Swan Lake/Cecilia & Bryn At Glyndebourne – Arias
& Duets (Blu-ray/Opus Arte/BBC)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: D Concerts: B
Having
already covered these two titles in the HD-DVD format on the site, you can take
a first look with our first look at this links:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6853/Cecilia+&+Bryn+At+Glyndebourne
We now
get to continue our coverage now as two of those three titles have just been released
to Blu-ray.
There are
only minor differences in the Blu-ray and the previous HD-DVD, which does not
change our view too much on the overall experience of these releases. The one thing that is noteworthy is the
simple fact that no matter how stunning the picture and sound is on a concert
of this nature, nothing comes close to being at a live opera. The acoustics translate different and even
with a 5.1 mix there is still some depth and overall character that is loss,
but those things aside these Blu-ray discs come about as close to possible for
home viewing and with very few discs available at this time it’s hard to find
competition to rival.
Both
titles are presented in 1.78 X 1 anamorphic widescreen with a 1080p High
Definition transfer and look stunning.
Like we said before, the camerawork is a bit static and at times fairly
average, but overall the depth and dimension works fine and give a highly
life-like appearance. Unlike the
HD-DVD’s though we do not get Dolby Digital TrueHD on these releases for
Blu-ray, nor do we get the impressive DTS track on Swan Lake, instead we get uncompressed PCM mixes, 2.0 and
5.1/5.0. While the audio is uncompressed
it would have been great to do these titles in DTS-HD or perhaps Dolby TrueHD
if for no other reason than comparison.
In some respects I prefer to 2.0 mix a bit more as it sounds more
accurate as the front soundstage comes to life where the 5.1 mixes are a bit
too sparse and attempt to throw the sound around.
One can
only hope that Opus brings forth more classical and opera material now that
Blu-ray has won out the format war and bring forth a strong representation of
their catalog.
- Nate Goss
