Carlotta is Anne Schwanewilms. She looks very classy and is fairly attractive (a bit too old for the role), although her singing is less pleasant to my ears than that of her male counterparts (she has her fans, but I'm not one of them and I don't find her voice to be particular beautiful, it is actually a bit unpleasant in parts, too steely). Upon warming up she does get better, but I'd still say that for me she is the weakest link (those who like her voice will disagree), which is a pitty given how mostly everything else goes well for my tastes in this production (minus the incomprehensible Eurotrashy changes made to the second act painting scene, and the musical cuts).

Musically speaking this opera is quite spectacular, with incredible tone-painting, and an ever-moving through-composed score with parlando vocal lines that sometimes soar up in beautiful effects. This opera seems to sit pretty in the middle of the modernist movement, and plays like a cross between Wagner, early R. Strauss, and Berg, being both melodious and fractured (the former especially in the first act, and the latter especially in the chaotic and maddening third act).

Talking about the third act, yes, there are boobs, but Alma's Boob-O-Meter didn't show a high reading. The boobs are cute enough, but the way they are presented is not really erotic. It works, though, it's a Venice carnival kind of thing (but this is Genoa?!?!) and they add to the exoticism of the costumes. But unlike this writer's usual disposition, the boobs didn't really add a lot to his (my) enjoyment of this production. Oh well, it's always better to have boobs than not.;)

Boobs or not, the third act *is* outstanding, delivering some of the best operatic moments of the 20th century. After seeing this, I won't say that it has dislodged Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District as my favorite 20th century opera, but it got close to doing it.

The theatricality of the libretto is strong, with good character development and psychological depth. The plot is the story of an ugly man, Alviano (tenor), and his struggle to find his place in the world among those who are lucky to be beautiful. Carlotta is a consumptive painter who wants to draw his portrait, and in her artistic enthusiasm she seems to fall for him, which quite overwhelms him. However once she finishes the painting, the magic is broken, and she falls instead for the viril Tamare (baritone). Alviano goes mad, kills Tamare, and Carlotta dies calling for Tamare (hehehe, one of the rare cases in which the soprano falls for the baritone).

The are some more plot elements (involving Alviano's island, the people of Genoa, dissolute friends, orgies - one of the reasons why the Nazis banned this opera as 'degenerate Jewish art') but the above is the lowdown.

This is a fine example of modernist opera, packed into a high quality DVD product. It may function as a good transition for those who want to migrate from baroque, classical and romantic opera to modernist and contemporary opera.

Highly recommended.

I'm watching this now, barely got to half of the running time (108 minutes) but I'm sure I have formed my opinion already, which is unlikely to change even though the most famous number from this opera is still to came in the last act (Vainemant, ma bien aimée).



First, technically: mostly, impecable product, with linear PCM stereo track or Dolby Surround and excellent sound engineering and balance by Dynamic's proprietary method ODS, subtitles in five languages, insert with text in four languages including an essay on the composer and the opera, and the synopsis. Very sharp image on 16:9 format.

This is a live composite recording over three nights in April of 2008, at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, with their chorus and orchestra, conducted by Patrick Davin.

The very, very, very pretty Giuseppina Piunti (it's her on the cover picture but that picture doesn't even start doing her beauty any justice) sings the role of Margared. Guylaine Girard is Rozenn, Eric Martin-Bonnet is the king (title role, but with very little stage time), Sébastien Guèze is the leading tenor singing Mylio (young and good looking, ladies!) while Werner Van Mechelen is the evil baritone Karnac (it's him on the cover). Léonard Graus is Saint Corentin (we have a walking talking statue here, folks, like in Don Giovanni), and Marc Tissons completes the cast in the minor role of Jahel.

OK, so, the good points are the technical quality of the product, and the beauty of the leading soprano.

And that's about it, folks. Everything else goes downhill from this point on.

First of all, Giuseppina is spectacular-looking, but can't sing, not even for her life if need be. She can yell, though, and she spends the entire opera yelling really loud.

So do all the others, almost. It's a yelling festival. The one guy who refrains from the terrible yelling is the baritone, and while he's nothing to write home about, he earns the best singing in this production, since he doesn't yell. And he gets to kiss Giuseppina's neck and squeeze her boobs, so, he got the best part, no doubt.

