
Idomeneo
(2019/Mozart/Opus Arte*)/King
Arthur (2017/Purcell/Bel
Air*)/La Morte D'Orfeo
(2018/Landi/Audi/Rousset*)/Marius
Petipa: The French Master of Russian Ballet
(2019/Icarus DVD)/Rigoletto
(2019/Verdi/Unitel/Stolzt*)/Romeo
and Juliet (2019/Bel
Air/Prokofiev/Ural Opera Ballet/Kunichev/*all Naxos Blu-rays)
Picture:
B-/B-/B/C+/B/B- Sound: B/B/B/C/B/B- Extras: C/C/C/D/C+/C
Main Programs: B-/B-/B-/C+/B/B-
Here's
a new group of decent Classical Music releases to consider...
We'll
start with one of Mozart's lesser-known works, Idomeneo
(2019) involves the title character, a King of Crete from the Trojan
War (played by Eric Cutler), but this is updated, which is
interesting since the original work already was playing against early
operas at the time and was innovative. Apparently so subversive that
it is not staged as much as it ought to be, but director Robert
Carson, conductor Ivan Bolton, choreographer Marco Berriel and the
impressive supporting cast at the Teatro Real pull of the transition
well enough.
I
have to say that in more than a few cases over recent years, the
attempts to update and make certain operas (and even ballets for that
matter) contemporary and up to date have backfired too often,
especially when trying to add video screens all over the place, but
this one has only a little video (no post-modernism, thank you) and
though this gets a little more visually dark than I thought worked,
the final results survived and held together better than so many
other attempts. I look forward to comparing to a non-contemporary
version sometime down the line.
The
Henry Purcell/John Dryden version of King Arthur (2017) starts
as people are talking, then the talk about the legend fades and the
fantasy story (with all the Opera actors immediately starting to
deliver a fine show) then kicks in not unlike the great, recent
version of The Magic Flute we reviewed with Klaus Maria
Brandauer as the book reader. Almost as effective, the retelling of
the story is not bad at all and bluntly, better than some of the
horrid, big budget feature films we have recently had to suffer
through in recent years. Some people just try too hard and should
try something else.
Michael
Rotschopf is good as the title character, Meike Droste has to direct
both worlds on stage, Rene Jacobs conducts the music, Martin Wright
handles the chorus and acted in German at the Staattsoper im Schiller
Theater in Berlin, Germany is along 170 minutes, so it is not for
everyone. However, it is one of the better entries in the legend and
some of those feature films seemed much longer. I was glad to catch
it.
Stefan
Landi's La Morte D'Orfeo (2018) has Orpheus in his dying
moments and that is just the start of what is considered an important
early opera. From the Dutch National Opera, directed by Pierre Audi,
conducted by Christopher Rousset and a tight 111 minutes, this was
recorded in Amsterdam and has costumes that make sense in production
design that can be minimalist, but works just well enough. Cheers to
the makers for not overdoing the death angle that many today would
have done.
This
is a new work to us, as I do not remember us getting to cover this
one in well over 15 years of Classical Music reviews, but it is one
that should be a little more common and just by trying to stretch a
mythical ending into its own story is still impressive by today's
standards. Though some moments worked better than others, I was glad
to finally catch this one and the makers take the material as
seriously as they do their audience, which many such productions
might trey to do, but this succeeds a little more than the usual. If
you have not seen this work before, this performance is as good as
any one to start with.
Next
up is our only outright documentary, Denis Sneguirev's Marius
Petipa: The French Master of Russian Ballet (2019) spends about
an hour (52 minutes with credits) talking about how the choreographer
delivered amazing work on classics like Swan Lake and Sleeping
Beauty that worked well, holds up, is explained by experts how
effective is was and remains, adds political context (et al) and how
people have loved his results for a decades and then some.
Other
points are debated and some of the ideas, interpretations and even
history might contradict and overlap, but it is a good start to
understanding the man's work. With that said, I wish this were
longer, especially since the makers visited several countries to
create the final product here. Wonder if there is anything in the
vault or on the cutting room floor that could be added to the body of
the program or as extras? Still, it is worth seeing if you love
ballet and the artists involved. Process is always interesting to
hear about.
Whether
this will ever get issued on Blu-ray, who knows, but we have covered
two ballets with his choreography on Blu-ray that you can enjoy and
read more about at these links:
La
Bayadere + Cecelia & Bryn link
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15671/From+The+House+Of+The+Dead/Janacek/Young+
Le
Corsaire
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13561/Amazing+Space+(2015/Film+Chest+Blu-ray+w/DV
These
last two entries are works we are revisiting again as we have over
the years, sometimes with different authors.
