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Rossini on DVD and Blu-ray

26K views 98 replies 21 participants last post by  SixFootScowl 
#1 ·


Marilyn Horne (Isabella)
Paolo Montarsolo (Mustafa)
Allan Monk (Taddeo)
Douglas Ahlstedt (Lindoro)

James Levine
Metropolitan Opera

Fabulous DVD of one of Rossini's most famous comedies. Good production with many genuinely funny moments. Very good acting and singing from everyone involved. But the star of the show without a shadow of a doubt is Marilyn Horne. Her comedic timing is impeccable. Her rich deep and creamy mezzo just glows and she sings the most difficult passages with an ease that is out of this world. A big cheer for James Levine's exciting conducting also, especially in the fast paced ensembles. This DVD is a winner, but above all else it's a great reminder of the unbelievable talent of Marilyn Horne - an incredible Rossini singer if ever there was one.
 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
I just came back from a week's vacation in Rome and I promised myself I'd buy an opera DVD there because I know of a huge multimedia center there where they have pretty much everything. I ended up getting this:



It was a bit of a risk I think cause it cost no less than 42 € (it did come with a whole book and bonus material so I suppose that's part of the reason for the pricing..) and I hadn't heard of the opera itself before, but I find the music in Rossini operas amusing and I already have several recordings with Jean Christophe Spinosi/Ensemble Matheus.

The whole production is brilliant though. Three cameras surround a little model of an interior or exterior scene, while the singers move around in a landscape of blue shapes, also captured by small cameras, and it all comes together on big screens behind them, where it looks like they're inside the little "doll's house" model. Stage crew dressed entirely in blue to make them invisible to half of the cameras help to make hilarious effects - In one scene a servant fries a pancake, throws it up in the air - when it actually is a stiff pancake on a stick that one of the "blue helpers" spins around and slides elegantly onto the plate of one of the characters - On the big screen it looks like an animated film. Other effects includes people seemingly dancing around in other people's meals and the main character appearing from kitchen garbage bins....

I must confess I've only had time to watch Act 1 yet, plus for some reason the subtitles disappeared about 1 hour 10 mins into Act 1 so from then on I couldn't keep up with the story.:confused: So from then on I just enjoyed the music and in particular Sonia Prina, and a young Italian baritone (there were a lot of Italian performers in this production) I've never heard of before but who had a great voice and played his character very well. :D
 
#4 ·
I noticed that I can catch Natalie Dessay in Lucia di Lammermoor and Diana Damrau in Le Comte Ory within a week of each other next spring (at the Met, natch) so I'd like to familiarize myself with Le Comte Ory as I know nothing whatsoever about it. Can anyone recommend a specific version? There's only one available on Amazon but if there's an out of print or online-only version that's better I'd prefer that one.

Thanks!
 
#7 ·


Kathleen Battle as Rosina, think I will have to get this 1989 version that recently surfaced........I love this opera!


Almost got this new dreamcast version till I read further that Joyce DiDonato had injured her leg and had to be seated or in a wheelchair in all scences......:(

 
#14 ·

A trip down memory lane for me with this venerable warhorse DVD.........
A young Von Stade has never sounded in fresher voice especially the closing aria:
Non piu mesta......
She is simply wonderful, isn't she? I'm not at all fond of the opera itself, and I'm very resistant to the 'panto' production aspects of this movie - but she keeps me watching, just hanging on for her next appearance. (Her recording of Massenet's Cendrillon, with Ruth Welting's astounding Fairy Godmother is a similar must-have. It's not a DVD of course - audio only - though I feel as if I have vivid visual memories of it.)
 
#16 ·
More Rossini..........L'Italiana in Algeri



So close to being really good, the problem for me is with the Italian Girl - Isabella

Very average looking with red hair, lilly white skin and blue eyes (Italian?)......the wife Mustafa wants to be rid of in this case looks much better :lol:

If only we had a beautiful exotic Italian looking singer like Danielle DeNiese I would give this 5 stars, not to worry another version is due to arrive soon and I will keep the better of the two after comparing....

 
#18 ·
Problems with Rossini

I've just finished the '07 Met Il Barbiere with DiDonato, Del Carlo, Diego Florez, Mattei, et al. Very entertaining performance, and I found myself laughing all the way until the finale of the 2nd act. The acting seemed perfect and all the music, at the time, seemed ingenious and even on level with composers like Mozart (they are, after all, not too different in style).