Oh, OK, I just got to the part with the statue, a bass, and he doesn't yell either. Too bad he's got only a few lines. When we listen to him, we almost remember that this is supposed to be an opera.

The other female is less good looking (nice boobs, though), and almost as bad as Giuseppina in terms of singing. The young tenor is appalingly bad. You gotta see it to believe it, folks! Another yeller, and worse of all, he yells off-pitch.

The acting couldn't be more stiff and artificial. OK, so Giuseppina can't sing *and* can't act. Not good. Not even her looks will save her in my appreciation or lack thereof.

The staging is quite ridiculous. Where on Earth have they found those costumes? Gee, the enemy soldiers look like overgrown lobsters, and the locals are only a little bit less ridiculous with their shiny green outfits. And why go through the trouble of making the King look silly with his artificially bald head on the top and long hair on the bottom? What were they thinking?

Musically: mediocre chorus, mediocre orchestra. Oh well, to make it worse, the gorgeous aria Vainemant, ma bien aimée has just started, and God, it was murdered by this youngster. He should be ashamed. And think that this was recorded over three nights, so this may have been his best effort of the three nights. I wonder how horrible he was in the other two.

Now the opera itself: it's kind of a lost opportunity because the libretto is not terrible, the story has potential (a love triangle, the two princesses love the same guy (Mylio), he picks one (Rozenn - the one who in this production is not as good looking, stupid boy, LOL), the other (Margared) allies herself with the kingdom's enemy Karnac for revenge, and opens a dam to flood the city and kill everybody; then repents, throws herself into the raising waters, and the Deus Ex-Machina (the walking/talking statue of the saint) saves the people. Not bad. But musically, It's hard to say since I had never heard it before (except for the most famous tenor aria which is a common concert piece), so it may be that the terrible singers and the mediocre orchestra are just spoiling it for me, but I don't think so. It does sound pretty lame in terms of orchestration and vocal writing, with just a few exceptions.

So here is the bottom line:

Get some pictures of Giuseppina Piunti from Google Images, and forget about this DVD.

Not recommended.





PS - Now I've finished it, and I have to report that the staging got even worse at the end. First of all, unlike the libretto says, the statue doesn't appear in the final scene. Second, we don't get to see Giuseppina jumping to her death, she only runs through a catwalk. But worst of it, they did manage to get an impressive effect of the overflowing dam using liquid nitrogen, but then, when everybody is singing "the waters are still raising" they lower the waters some 2 or 3 minutes before they were supposed to do it (before her sacrifice and the saint's intervention to lower the waters). This may win the cake for the most ridiculous operatic staging I've seen - you know, it's not Regie, they did try a straightforward traditional staging, it's just because of these laughable mistakes (the costumes, the waters receding too soon... and again, they recorded this over three days, go figure, didn't anybody tell the stage director that the waters were receding ahead of time?!?!).

Oh well, the curtain calls show Giuseppina looking lovely with a big smile, and when she bows we can see a generous dose of her breasts. There is salvation for this DVD after all, during the last few seconds.:lol:

2006(LI) - Christopher Rousset - Les Talens Lyriques + The Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra and Chorus + Jennie Lindstrom and the Drottningholm Theatre Dancers

Zoroastre - Anders J. Dahlin
Abramane - Evgueniy Alexiev
Amélite - Sine Bundgaard
Erinice - Anna Maria Panzarella
Zopire/La Vengeance - Lars Arvidson
Narbanor - Markus Schwartz
Oromasès/Ariman - Gérard Théruel
Céphie - Ditte Andersen

This is Rameau's The Magic Flute. We encounter the same Sarastro a.k.a. Zarathustra a.k.a. Zorastre, fighting evil and darkness as a Freemason. Instead of a magic flute, we have a magic book, and plenty of black magic, with the inevitable triumph of goodness at the end, through the intervention of a Deus Ex-Machina. There is no Queen of the Night, but rather her male counterpart, Abramane.

The goodies are Zoroastre and his love interest Amélite, who is abused and tortured and emprisoned and threatened with various deadly blades throughout the opera, all resulting in numerous opportunities to display her gorgeous cleavage and beautiful little breasts (no nudity, just the top part above the nipples), just as much as her sidekick Céphie, equally well served in the mammary gland department.

The baddies are Abramane and Erinice (nice boobs too), plus a few minions and a cohort of yummy women who act like zombies.

