FitnessProsBooks.com - Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Shicoff, Swenson, Terfel, Rancatore, Mentzer, Uria-Monzon, Senechal, Gubisch, Lopez Cobos, Paris Opera
|
List Price: $32.98
Our Price:
Your Save: $ 32.98 ( 100% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Tdk DVD Video
Starring: Ruth Ann Swenson, Neil Shicoff, Susanne Mentzer, Bryn Terfel, Beatrice Uria-Monzon
|
Average Customer Rating:   
|
|
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0824121000639
Format: Classical
Label: Tdk DVD Video
Manufacturer: Tdk DVD Video
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Tdk DVD Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2004-08-17
Running Time: 173
Studio: Tdk DVD Video
|
|
|
Related Items
|
- Puccini - La Boheme / Pavarotti, Scotto, Niska, Wixell, Plishka, Levine, Metropolitan Opera
- Verdi - La Traviata
- Offenbach - Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) / Pretre, Domingo, Royal Opera Covent Garden
- Puccini - Turandot / Franco Zeffirelli - Marton, Domingo, Mitchell, Plishka, Cuenod - James Levine, MET (1988)
- Donizetti - L'Elisir d'Amore
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Hoffman in a refreshing and interesting mise en scene
Comment: First of all please don't listen to traditionalists who cannot tolerate changes. Yes, this is a different take on Hoffman, but a very interesting one and also very beautiful. As other reviewers have pointed out, the action takes place in different parts of the theater where Stella is singing Don Giovanni. At least I, who have seen the opera live on several ocassions in the usual scenery, find it a welcome change.
Second, there is NO nudity, it's a plastic outfit representing a doll, so please do not over-exaggerate.
The singing and acting is great by all of the principals. Schicoff may be a bit too old, but he can still sing with great passion. He's definitely the best Hoffmann to come along in a long time.
The only reservation I have is the sound which lacks a bit of impact, but it's still miles ahead of the awful Kultur sound.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Make No Mistake
Comment: Make no mistake: this is a historical performance, on a par with the Solti FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Shicoff is a genius of the order of Gobbi and Callas. Bryn Terfel is no slouch. The rest are merely great.
If you pay attention to the fault finders, you deny yourself experience of what opera is about.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Strange "Hoffmann," but excellent singing
Comment: I was a little scared to buy this DVD at first because of another opera I have from the Paris Opera, Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito. The singing in "Clemenza" is stunningly beautiful, though the staging/costuming was very contemporary and a bit strange at times. Well, I got a similar thing with The Tales of Hoffmann from the Paris Opera. The singing is great, but the staging and costumes is just plain weird. I was hoping for something traditional. I can stand productions that aren't always real traditional (like "Clemenza"), but I think they at least need to make sense. In this "Hoffmann," everything doesn't even fit together. One of the scenes I especially wanted to see was when they sing the boat song, but instead it is theatre seats moving around like waves of water with people dressed up from the 70's groping each other. I found it hard getting into the opera. The sexual scene that Olympia does was baffling, though maybe it's just not my kind of humor. I was actually surprised by it. The nudity other reviewers talk about didn't bother me that much, as she is being broken. I'm not sure I would call that nudity, as kids see that all the time with their Barbie dolls.
I would recommend this "Hoffmann" for the singing and not as your only Hoffmann. I especially would like to point out the fabulous performance by Desiree Rancatore as Olympia. I especially got this DVD because of her. I had heard her sing on DVD before (Mozart in Turkey) and loved her (her voice, stage presense, everything). It was a real treat to hear her sing Olympia and she did amazing, even right down to the robotic movements. I hope to see more of her as there doesn't seem to be much out there on her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sour Reviews Largely Baseless
Comment: This is a truly invigorating production,
There is some utterly fantastic singing. The aging Neil Schicoff plays the poet Hoffmann, and does so with virtuosic acting ability. His voice is wearing away, expecially in his thinning passagio, but one hardly notices. His theatricality brings hoffmann to life. Some have critisized his costuming.. and these people hardly understand the concept. This Hoffman is not a romantic hero, and is not particualrly attractive. That is precicely the point, hoffman IS a slob of a fellow, and his charachter is perfect played in this Woody allen(esque) mold (as another reviewer put it) Olympia is not real, and is the first person Hoffman loves, which would show his impatience and naivete in love, hardly a Don Juan. Antonia loves Hoffman for his ardency and artistic bend, and Giulietta as mockery. Hoffman is, indeed a poor drunkard, and this is why Neil schicoff is quite perfect inthe role. A reviewer asked why a bar would listen to him or pay attention to him, when he looks ravaged and messy, this is simple. he is a poet, an ardent man of the world, and highly entertaining. He is a joke to the bar crowd,
Bryn Terfel plays the satanic villains of this production. He has been accused here of playing them all the same. INDEED he does, and he saves the continuity of the work by doing so. He is the ringleader, the mover of the plot, he is the devilish foil for Hoffman. Even though he is 4 charachters, that look in his eyes is quite the same. this feeds into Hoffmans main point, which is that Satan, or the vile nature of humankind, will always be won over by this towering villain, no matter what he is called (indeed he may appear under any name but will always bring the same fate.) The acting is beyond superb, but I have a few notes for Bryn vocally. I don't think, with his imposing presence, he needed to shout and growl and distort quite so much, and he pressed his top notes as much as he could. His singing was quite full in tone, but always with strange effects (some would have been nice, but too many made for an overly mannered vocalism.)
The Muse, Susanne Mentzer was merely satisfactory. she does not command a doninating vocal presence, but acts very well, and very subtley at times.
Now a note as to the production. This is hardly a "modernization" or "euro trash." Hoffman takes place in a drunken, fantastic and poetic world of a worldy bohemains mind. A note to all grand opera junkies who are offended by the lack of corsets and posturing... THE PLOT IS SURREALIST! It is not a grand opera plot, it is abstract, the images are broken, it is a piece of ardent romantic literature, placed upon a modernist slate... which accuratley represents the subject matter. The lack of precise setting works here as all three acts take place in the chamber of Hoffmans mind and in his stories. The worlds created are not the ones in which the lover actually had his escapades, but instead the world fabricated by the poet in his tale, full of connections, themes, and dreamlike images which takes the Opera out of the ordinary and catapults it into the air of true inspired prose.
Further, the modern style of acting (actual acting,) makes this a production that is immediatley catapulted. Domingo, who knows well how to act the romantic hero, and sings a great deal more resonantly than Neil Schicoff, cannot, however, pull off the neo-romantic and modern underpinning of the work, which Schicoff does and brings the whole opera into another class.
as to the "nudity" as one reviewer put it. Let it be known that the Doll Olympia (in an ingenious staging of the Doll Song,) In FULL, plastic body suit, does indeed have her clothes taken off before she is destroyed. Picture Barbie dolls without clothes, there is no human flesh, just a doll plastic suit. so please do not over- exaggerate. However, this play has alot of sexuality in it, to hide that would be criminal to the composer, who wrote it in. So if you don't like that, well then don't watch it.
WHAT A SHOW... completely illuminary
Customer Rating:
Summary: nothing wrong with it
Comment: I am baffled that so many people don't like this production. I thought it is an interesting solution for an opera that is hard to stage anyway. Especially the Olympia and Antonia acts work well. All singers are great. So what's to complain about ? Not enough distracting clutter on the stage ? Good ! I have never seen a Robert Carsen production on DVD or on stage where I didn't have the feeling that he respects the work and comes up with an interesting and visually stunning concept. Ok, Zeffirelli he is not - thank goodness !
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