But it was later that I felt an enormous difference between the two. I dunno what it was, but the ending of this opera just doesn't work for me. It's not humorous, and doesn't contain the same degree of beauty or drama an opera like La Boheme or Le Nozze di Figaro like bring throughout, and especially, in the finale. And looking back, Rossini's music seemed a bit decorative, shallow, and formulaic compared to the Mozart and Wagner operas that I've been digging recently.

Since I'm new to full Rossini operas, I'm wondering: Does anyone else ever get the same kind of feeling I do when watching Il Barbiere, or Rossini in general? Because this sure doesn't extend into my appreciation of Bellini and other bel canto composers (generally, not all the time).

Btw, here's the link to the full opera:
 
#19 · (Edited)
I've just finished the '07 Met Il Barbiere with DiDonato, Del Carlo, Diego Florez, Mattei, et al. Very entertaining performance, and I found myself laughing all the way until the finale of the 2nd act. The acting seemed perfect and all the music, at the time, seemed ingenious and even on level with composers like Mozart (they are, after all, not too different in style).

But it was later that I felt an enormous difference between the two. I dunno what it was, but the ending of this opera just doesn't work for me. It's not humorous, and doesn't contain the same degree of beauty or drama an opera like La Boheme or Le Nozze di Figaro like bring throughout, and especially, in the finale. And looking back, Rossini's music seemed a bit decorative, shallow, and formulaic compared to the Mozart and Wagner operas that I've been digging recently.

Since I'm new to full Rossini operas, I'm wondering: Does anyone else ever get the same kind of feeling I do when watching Il Barbiere, or Rossini in general? Because this sure doesn't extend into my appreciation of Bellini and other bel canto composers (generally, not all the time).
We had a full thread on this, called Underestimated Rossini. Check it out, all the above issues were extensively addressed there.

I also recommend a chapter about the comparison between Rossini and Mozart, written by professor Paul Robinson in his book Opera and Ideas.

I wouldn't say that Rossini and Mozart have similar styles, I'd say that they are profoundly different.

Rossini while not reaching the same peaks of orchestration of a Mozart or a Wagner, and while being fundamentally an entertainer, was a very *talented* entertainer, with signature pieces like the Rossini Crescendo, with delightful overtures... Rossini was a businessman and he wanted to make money fast, so he composed a large number of operas in a short period of time, employing formulaic devices and recycling his own music to be faster. But it's not like he couldn't do it right when he wanted. You may want to check out his serious operas as well if you haven't done it yet, like Armida, Semiramide, Tancredi, and William Tell. Two other opera buffae, La Pietra del Paragone and Il Turco in Italia are also very good. L'Italiana in Algeri is good too. Cenerentola is another good one.

I think that overall Rossini beats Bellini. Sure, Bellini didn't live as long, but independently of the reason, Rossini has a more impressive body of work. Bellini reached some very high peaks with Norma, I Puritani, and La Sonnambula - maybe also with I Capuleti e i Montecchi, but his others are much less memorable.

Donizetti on the other hand I consider to be better than Rossini.

By the way, in that Met performance, Florez incorporated additional arias in his finale that aren't in Rossini's Barbiere. This made the ending drag on for too long. Although I loved that production, I thought that this was a grave mistake. One doesn't try to improve a masterpiece.

And Il Barbiere di Siviglia is a true masterpiece.
 
#21 ·
Rossini on DVD and Blu-Ray

Semiramide



Semiramide was the last opera Rossini composed for Italy before moving to Paris. It was premiered at La Fenice , Venice, in 1823.

The performance at hand is from the Metropolitan Opera House 1990. The opera hasn't featured many performances since the initial spread. 1962 it was revived for Sutherland at La Scala. Sutherland also recorded it with Marilyn Horne 1965-1966. It's almost incredible that Horne (b. 1934) is singing Arsace here with the same fervour. We have also June Anderson as Semiramide, Samuel Ramey as Assur. There is the star trio. Additionally, there is Stanford Olsen as Idreno, Young Ok Shin as Azema and John Cheek as Oroe. James Conlon conducts. And the production is traditional, but not old-fashioned.

Here we are with a bel canto gem that is not something you would bump into very often. The story, briefly told, is that Semiramide (the queen of Babylon) has murdered the king Nino (whom we see as a ghost) with the help of Assur (a prince), infatuated with Azema, who would like to marry Idreno (an Indian prince). Arsace (assumed to be a Scythian Commander of the Assyrian army, also in love with Azema) appears. Semiramide doesn't know that Arsace is his own son and proclaims that he is to be the successor to the throne and her husband, and Azema shall marry Idreno. The ghost of Nino appears to inform all that this is not the way things should go and summons Arsace to come to his tomb at midnight to learn the truth of his death. There Arsace kills whom he believes to be Assur, but who is his own mother. Assur gets life? and Arsace is proclaimed king and can have his Azema.

