Puccini - La Bohème / Baz Luhrmann, The Australian Opera (1994) Review

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(More customer reviews)The story has been set to 1950s Paris; the characters are portrayed with young faces; the songs are sung by fresh and splendid voices, this contemporary version of La Bohème completely blew me away. In this production, whether or not the singings are perfect takes second place in the face of vitality, passion, and intensity brought out by the brilliant young cast.
Bravo, David Hobson for giving such a wonderful wonderful Rodolfo. This is the Rodolfo you'll be dreaming of. He is handsome, he is tall, and his tenor rings out with beauty, clarity, and youthfulness. To make things even better, he acts brilliantly. He gives life to every note he sings. When he belts out a high C, it's not a matter of showing off his tenor, but a real emotional outpouring. Seldom did I see vocalist acting with such depth and sincerity. He put himself so deep into the character that at the curtain calls he is still in tears.
Brava, Cheryl Barker for conveying a tender and lovely Mimi. At some places Cheryl Barker's voice is not at her best in portraying Mimi, but her acting makes up the weakness, and in the end, she has become real Mimi. Her highlight is Mimi's death scene. Of all the times I have watched this scene, not a single time was I not in tears. She and David Hobson make a very good match, between them the chemistry is convincing, which makes their parting all the more heartbreaking.
Bravo, Baz Luhrmann for the creativity and courage of blazing new trails for classical opera, and for the raw artistic design. Instead of making a cliché of yet another production of classical opera, he has turned it into a great piece of modern theater, in which the essence is embodied with realism and bestowed with novelties.
Opera lovers, especially young opera lovers, this La Bohème is a must!

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Recorded live at the Sydney Opera House, this Australian Opera production of Puccini's perennial favorite was staged by the creative team who made the hit film Strictly Ballroom: director Baz Luhrmann and designers Catherine Martin and Bill Marron. They have crafted a compelling and artful reworking of the opera, using the post-war privations of 1950s Paris as a convincing setting and capturing, above all else, the youthfulness and intensity of the story with a raw sincerity. This opera in four acts features a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after Henry Murger's novel Scenes de la Vie de Boheme. In Italian with English subtitles.112 minutes.

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Puccini - Il Trittico (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Puccini was a crowd pleaser but even he couldn't ignore the currents of musical change following in the wake of Debussy, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Debussy's influence is obvious in his score for La fanciulla del west, produced at the Met Dec. 10, 1910. The advent of the First World War caused musical downsizing between 1914-1918 for everyone, so Puccini produced three one act operas with slighly smaller orchestral forces which also premiered at the Met Dec. 14, 1918. The score is masterful, pointing towards a future Puccini only partially fulfilled with the unfinished Turandot of 1926. Puccini died before creating the modernist work he might have produced following Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu.
This production of Il Trittico, recorded live at the Teatro Comunale di Modena, 8 February 2007 is fresh, insightful and entertaining. Both Il tabarro and Suor Angelica are spared dirge-like productions in director Cristina Pezzoli's clean, crisp versions of the first two operas of Puccini's triptych. She removes everything superfluous, leaving behind the essence of the two harrowing plays. Both the Verismo in Il tabarro and the religious ecstasy of Suor Angelica are not over emphasized. The drama is naturalistic, the sets and costumes spare and stylized, so we are never forced into a downward spiral of bathos. The female lead in all three operas is Amarilli Nizza and she is splendid, obviously the singing and acting star of this production. The rest of the cast is equally as good.
The final opera is, as always, the most entertaining, the most fun of the three. This Gianni Schicchi, a tale of rampant greed and fraudulent wills that is based on a story from Dante, now updated to the era of it's composition, is wonderful. With imaginatively designed and beautifully realized comic costumes, and a simple but effective set, the performers shine. Surrounded by all of this artfully done comic freedom, they sing and act with natural comedic grace. It is very refreshing to see such creative excellence. This is my favorite Gianni Schicchi thus far on DVD. Alberto Mastromarino, the rotund, treacherous but hilarious Schicchi, is a hoot! It's a performance that will remain with you a long time. The Orchestra della Fondazione Arturo Toscanini and the Coro Lirico Amadeus, conducted by Julian Reynolds (not Nello Santi), play and sing splendidly. The entire large cast is excellent. Sound is exemplary in Dolby Digital 5.1, with an effect that is beautifully natural. Voices are wrapped in a spacious soundfield: airy and surrounded by/enfolded within their natural stage distances. Costumes are abstract, beautiful, funny and colorful. I adored their comic book wit. Sets are simply designed and very effective. There was creative intelligence involved in this production and it shows.
Modern and stylized, serious in the first two operas, very funny in the last, this is a splendid Il Trittico. Most strongly recommended.
Mike Birman