Yummy dancers intervene at various moments, with a weird choreography that seems to be a mix of martial arts with sign language for the deaf.

Camera work includes a very convenient viewpoint from the roof of the theater, which is very instrumental when looking down the cleavage of the various yummy women.

Alma's Boob-O-Meter was blinking and beeping throughout the evening!:cool:

The plot is silly, very black and white; black being the baddies, and white being the goodies. It is rather slow, and various lead changes occur - the baddies have the upper hand, then the goodies, then the baddies, then the goodies, then the baddies, then the goodies. And have I mentioned that it is all very sloooooooow? (Running time, almost three hours).

So, dreadful, right? No, not really. Rather interesting and enticing - not to forget the gorgeous boobs. The music is very beautiful. The singing is exquisite by almost everybody except maybe the title role who sounds less enthusiastic, sort of business as usual, a pity - good voice but he doesn't seem to be as into it as the other singers. The two female leads have the best singing moments.

The period orchestra does very well, and the staging is very interesting. It's done in one of the last few preserved baroque theathers, and apparently the only one that has all the old machinery intact, with amazingly fast and swift scene changes.

It's staged the way it must have been done at the time of Rameau, minus the weird martial arts and sign language choreography (which I bet wasn't the way the ballets were done - why do everything "period," but pick such a misplaced choreography???).

Technical quality is perfect with spectacular sound and HD image, excellent extras and multiple features/subtitles.

Overall, highly recommended, but you gotta be in the mood for slow baroque opera. If you like boobs, it helps.;)

399 years of opera… I’ve just watched Itinerário do Sal (Salt Itinerary) by contemporary Portuguese composer Miguel Azguime, pushing my temporal operatic span to almost four centuries, given that the oldest opera that I’ve seen is Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo composed in 1607, and this one is from 2006.


It’s proposed, in terms of classification, as an “electroacoustic and multimedia opera.” It is available on DVD. There are two nice extras – a 35-minute fascinating interview with the composer, and a 10-minute documentary with the audience, with dozens of people who were walking out of the theater being stopped and asked the question: “Is this really an opera?” The answers are insightful and interesting – and I’d definitely agree with the predominant opinion that yes, this piece is definitely an opera.



OK, so, I started by doing my “homework,” that is, by reading the two short essays, the biographies, and the libretto. At one point I was thinking, “oh boy, I want my money back, can I just send this crap back without even watching it?” This sort of prejudiced view was brought about by certain phrases from one of the essays: “It is as though the sound wrote the sound itself. The same might be said of the writing: the lines trace their own possibility as a written form.” [Whaaaat??? Says Almaviva]:eek:

It continues: “Sound and line are notations in the second degree: the being that they designate is the being that they themselves are.” “The signs become the actual music and the body another disincarnate sign object.” “By means of the multiplying effect of mediations and sensorial saturation that they imply, the digital machine allows the textualization of sense in the sensors, the sonic effects and the projections. The digitalization that affects language itself is manifest in the combinatorial logic that regulates the phrasal structures and in the paronymy which determines variations in the words.”

By now I’m thinking –“Holly crap! Where is the exit door??? What kind of pseudointellectual drivel is this?”:mad:

Then I decide to calm down and read the libretto before I throw this thing in the garbage can. It doesn’t reassure me at all. Here are some parts of the libretto, for your delight:

“Blable blebla blelebela
Belelabas labalebe
Lebalabele belebala
Labalaba balalabe”

And another part:

“tataaca… taacata… tatacaa… cataata…”

(It makes no sense in Portuguese either).

OK, I’m thinking, where is some_guy who recommended this crap to me? Is he going to refund me my $30? I’m feeling pretty angry, and thinking that this was not what I had planned for my day of watching opera with my wife.

“Oh well,” I tell my wife, ”it’s not likely that some_guy will send us a check in the mail for our trouble and I doubt that we have a case for a legal suit for emotional damage, so we may as well pop this ** into the DVD player and have a laugh at the excesses of vanguard contemporary so-called composers.”

That’s when this thing blew us away and left us speechless.

Oh! My! God! This is a brilliant piece of work, wildly creative, utterly fascinating! We watched it with a smile on our faces from the first through the 50th minute, and regretted it when it ended! We wanted more!