The overture, for once is nothing that Rossini would have recycled - perhaps because it actually uses material from the opera itself. It has been played in orchestral concerts sometimes. As usual, you couldn't guess, if it belongs to a comical or a tragic opera, but it's one of his best.

On with the singers, then. It's easiest to begin with Ramey, who leaves nothing to be desired. He is handsome and sings handsomely too, daring to drown Horne's high note with his own. I must admit that June Anderson and Marilyn Horne have never been my favourite singers, but I can't deny their techical mastery. Anderson's highest notes are marvellous, crystal clear and strong enough, but there is something in the quality of her voice that doesn't appeal to me. Horne simply astounds with her power and the evenness of her scale. For my ears she is better suited to the breeches-roles - as here - because her voice lacks a certain female warmth. Their duets are great and as important as the ones in Norma, at least musically.

Rossini did require very much of his tenors in the serious operas - why put three tenors into Othello? - but Stanford Olsen sings admirably the high notes and copes with the florid passages too, a fach that is not always easy on the ear. The presumably Korean Young Ok Shin has a little nice voice, John Cheek as Oroe a very convincing bass.

An interesting detail is the reading aloud of the two letters, first by Anderson, which almost made me laugh, because it sounded so much like the reading of the letter Violetta does in the last act of La Traviata, the second by Horne, more dramatic because of the content, but essentially the same. Do they teach opera singers this kind of "theatrical" reciting? Truly, I'm not making this up.

As a whole, I feel quite confident to recommend this to lovers of bel canto, who probably have it already, but also to someone who knows Rossini only by his comical operas and feels like widening horizons.
 
#22 ·
La Scala di seta



La scala di seta or The Silken Ladder has mainly been known only by its crisp overture and that was everything I knew about it. It's a small-scale work with only six singers and lasting a little less than an hour and a half. It was premiered at the Teatro san Moisè, Venice, in 1812. Apparently, this kind of short operas were very popular in Venice at the time, and Rossini composed more of them (just you wait!).

The basic plot: Giulia (Luciana Serra), a young Parisienne, is already secretly married to Dorvil (David Kuebler), and the couple is using a silken ladder to make their nightly encounters possible. Dormont (David Griffith), Giulia's tutor, is arranging a marriage between her and Blansac (Alberto Rinaldi). Lucilla (Jane Bunnell), Giulia's cousin, becomes enamoured with Blansac in the course of events. Germano (Alessandro Corbelli), Dormont's servant, is trying to be helpful, but succeeds in bringing about total confusion. In the end, both couples are given Dormont's blessing.

The music is basic Rossini, which is to say that it is far more enjoyable than Saint-Saëns's Henry VIII, although there are no arias here that I could remember having heard in any recitals. Still, there are a couple that wouldn't come amiss.

This performance comes from the Schwetzinger Festspiele 1990, conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti. Even if it is not older that that, it shows its age technically. The picture quality is a bit grainy and the microphone placement not always ideal. I'm not sure if it has something to do with Kuebler sounding not so good, because all the others sound better. The stage directing (Michale Hampe) works well.

I think this would merit a more modern DVD version.
 
#23 ·
Torvaldo e Dorliska



Torvaldo e Dorliska was Rossini's 16th opera, although the composer was only 23 years old. It's libretto was written by Cesare Sterbini, who also wrote the libretto for Rossini's next masterpiece, Il Barbiere di Siviglia. You wouldn't bump into a performance of T&E anywhere except at a specialized festival. Thanks to the DVD, we have here a performance from the Rossini Opera Festival 2006, Teatro Rossini, Pesaro.

T&D is surely not a masterpiece, but not a total disaster either. The plot tells about an evil Duca d'Ordow, who fancies Dorliska, the wife of Torvaldo, to the extent that he has attacked him and thinks that he has indeed killed Torvaldo. Dorliska has escaped and just happens to come to seek help from the duke's castle and is held there. Torvaldo is not dead and also comes to the castle in disguise, claiming to have witnessed Torvaldo's death and to be bringing a last message from him to Dorliska. Dorliska, overjoyed, gives his identity away, Torvaldo is thrown in a dungeon and the Duke tries to blackmail Dorliska with her husband's life - in vain. Torvaldo's fate seems to be sealed, but fortunately Giorgio, one of the duke's servants, dissatisfied with his master, has arranged a revolt against the duke, and the situation is saved just in time.

Giorgio is in fact a comic character in this melodrama! He has obviously some hilarious music to sing, which sounds a bit odd here. The thing with Rossini is that he felt free to use exactly the same kind of music both in funny and sombre situations, often borrowing an aria or a chorus from a comic opera to a serious one, and the other way round. Once you get past this, you may even like this opera, too. And there is some very good music here, if not the most memorable Rossini.

The singing is good in general, especially when one thinks that this cannot be very familiar to any of the singers. Darina Takova as Dorliska has a nice soprano and copes well with most of the coloratura. Francesco Meli as Torvaldo has some awkward high notes, but is not bad. Michele Pertusi as the duke and Bruno Praticò as Giorgio are more familiar names, very good in their roles. The orchestra, conducted by Víctor Pablo Pérez, plays impeccably.

The stage direction is as good as one could wish. The singers often move outside the actual stage so that space is used very effectively. The scene where the Duke tries to bargain with Dorliska brought even Tosca and Scarpia to my mind!
 
#24 ·
Il Signor Bruschino



I seem to be having a little Rossini festival of my own while reading Charles Osborne's book "The Bel Canto Operas". For a light snack I have chosen Il Signor Bruschino, Rossini's ninth opera, one of his comic one-acters. The performance comes from the Schwetzingen Rokokotheater in 1989.

It tells about the young lovers' (Sofia and Florville) little scheme to prevent Sofia's tutor (Gaudenzio) marrying her off to a Mr. Bruschino. Of course, this succeeds in the end, but there are (just about) enough new twists to keep it interesting.

The delightful ouverture includes a new effect of the string players tapping their music stands with their bows. The music is largely run-of-the-mill Rossini, nothing spectacular, although there are some finer moments, like the duet between Sofia and her tutor, where the tutor tries to explain, what marriage means, and to find out, if Sofia is ready for it - the girl feigning complete innocence in these matters. The young lovers (Amelia Felle and David Kuebler) could be better as singers, but they are acceptable enough. The best singing and acting come from Gaudenzio (Alessandro Corbelli), Bruschino padre (Alberto Rinaldi) and Filiberto (Carlos Feller), an inn-keeper. They are, of course, old hands in this kind of thing. The orchestra is conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti.

The sound and picture quality are quite good, even if the recording is twenty years old.
 
#25 ·
La Gazza ladra



The Gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is, I suppose, known to everybody by its ouverture, which could well be the most often independently played of Rossini's ouvertures. I heard it for the first time in Kubrick's The Clockwork Orange and immediately fell for it. Here it gets a decent performance from the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento, under the baton of Lü Jia.

The plot is for once quite exciting and the first act seems to go by quickly, even if it lasts for more than an hour and a half. Alas, Rossini and his librettist, Giovanni Gherardini, keep dragging things in the second act. It's dramatically very irritating that the characters should burst into sparkling coloratura for a couple of minutes just when they should act quickly!

Also this recording comes from the Rossini Festival, Pesaro, in 2007.

The story tells of Ninetta, wrongly accused of stealing a silver spoon from his master's household, and thus, being a servant, facing a death penalty (what a legislation!). All the evidence seems to point at her. She cannot even defend herself without putting his father in danger, and is imprisoned. In the second act, almost everyone comes to mourn her fate, one after another, in long duets and arias, among them the mayor, who has designs of his own concerning Ninetta and offers his help if she accedes to his wishes (which the virtuous girl declines to do). Even a funeral march is heard before the verdict is given! The verdict is guilty and Ninetta is sentenced to death. Just before the execution the real culprit is found out, the eponymous bird. Even Ninetta's father, an army deserter, is pardoned. General rejoicing ensues.

The staging and stage direction are actually quite witty, the character of the magpie especially. The props consist mainly of huge white cylinders that move according to the needs of the scenes. In the second act, there is water on the stage - again - and now I don't really get it, although it rains in the beginning. A nice touch is that when everyone is singing about their conviction of Ninetta's guilt, they fail to see the contradicting evidence, even when the remorseful magpie goes to them and shows the spoon that is in her possession.

Alas, Mariola Cantarero (Ninetta) is altogether too matronly to play a young girl. Her voice is not very youthful, either. She is at her best in the high register, where she manages nice pianissimos. Her would-be fiancé, Giannetto, sung by Dmitry Korchak, at least looks the part, but sounds a bit hoarse at times, and awkward in many of his high notes, which proves how rare fine Rossini tenors are. All the others are more or less good, notably Paolo Bordogna as Giannetto's father, Alex Esposito as Ninetta's father, Manuela Custer as Giannetto's sister (a trouser role) and Michele Pertusi as the mayor.