We
have had great luck with Verdi's Rigoletto as it has been
treated with a rare respect you only see with so many famous operas.
For instance, here are other versions of Rigoletto we liked:
Arthaus
Blu-ray by Santi & Deflo
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8070/Giuseppe+Verdi+%E2%80%93+Rigoletto+(Naxos/A
As
part of the Belcanto D'Amore Unitel/CMajor Blu-ray box set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13223/Belcanto+D'Amore:+Madama+Butterfly,+Rigoletto,
As
part of the Andrea Andermann Blu-ray Box set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14783/Aria:+30th+Anniversary+Edition+(1987/Lightyear
Needless
to say the fact that two were in high profile box sets (one of which
was a limited edition) shows you the love and high regard this one
has. Not to be outdone, this new version was staged outdoors for the
Bregenzer Fest Spiele with great set pieces and costumes, plus some
god energy (a great audience did not hurt) and conducted by Enrique
Mazzola with the Wiener Symphoniker, directed on the stage by Philipp
Stolzl. This is the kind of top rate production that gets people
interested in opera.
As
good as the previous versions we reviewed, the Bregenz Festival Choir
and Prague Philharmonic Choir combine to back the great cast that
includes Vladimir Stoyanov in the title role, Stephen Costello as the
Duke of Mantua, Melissa Petit as Gilda, Kostas Smoriginas as the
Count of Monterone and Jorge Eleazar as the Count of Ceprano. At
just over two hours, this is the kind of production that makes a
great introduction for children to get them into the arts. The case
also claims this taping originated in 4k Ultra High Definition video,
so I will especially look forward to a 4K edition of this in the
(near) future), I hope. In the meantime, this is my favorite entry
of the six good ones here, so don't miss it.
Last
but not least, a new version of the Prokofiev version of the Ural
Opera Ballet's presentation of Romeo and Juliet (2019) that is
more recent and runs about two hours, but the Vyachslav
Samodurov-choreographed program is not bad and is visually elaborate
enough without overdoing it, though some may see it as still a little
deconstructionist. Alexandr Merkishev and Ektaerina Sapogova handle
the title roles just fine and this is convincing enough, but it is
hard to do this story fresh since it is being done all the time, not
counting takeoffs, like West Side Story (a new feature film
(from Steven Spielberg of all people) and dynamic new stage play
version are making news as we post this) so cheers to this solid
production.
I
thought the pacing was fine, the costumes good and the Orchestra of
the Ural Ballet (conducted by Pavel Klinichev) delivered the music
very well, so this is not just very professional, it works pretty
well, even if it will not stay with me as much as I would have liked.
Fans of any of this should give it a good look.
Other
versions we have liked include:
2008
5.1 Super Audio CD edition
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7782/Naxos+Classical+SACD+Wave+with+Orff%E2%80%
Opus
Arte Blu-ray performance at the original location of Shakespeare's
Globe Theater
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9954/Cosi+Fan+Tutte/Opernhaus+Zurich+++Donizetti/Do
The
MacMillian version on Blu-ray with the Royal Opera House
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12162/Bach:+Matthaus+-+Passion+(ArtHaus/Naxos+Blu-r
Now
for playback performance. All five Blu-ray discs are here in 1080i
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image presentations, with Morte
and Rigoletto
looking the best with barely any motion blur. All the colors look
decent on each disc, but Rigoletto
has the most color and being outdoor in the light, looks the best of
all. All five Blu-rays offer PCM
2.0 Stereo sound, but it is the only soundtrack on Romeo, which is
good, but not great. The remaining four Blu-rays also offer DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that play a little better than
their PCM counterparts and are the preferred way to view their
respective programs.
As
for the Pepita DVD, the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image
is a little soft and has some blur issues, including variances in the
quality of some of the clips, but it is fine otherwise and too bad
that it is not a Blu-ray. This could look a little better. The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is a little weaker than I would have
liked, clear but on the low side, so be careful of volume switching
and high playback.
Extras
are only on the Blu-rays and all five include the usual multi-lingual
booklets on the respective programs and are smart as usual, plus
Rigoletto adds a 25-minutes-long Making Of interview
piece and Idomeneo adds a Cast Gallery.
-
Nicholas Sheffo