Mr. Azguime, while trained in flute and piano as well, is primarily a percussionist. Most of what we might call orchestration in this piece – I mean, metaphorically speaking since there is no orchestra – is percussion, augmented by electronic means. But wow, this is probably the most interesting percussion I’ve ever seen. He does his percussion with his *voice*, his fingers, and a sort of electronic table (I’ve seen one of those in a friend’s house) that makes reverberations out of a magnetic field, and you play it by waving a metallic object above it. What is most interesting about this, is the fact that he uses *words* as percussion elements.

And here, a strong caveat: many of the most genial aspects of the work have to do with how he uses and twists the phonemes of the Portuguese language, and with his puns and word play. If you don’t speak Portuguese you’ll miss much of the fun. But there’s still fun to be had even without the linguistic aspects.

It is a one-man show. It’s just Mr. Azguime on stage, with his weird percussion table, and two large video screens behind him. He “sings,” acts, and plays his percussion. I’d say, yes, it’s singing, since he uses his voice to produce a number of effects that do have a musical quality, in terms of using the timbre of his voice, having rhythmic intervals, etc. And besides, percussion is music too.

As for the acting, it is simply phenomenal. Mr. Azguime does stuff with his facial expressions that you must see to believe in it, like for example in the “coughing” sequence. The video component is very interesting as well. We’re in the company of an accomplished and intelligent artist.

While there is no plot so to speak, the three parts *are* coherent, make sense, and show a logical progression. They start with a good dose of metalanguage, playing with the concept of the presence versus the absence of the author, in a reflection that is a bit of opera-within-the-opera as it introduces scenes of the public entering the theater and supposedly asking themselves – has it started already? – while the author/performer/composer is sitting on the stage but visible just as a shadow. Multiple images of eyes stare at the public (there is a nice explanation for his idea of these eyes, in his interview).

The second part brings us to the core of the message being conveyed here, one that Jacques Lacan and his disciples would love: essentially, the power of the signifier: the formal envelope of sound that constitutes words, the materiality of sound itself with its aspects of moving air, vibrations, waves – and how the combination of these elements can transmit meaning.

Mr. Azguime knows sounds, and lavishly demonstrates his expertise. We can almost feel the oscillation of sound waves, and we can see them as well on the screen behind him. He plays with a pen as a writing instrument that can produce sounds on his percussion table. Letters are projected behind him and on top of him, they combine to form signifiers, and they begin to shape up a story that while subtle and abstract, does make sense: the story of creativity itself, the attempt to answer the question of what exactly is this thing that an artist can transmit to his audience.

Finally the third part brings us to the meaning of his title, the Salt Itinerary. Salt is white. Mr. Azguime talks to us about a light that encompasses everything to the point that nothing can be seen any longer, just a white blindness. It reminds me of Mr. Azguime’s fellow Portuguese artist José Saramago, the Nobel Prize winning author of Blindness, a book in which the metaphorical epidemic of blindness that hits Portugal has all inhabitants but one seeing only white in front of them. When pushed to its limit, the creative/artistic process takes an itinerary that goes from the presence/absence of the artist, to an attempt to transmit, to an excess of transmitted meaning (the infinite combinations of signifiers) that ends up obliterating everything, first in an oppresive black confluence of letters and words, next into a vast whiteness akin to death.

Salt is also life and spice, he tells us later in his interview, but I do see in the ending of his opera a notion of a complete arc that touches some kind of impossibility, of fading and disappearing into a sea of whiteness. The Epilogue opens with the words: “Out there / outside the itinerary / there’s no salt / there’s not enough salt for them / and not enough sun.” It sounds quite nihilistic to me.

This work is profoundly expressive, and causes inside the very being of the spectator a deep emotional experience.

Is it opera, after all? You bet. Mr. Azguime says in his interview that he thought that calling this piece “opera” would be provocative – as opposed to something like “multimedia one-man show with musical (i.e., the percussion kind) and theatrical aspects,” and he does realize that it doesn’t fit the frame of 19th century operas, for example. But then, he thought of Monteverdi, and decided that he is entitled to calling his work an opera. It is actually closer to Monteverdi than 19th century opera is. It puts on stage a relatively static singer/actor who throws at the audience a modulated sea of sounds that are used to convey a dramatic arc.

399 years later if he could be here among us to witness this, I think that Monteverdi would have liked this piece. I did. Actually, I loved it!

Highly recommended. Thanks, some_guy! You don’t need to mail me that refund after all!:tiphat: