Pardon my language on the title. It came directly from a quote of our esteemed and colorful member Aramis, when he said that he wouldn't nominate any DVDs for our list of recommended ones, but would rather nominate DVDs with the above concept in mind, of which he knows many.
I actually found the idea to be very funny...:lol: We can have lots of fun discussing the worst, as much as we have had discussing the best.
So, fire up. What do you nominate as DVDs that represent the most terrible crap in the history of opera?:devil:
First and foremost, my first great disappointment in adventture with opera:
Kollo acts and has mimics like he would eat way too much of cabbage. He has toy sword, probably one most silly of opera requisites in history and makes those cabbage facial expressions. Meier looks like wousewife, I don't know what they did to her as she often looks easy for the eyes but the effect is terrible and her Isolde from this DVD is what made me think for the first time about the problem of disproportionality between good looking female singers and female characters that are meant to be beautiful. And what makes it even worse is my general esteem for both Kollo and Meier first of which is one of my fave tenors.
Then:
Loathsome murder of fairy tale and ruining it with dumb interpretation. I don't care if Fleming sings more or less good. This DVD came to this world straight from the baboon's ***.
Loathsome murder of fairy tale and ruining it with dumb interpretation. I don't care if Fleming sings more or less good. This DVD came to this world straight from the baboon's ***.
Actually I don't mind the Rusalka that much (although I would love an excellent fairy-tale version to be available on DVD), and I like the Trovatore and the Tristan with Meier.
This is another one that sucks. Unlike the cover picture indicates, there isn't a single green sprig. It's supposed to be a celebration of nature and the woods and the forest... and the title character is supposed to turn into a tree... except that there isn't a single green leaf around, and the staging is so static that one would think it's a concert version.
Well, you haven't seen anything yet, my friend.
The picture on the cover is when she is most covered.
She is topless for most of her screen time, and completely butt naked for a few seconds.
And her boobs are just lovely!
One of the reasons I hate it so much is that there were a couple of singers I actually couldn't bear to listen to - though not the two principals, who were fine.
Also Martin: this is another opera where some of the male parts are played by women (ie Alice Coote), because they were written for castrati.
There are other Handel Operas which have much better stagings and casts - Giulio Cesare, Hercules, Admeto (the most recent version). No boobs though.
If you should buy it? Well, Alcina is a good opera, Handel's music in it is great, and the performances are not bad, vocally speaking. Yes, the staging is a disaster, but for those who like beautiful women's breasts, it does have its merits. I bought it. It's not great, but it's interesting, for musical and - cough, cough - non musical reasons.
I don't know if it's the *most* terrible, but I bought a couple dvds of Lucia to more familiarize myself with it before my trip to NYC next month, and the first one to show up, early 80s production with Joan Sutherland, keeps translating Lucia as "Lucy" in the subtitles. How asinine and annoying. It's probably really nitpicky of me but wow is it distracting and unnecessary.
Hopefully the other copy (Opus Arts with Mariella Devia) will arrive soon and won't do this.
A tiny little bit perhaps, yes, in my humble opinion (but of course it's your good right to be nit-picky whenever you feel like it). Not that I'm terribly fond of "Lucy" in this context, but it's of course not uncommon to translate names. To give a totally unrelated example, no one here seems very upset about calling Giulio Cesare the politician and general whose proper name was IVLIVS CAESAR.
And in Lucia/Lucy di/of Lamermore/Lammermoor one could in fact also make a case that in the Walter Scott novel the libretto is based on, the heroine probably wasn't called Lucia.
Fair enough; she's called Lucy in the novel. But you don't see (or at least I've never seen) Pamina rendered as Pamela ... though I have seen Gaultier Malde turned into Walter.
Losey's Don Giovanni. It's boring, boring, boring, Raimondi looks like a walking corpse, the Commendatore can't sing, there's no humour at all and it has the lamest going -to-hell scene ever.
Avoid it like the plague.
Rigoletto with Domingo - singing is mostly ok but the camera work is terribly amateur, there's no direction at all, Raimondi (again - I can't stand him) way too old for Sparafucile and not a profondo, the Duke mediocre...
Also, I love Domingo but he's Domingo, not Rigoletto.
Losey's Don Giovanni. It's boring, boring, boring, Raimondi looks like a walking corpse, the Commendatore can't sing, there's no humour at all and it has the lamest going -to-hell scene ever.
Avoid it like the plague.
Rigoletto with Domingo - singing is mostly ok but the camera work is terribly amateur, there's no direction at all, Raimondi (again - I can't stand him) way too old for Sparafucile and not a profondo, the Duke mediocre...
Also, I love Domingo but he's Domingo, not Rigoletto.
Agreed! When I saw that Rigoletto I thought even in old age Domingo looked more like the Duke. I just cannot imagine why such a great artist should want to pursue roles he is totally unsuited for. Hasn't he any friends to tell him?
As I said once, I own a few DVDs with Il Barbiere, but I have one I would throw it away, but I still keep it for the best Count Almaviva-Juan Diego Florez. You may have guessed, it's this one:
I don't like either Spagnoli as Figaro, or Rosina played by Maria Bayo. The production did not ring my bell either. I did not like the clownish costumes.
And there is one Traviata I don't like, almost good for my garbage, but I am afraid to mention any details, as I don't want stinky fishes thrown on me.
And there is one Traviata I don't like, almost good for my garbage, but I am afraid to mention any details, as I don't want stinky fishes thrown on me.
When I think that when I subscribed to this forum, I tried Rosina as a name (ID). It was rejected due to some spam issues. So, imagine Rosina attacked with rotten fishes by Almaviva, for whatever Russian soprano!
Special dedication:
UWP = unwhatched pile
It can also stand for Unwatched Police, which is an agency that persecutes you, breaks into your home, and confiscates your unwatched DVDs and your goldfish if you have more than 50 unwatched DVDs at any given time.
I have that version of Sibilar (from last year's Proms?) on my phone and listen to it often. He does a great job with the runs. I caught the Glyndebourne Rinaldo before it got taken down; I didn't like the production (what do the crusades have to do with public schools?!) but the singing was good, as far as I remember. Looks like the Caen production is on, in bits - this one?
I remember thinking that Grenoble Alcina was rather pricey for a CD (VK's usually a safe bet with me, no issues with her register break). I've her and Harteros' other one and yet another one from the '80s (Christie, with Arleen Auger and Della Jones) both of which I enjoy a lot, so I don't need another one, as much as I love the opera. Ok, maybe I do, but there are other things I should buy first, things I haven't watched 10+ times yet
^ I think when you hit that level of super-stardom AND have had such a long and prodigious career you sort of let loose and do whatever you feel like regardless if it makes sense of not
The Meier/Storey/Barenboim 2007 La Scala quickly became one of my most treasured operas, and it became the catalyst for the "Wagner fever" I have.
Waltraud Meier is completely wonderful in her performance as Isolde, and I hope that someday this production is re-issued on Blu-ray.
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