So, it's a bit shame that the cast isn't quite ideal, since this is a far more interesting work than the recently reviewed Torvaldo and Dorliska, for example. It would be nice to see the version with Ileana Cotrubas.
 
#26 ·
La Pietra del paragone



Now this is a completely new way to perform an opera! The singers and actors are filmed against a blue backround (more familiar from filming motion pictures), the props are (for the most part) miniature models that are filmed separately, and the result of combining them is shown on three big screens above everything. This arrangement enables some delicious effects, like a singer standing on a gas burner telling of his ardent love, only to be seen among icicles in a fridge the next moment, reminding himself that he must cool down, and wrapped in a blanket after the aria! The thing with pancakes made me laugh out loud, which doesn't occur that often.

Well, this can be a distraction, too. At first I was so intrigued by the technique that almost forgot to listen to the music! I started all over, and now a bit more used to it, I could enjoy the performance as a whole.

La Pietra del paragone (The Touchstone - a stone used to identify precious metals) was Rossini's seventh opera, so quite an early one, but he was already quite famous. It's described as melodramma giocoso in two acts.

The story tells about three women who are interested in winning the hand of a rich count. There are also a couple of men, all of whom are not merely altruistic either. He is already besotted by one of the ladies, but wants to test the sincerity of their feelings by making it look like he is going to lose all his possessions. All but one of the women and one of the men are ready to abandon a penniless count. The ruse is revealed, but it's too late to try to win back the count's trust.

The abandoned women demand some kind of satisfaction, effectuated by the men who have also fallen from the count's grace. We see some hunting, tennis (during which the count begins to question the affection of his chosen one) and duelling. Clarice (the chosen one) is still a little piqued by the count's doubts and lets him taste his own medicine before everything ends happily - at least for her and the count.

As usual, Rossini is his most assured self, when composing a comical opera. If there aren't any famous bits, there is still much wonderful music to enjoy, "The Pancake Quartet", for example. The storm music resembles the one in La Cenerentola. For once I'm delighted to hear Rossini sung like this, if not completely without aitches and not by everyone, at least without intrusive ones, and often devoid of them altogether! Bravo! And these are not exactly household names, at least in this household. The orchestra is Ensemble Matheus, also new to me, conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi. The performance was recorded at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, which seems a source of many delightful productions.

An irresistable experience!

P.S. Instead of the usual DVD box with a thin booklet this comes as a hardcover book, which includes the opera on DVD and a bonus DVD that I haven't watched yet.
 
#27 ·
My review of this one is divided in two parts - here I speak about this production, and in my thread about strictly musical/theatrical reviews I talk about the work itself, which I rated a B.



It is a Châtelet production with their own stage director, but the entirely Russian cast, chorus, and orchestra came to Paris in tour from the Mariinsky Theater, complete with maestro Gergiev.

All the singers are rather young, and are trainees of the Academy of Young Singers at the Mariinsky. The orchestra under Gergiev's excellent direction did a fine job. The singing was more uneven. While I liked a lot Anastasia Belvaeva (Madame Cortese), the beautiful Larissa Youdina (Contessa di Folleville), Vladilav Ouspenski (Baron von Trobonock); and liked moderately Irma Guigolachuili (Corinna), I didn't really care for Anna Kiknadze (Marchesa Malibea), and especially Daniil Shtoda (Counte de Libenkof) who is actually the leading tenor but mangled several of the high notes and sang off-key a number of times.

The staging was minimalistic but tasteful, and had a long boardwalk that encircled some of the seats and permitted the singers to interact directly with the public in different occasions. Musicians were also placed in various spots among the audience, and two of the musicians from the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra were actually on the main stage interacting with the singers - a cute flautist, and a harp player. A nice touch was that the orchestra was on the back of the stage and they were all dressed up in one single color (a light beige), including Maestro Gergiev who was brought in dressed just like the other hotel guests with a light beige overall, in a funny effect (he did remove it to have freedom of movement).

I'd say that the performance was lively and comical enough to compensate for a few weak principals, and would get an A- from me.

----------

So, in summary, a minor B work by Rossini but pleasant enough and with some pretty high quality numbers, well rendered in an A- production/performance.

It's a DVD worth having if your budget permits it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it.
 
#28 ·
Rossini: Guglielmo Tell (William Tell, Guillaume Tell)

This one is a mixed bag:



Just like Rossini's opera - which is filled with masterful outstanding bits but also too long, slow-paced, and with some silly ballets, this production has both very good and rather weak sides.

The good:

Riccardo Muti, the chorus and the orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala are all three stupendous in this DVD, which is musically (I mean, regarding the orchestra and the chorus - see details on the singing below) of high quality. The famous overture, and the excellent finales for each act show the orchestra in full force, with energetic and well-paced conducting. The chorus is very precise and delivered with the righ volume. The balance between voices and orchestra is very good. One regrets that the DVD only has a Dolby Stereo track with no surround sound.

Tenor Chris Merrit is spectacular. His voice is strong, rightfully steely for this tortured role, projects very well, and can also convey emotion, as in his extraordinary rendition of the most beautiful aria in this opera in my opinion, Arnoldo's opening of the fourth act, O muto asil del pianto. This, coupled with the good orchestra and conducting, is enough to make of this cheap DVD a good deal.

Giorgio Zancanaro, while not a good actor, sings beautifully the title role.

Amelia Felle sings an adequate Jemmy, with no errors but no big hits either.

Other secondary roles like Gualtiero, Melchthal, and Gesser are pretty good.

The bad:

Unbelievably bad staging. This is an opera that is best staged with an outdoor feel. Instead, we get a dark, stuffy and claustrophobic room, and they try to lighten it up with three large panels of videos showing outdoor scenes in Switzerland, but it doesn't work, it falls really flat. The only good moment on the screens is when they show Riccardo Muti conducting the final ensemble.

Park and Bark with pretty minimal acting, which is demeaning for an opera that aspires to dramatic impact.

Very, very, mediocre ballets with dreadful, unflattering costumes. I actually started to fast forward during the ballets. By the way, Rossini should never have included them. I know that he wanted to compose a Grand Opéra in the French tradition, but the ballets are not only ordinary (including musically), but also stop the action flat in an opera that is already too long and too heavy on choral music comments - which makes the plot painfully slow. A few cuts would make of Guglielmo Tell a much better opera, there just isn't enough material here to last for four hours as it does.

Cheril Studer as Matilde was very uneven. She was capable of singing beautifully at certain moments, and obviously off-pitch in others. I thought that overall she did a poor job.

Ludicana D'Intino as Edwige wasn't much better. Overall, the female voices were not the best in this production, but the fact that Guglielmo Tell is a predominantly male opera still saves this production because the boys generally did a much better job than the girls, except for another small role: the fisherman in Act I who also sang off-pitch.

This is a production best enjoyed with the Chapter Selection feature, when you can listen to the well played overture, the best arias and ensembles, and the finales, which are all very enjoyable and well delivered, but you don't want to go through the whole four hours including off-pitch singing and mediocre ballets in a dreadfully bad staging.
 
#29 ·


Phew, got to the end of this. Don't get me wrong, the singers did a good job with some very challenging material, but the production is deadly dull and predictable, with totally static blocking, stock gestures, gloomy sets, even gloomier lighting (what's with La Scala and murky darkness?) and costumes that make the singers look more like Stone Age homespun hippies than Highland Scots.

And all this from the director who brought us Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu the Vampyre and the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Go figure:rolleyes:.
 
#30 ·
For completeness, I'm adding here the rest of my review of Rossini's Viaggio a Reims - the musical part, to be added to the review of the production posted above.

It's a minor Rossini work, put together in rapid touches, since it was commissioned to celebrate Charles X's coronation as King of France. The opera itself is about the coronation (or more precisely, about a bunch of aristocrats stuck in a hotel, awaiting transportation to Reims where the coronation will take place), and ends by a sugary praise to Charles X (Viva il diletto, augusto regnator), filled with repeated shouts of "Viva la Francia." Rossini does seem to suck up a lot to the French, and it is interesting to notice that this was the last opera he composed in Italian, and he was already living intermittently in France until years later he moved there for good and lived in France until the end of his days. One might think that he was interested in earning the sympathy of the inhabitants of his new home.

Apparently Rossini just intended this opera to serve the occasion and be forgotten; he canibalized it later and used half of its music in Le Comte Ory and its ballet in Le Siège de Corinthe.

So, I approached this work with low expectations, and they were mostly confirmed, but this is not to say there aren't some hidden jewels there.

First, the bad news, as they say.

This opera doesn't really feel like an opera, but rather, like a concert to display some nice coloratura arias, bel canto style. There isn't much that happens, and all that does, seems to be just an excuse to present a showcase of several arias. This is clear when we see the large number of characters with singing lines - not less than 20! There are so many characters, that this opera with a single act that lasts for 2 hours and 5 minutes, is still introducing new characters at the 1 hour 23 minutes mark. It's even more clear when at a certain point, the characters who are guests at an hotel and come from everywhere in Europe are invited to sing a typical song from their home countries, and the concert feeling is reinforced as they go one by one to the front of the stage and sing their numbers.