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Item Name: Puccini - Il Trittico; Studio:TDK

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Puccini: La Boheme (Live from the Met) (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)Britten - Peter Grimes (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series)
This DVD is a recording of the performance of La Boheme at the Met on April 5/2008 which was transmitted in HD worldwide. The first night was on 3/29th with the same cast, and the reviews in NY papers and the one here by Ivy Lin were based on the the opening night performance, not the one used on this disc. I attended the opening and agree with most of Ms. Lin's observations, i.e.: Vargas ' voice being "lyric,bright,ardent" hitting
the high C in Che Gelida Manina "delicately"; Gheorghiu's aggressiveness and sluttishness, and her being out of sync in her Act1 aria. I do not agree with her claim that Vargas was too chubby and phlegmatic to be a believable Rodolfo, but I tend to agree with her comments about the Mimi. I cannot blame Ms. Lin because I myself found Ms.Gheorghiu to be trying hard to appear too romantic and taken with her man. She practically mauled him at the Cafe Momus with her exuberance. I did not attend the April 5th performance but I listened to the PBS radio broadcast and saw the moviecast of the event,and was very happy with the positive changes and improvement over the opening night performance. The excessive touching, smooching and other distractions were toned down, and the musical matters went on smoothly.
This disc has outstanding video and audio worthy of the Met's 50-yr old classic Zeffirelli production with an ideal casting of Angela Gheorghiu and Ramon Vargas in the principal roles, supported by a fine mix of veterans and newcomers to the Met. Everyone in this line up is gifted with enormous talent, rich voice and fine musicality. The conductor is a young but highly talented Italian who certainly knows his Puccini, and one who knows how to accommodate his singers' ideas without sacrificing the integrity of the music. True, he used some rubatos and expansive tempos here and there but always to enhance rather than diminish the musical and dramatic values. He supported his singers sensitively and the orchestera responded beautifully.
For some time, I was hoping the two singers would be cast together in any opera, not just Boheme, because I always believe that their voices are a perfect match in size, coloration, expressiveness and range. Plus, they possess truly beautiful voices, musical intelligence, innate musicality and elegant singing style. All of these qualities are evident on this disc. What I was not sure about was their chemistry together. Having seen the close-up of their facial expressions and subtle dramatic expressions, the total commitment and involvement throughut the opera by both artists and even split-second reactions, I do not know of any pair that could match such chemistry. Just incredible! They seem to inspire each other. Now I can understand why Gheorghiu, in Acts1&2, tried to convince everyone including the audience, her man and herself that she was REALLY in love with him. She was going to use this bit of realism to help her go through her slow death in Acts3&4 with searing intensity and poignancy. And Vargas responded with such convincing sincerity that one cannot help but feel for the unfortunate lovers.Gheorghiu has been acclaimed for her acting, in addition to her singing, throughout her career, but it's hard to tell who the better actor is of the two here.
How about the singing ? Stunning, mesmerizing, magical, heartbreaking, ethereal. Stunning was Vargas when he discarded his lyric, bright-toned Che Gelida Manina on opening night and used his burnished, dark-hued spinto of late while preserving his customary warmth and sweetness. Mesmerizing was Gheorghiu in her Act1 aria with the movement of a graceful ballerina. Magical was the expansive Soave Fanciulla with Vargas visibly stunned at the sight of the radiant, beautiful Mimi bathed in moonlight and ushering in the sweeping splendor of this music with his magnificent sound. Heartbreaking was Mimi's farewell to the love of her life. Ethereal was Vargas' "alla stagion dei fior ", ethereal as the snow flakes falling on the lovers at the end of Act3.
So, whose BOHEME is this ? Is it Mimi's or Rodolfo's ? Buy this DVD and find out. Enjoy the quest for the answer.


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The Metropolitan Opera's acclaimed Live in High-Definition series, which projects live performances into theaters across the globe, has met with unprecedented critical and commercial success and has made opera convenient and affordable to millions of viewers worldwide. Now, EMI Classics is proud to collaborate with The Met to release 6 new DVDs made from these broadcast performances.Puccini's immortal classic of love and loss, with Franco Zeffirelli's sumptuous, iconic production and Nicola Luisotti's expressive conducting. Angela Gheorghiu, the leading Puccini soprano of our time, reprises the role of Mimì, while tenor Ramón Vargas gives a sensitive reading of Rodolfo. All these forces combine for a truly definitive performance of this beloved opera!

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