Another problem with the excessive number of characters is that the plot becomes confusing and irrelevant. By the time you understand who is in love with whom and who is the rival of whom, it doesn't really matter to you among the various love stories whether between two rivals it's Y or rather Z who end up getting the girl W. There is no time for any character development, so, if Y sings a love song to W and Z gets jealous and sings in protest, the feeling of the audience is - who cares? Therefore, it is the love song itself and the protest song itself that are the point - thus the 'concert' feeling.

In terms of pace, there are problems as well. It's a single act, but it is too long an act. It is hard to keep the pace and sustain the audience's interest when you are introducing one character after the other and singing a number of mostly disconnected arias. There are particularly two points in which the action almost comes to a halt and two long and boring love duets are performed - Nel suo divin sembiante which lasts for 15 long minutes, and D'alma celeste o Dio.

In terms of orchestration and musical structure, all is nice but nothing is particularly special. You get the usual punctuation of ariosi, the usual typical Rossini crescendo, the usual hectic ensembles ending on the typical um-pah-pah, and the usual Rossini fast tongue-twisting aria à la Largo al factotum.

The libretto by Luigi Balocchi is based on Mme. de Staël's Corinne, ou l'Italie. While like I said it doesn't develop characters and it is confusing given the excessive number of characters, its poetry is nice enough, and it doesn't drag down the music.

Now, the good news.

Somehow, even with the above shortcomings, this opera is still lots of fun. It is pleasant and even though there is no entertaining plot, it does work as the intended showcase for some nice numbers.

It is quite satirical, making wicked fun of the European aristocracy of the time, and even picking on several European countries and their stereotypical inhabitants. Rossini and Balocchi seem to be mocking everybody, especially in the hilarious aria Bravo il signor Ganimede when the buffoon Don Profondo (interesting name) literally mocks all the different foreign nationals who are hotel guests: the rigid German, the snob Frenchman, the macho-man Spaniard, the impetuous Russian, and so on and so forth.

Another satirical part is the display of "national songs" (starting with Or che regna fra le genti) which mocks either national anthems (there's a parody of God Save the King) or typical music of, in rapid succession, Germany, Polland, Russia, Spain, England, France, and even Italy itself (although the latter gets better treatment).

Both the arias/ensembles in the above two paragraphs are quite good, funny, and entertaining.

Another highlight is Che miro, ah, qual sorpresa, which exaggerates the coloratura in purpose, to accentuate - with an irresistible comic effect - the bubbly personality of the most coquette of the characters, la Contessa di Folleville (another very well picked name, LOL).

Four more numbers are pretty high quality:

1) Your typical Rossini crescendo in Zitti! Non canta piú! has the usual attractiveness of similar pieces in his works.

2) A spectacular, truly spectacular ensemble called Non pavento alcun periglio.

3) Another pretty good ensemble; not as good as the one above, but very impressive with not less than 14 voices (and no, it's not a chorus piece, LOL, it's a true ensemble), Signori, ecco una lettera.

4) The best piece of the entire opera, in my opinion: Arpa gentil, a fine example of lyrical, melodious bel canto. Very, very beautiful; this aria deserves a place in any top 100 list.

Overall, I rate this opera a B. It never really takes off to make it into B+ or A- territory, but it is certainly pleasant and with some exquisite bits.
 
#31 ·
I have ordered this bargain from Amazon.com marketplace vendors: 4 early Rossini operas in a boxset for $35. That's less than $10 per opera, and at least three of them are very good.



 
#33 ·
Armida



I had expected very much of this 2010 performance of Rossini's Armida from the Met with Renée Fleming as the eponymous heroine, but I'm quite disappointed.

I think Armida is the only opera by Rossini, in which he depicted a total fantasy world. The story about the sorceress and the crusaders has inspired several opera composers - my personal favourites being Handel's Rinaldo and Haydn's Armida - but is ultimately rather silly. Rossini seems to have gone crazy with Armida's coloratura, the endless rapid scales starting to sound meaningless vocal exercises. Fleming seems to save her resources till her big numbers, "D'Amore al dolce impero" in the second act and the ending of the opera. She sings fluently enough, but her earlier performance from 1993 on CD made a much more forceful impression on me. From her facial expressions one would think that she doesn't believe in the meaning of this all herself.

Rossini must have had an abundance of tenors at his disposal, because there are no less than six of them in the cast. Rinaldo here, Lawrence Brownlee, was an interesting new name to me, coping admirably with his demanding role. Extra points for the absence of those intrusive aitches! The other principal tenors, Barry Banks, Kobie van Rensburg and John Osborn, are also good. That being said, Rossini requires occasionally nearly impossible leaps and high notes from his tenors that are bound to sound awkward, no matter how good singers. I wonder if they sounded nicer in Rossini's days.

The dancers in this production seem to have to been lifted from "Cats". The difference between the oriental costumes of the chorus and the modern evening gowns of Armida seems a bit incongruous.

All in all, Fleming's CD version is more enjoyable. Maybe a more convincing production would be possible, but this is not it.
 
#45 · (Edited)


I had expected very much of this 2010 performance of Rossini's Armida from the Met with Renée Fleming as the eponymous heroine, but I'm quite disappointed.

I think Armida is the only opera by Rossini, in which he depicted a total fantasy world. The story about the sorceress and the crusaders has inspired several opera composers - my personal favourites being Handel's Rinaldo and Haydn's Armida - but is ultimately rather silly. Rossini seems to have gone crazy with Armida's coloratura, the endless rapid scales starting to sound meaningless vocal exercises. Fleming seems to save her resources till her big numbers, "D'Amore al dolce impero" in the second act and the ending of the opera. She sings fluently enough, but her earlier performance from 1993 on CD made a much more forceful impression on me. From her facial expressions one would think that she doesn't believe in the meaning of this all herself.

Rossini must have had an abundance of tenors at his disposal, because there are no less than six of them in the cast. Rinaldo here, Lawrence Brownlee, was an interesting new name to me, coping admirably with his demanding role. Extra points for the absence of those intrusive aitches! The other principal tenors, Barry Banks, Kobie van Rensburg and John Osborn, are also good. That being said, Rossini requires occasionally nearly impossible leaps and high notes from his tenors that are bound to sound awkward, no matter how good singers. I wonder if they sounded nicer in Rossini's days.

The dancers in this production seem to have to been lifted from "Cats". The difference between the oriental costumes of the chorus and the modern evening gowns of Armida seems a bit incongruous.

All in all, Fleming's CD version is more enjoyable. Maybe a more convincing production would be possible, but this is not it.
I liked this much more than Herkku, I previously watched it on computer from MET player so was sure I would like it, purchased DVD for the large screen full effect and was very impressed...........

Act one was less interesting to me, male pissing match with testoserone fueled jealously and shouting matches fighting over who should get all the attention and credit for recent victories on battlefield.

Things get much better with act 2 as change of location to Armida's magic island, very nice graphic visuals that were visually exciting and extensive dance numbers (which I really like in opera). The production is very much to my liking with abstracted historical wardrobes and clever visual effects, I liked the treatment of the furies.....could have been very silly but was handled well here.

Fleming is adorable and very beautiful but not ideally suited to the challenges of the difficult arias......as she freely admits during interviews. (Joyce DiDonato or AC Antonacci would be stellar here) Still this is a great production of rarely performed opera, me likey :)

 
#34 ·
Herkku, what are aitches?

I'm puzzled. You didn't like this production? I loved it.
The concept behind some incongruousness and the Cats-like ballet was to inject some fun into this serious opera, and I think it worked. I thought that this production was tasteful, lively, colorful, but still with enough left of the original serious drama.
I thought that Renée did very well, especially in the acting department, because Rossini's Armida is a long opera for the sole soprano, and the role goes through many changes (from cunning and political to seducing to wicked and evil to spurned and angry to despondent and miserable, etc). This is supposedly the opera in the repertoire with the longest music written for one soprano, and Renée is getting a bit long in the tooth so she *had* to save herself, in order to be able to complete the darn long thing.
 
#36 ·
I might add that Rossini's comic operas are easier to be taken seriously than his serious ones that usually contain unintended hilariousness with his all-purpose style of composing. So, I don't feel any need for additional humour in them, rather the opposite.
 
#37 ·
I will agree that Fleming is not ideally suited for the bold colortura style needed here, best modern choice is probably someone like Joyce DiDonato with her experience with baroque da capo aria style or perhaps AC Antonacci.

I love the integrated dance elements and production in general of this Armida, not like we have many choices however, a keeper for me

I mentioned this before but to hear what is possible for Dolce Imperio you must compare to 1952 Callas, the technique and imagination are amazing and Callas projects a bold confidence/swagger in her delivery that others just cannot match.......what a final run!

 
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