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“THE BEST ‘TWILIGHT’ MOVIE SO FAR!” “‘ECLIPSE’ DELIVERS!”
– ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY – Thelma Adams, US WEEKLY
Carl Zeller: “Der Obersteiger.” Bürgi, Zink, et al. Herbert Mogg conducts the chorus and orchestra of the Musiktheater Schönbrunn (CPO, 2 CDs)
Here is a delightful recording
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NOW PLaying CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES “. A MUST-SEE MOVIE.” Michael Sauter, LIFE & STYLE WEEKLY
that shows why operetta charms so many despite its manifest absurdities. The plot of Carl Zeller’s “Der Obersteiger” (“The Foreman”) is utterly incoherent; and the title character, whose name is Martin (tenor Bernhard Berchtold), is so unsympathetic that it scarcely matters when he goes from rabble-rouser to impoverished band director to a hurdy-gurdy man who has lost everything. Confusingly, this 1894 work — designed by Zeller to cash in on the popularity of his one big hit, 1891’s “Der Vogelhändler” — has three mismatched but eventually properly joined couples rather than operetta’s usual two: Martin and the wholesome lacemaker Nelly (soprano Anna Siminska); mine director Zwack (tenor Wolfgang-Müller Lorenz) and his wife, Elfriede (soprano Donna Ellen); and two disguised nobles: Prince Roderich (tenor Santiago Bürgi) and Comtesse Fichtenau (soprano Cornelia Zink). But the music is simply lovely.
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A GREAT SUMMER MOVIE.
“ ” Kelli Gillespie, CW-TV TOUGH LISTEN: Andrea Bocelli sings the part of Don Jose.
Bizet: “Carmen.” Domashenko, Bocelli, Terfel, et al. Myung-Whun Chung conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Decca, 2 CDs)
It’s hard to choose what’s most irritating about Decca’s new recording of Bizet’s “Carmen.” Is it the fact that, at a time when the major labels have deemed studio recordings of operas unaffordable luxuries, Decca has lavished production money on this eighth complete opera set built around crossover crooner Andrea Bocelli? Is it the
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“ ”THIS YEAR’S COOLEST Jeff Craig, SIXTY SECOND PREVIEW
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realization that the significant singers Decca has assembled around him would probably not be recording these roles without his bankable participation? Or is it simply the dispiriting mediocrity pervading the performance? Bocelli, to be fair, possesses an essentially lovely tenor and knows his stuff when it comes to selling a pop ballad. And Decca’s close miking of his puny voice inflates his sound to near-Franco Corelli-like dimensions. But his short-breathed, clumsily phrased, interpretively blank and often pinched and strained singing makes his Don Jose a tough listen. The rest of the cast also seems below its appreciable best, with Marina Domashenko a robustly delivered but anonymous Carmen, Eva Mei a breathy and unevenly sung Micaela and Bryn Terfel tending to bellow his way through the role of Escamillo. The presence of solid, Francophone singers in supporting
roles and the sensitively delivered spoken dialogue provide only slight compensations, and the usually perceptive conductor Myung-Whun Chung whips through the score with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France like he’s running late for a flight out of Orly. But if even a few of Bocelli’s fans discover opera through this misbegotten recording, it might all have been worth it.
— Joe Banno
stylereview@washpost.com “ PURR-FECT!
A 3D SPECTACULAR FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!”
Jami Philbrick, MOVIEWEB.COM
There are almost no tunes that are not memorable, and conductor Herbert Mogg, who seems to specialize in making obscure operettas sound great, is excellent. The operetta’s one big hit is “Wo sie war die Müllerin,” a
Wagner: Lohengrin. Kaufmann, Harteros, et al. Kent Nagano conducts the Bavarian State Opera orchestra and chorus (Decca DVD 074 3387)
For any Wagnerians who’ve been slumbering, Fafner-like, in their caves during the last few years, here’s your wake-up call: Jonas Kaufmann is the tenor we’ve been waiting for. He has a voice reminiscent of the young Jon Vickers, but with more warmth and Mediterranean luster, and the kind of matinee-idol looks and committed acting that make him a compelling presence onstage. Kaufmann outclasses all of his current competitors in the heldentenor stakes. A new DVD of Wagner’s
“Lohengrin” from the Bavarian State Opera’s 2009 Munich Festival (Decca DVD 074 3387), with Kaufmann in the title role, displays his gifts at their most magnetic. The sheer heft and beauty of his sound, his command of legato, his ability to dial down his voice to the tenderest whisper — these are qualities as rare in today’s Wagner tenors as are the emotional engagement and moment-to-moment responsiveness of his acting in the third act’s love duet, or the age-appropriate, romantic figure he cuts throughout. Happily, Kaufmann’s
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Peter Travers HANG ON FOR THE RIDE.”
“SALT IS A RED-HOT THRILLER…
Lohengrin is partnered by an Elsa fully up to his standard — soprano Anja Harteros, whose luminous, warmly communicative singing has one reaching for golden-age comparisons like Elisabeth Grummer and Maria Muller. Wolfgang Koch’s powerfully sung Telramund, Michaela
KLMNO Recordings
SUNDAY, AUGUST 8, 2010
strophic ditty that completely stops the action in the middle of the finale of Act II (much as the “prince and princess” song would do a decade later in Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow”). But other songs are equally good: “Die Forstrat fährt auf Commission,” in which Zwack explains that the bureaucrat does his duty “from nine to one but not afterwards” (again, think of “The Merry Widow,” where Count Danilo says much the same thing); the duet “Ich wollte, dass mein Gatte wär,” in which the prince and comtesse trade marital expectations; and the delicious terzettino, “Ein Ball ist sozusagen,” in which the comtesse, Elfriede and Nelly perfectly encapsulate the way women in operettas hunt for and trap their men. Great music? Certainly not.
Not even great operetta. But what a light and creamy confection this is, just right for a couple of hours’ escape from the mundane cares of the 19th century — or the 21st. —Mark J. Estren
stylereview@washpost.com
Schuster’s Ortrud (wonderfully detailed in her conniving allure, and relatively free of the harshness so many mezzos bring to this role), Christof Fischesser’s anxious, supple-toned Heinrich, and a notably forthright Herald from Russian baritone Evgeny Nikitin complete this unusually fine cast. Kent Nagano conducts the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in an expressively molded reading that balances power and chamber-music detail. Not everyone will welcome
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director Richard Jones’s arresting, somewhat enigmatic staging, which re-imagines medieval Brabant as what appears to be Germany in the early 1930s, on the eve of the Nazi Party’s election victory — a bourgeois, militarized society of cowed, rule-bound citizens who labor through all three acts to construct a stark, A-frame house onstage. The house and the barn-raisingmethod by which it is built serve as an apt visual metaphor for the manufactured domesticity, anti-individualist politics and building of false hope that pervade this opera. (And the morphing of the mid-century costumes into character-erasing T-shirts by the last act nicely evokes the gradual suppression of free thinking, and pulls the action effectively into the pres- ent.) Thought-provoking, to be sure, but the staging has its distracting and heavy-handed moments. Even so, Wagner lovers allergic to this European brand of deconstruction are advised to simply close their eyes. On no account, though, should Kaufmann’s standard-setting performance be missed.
— Joe Banno
stylereview@washpost.com
“WHAT A BEAUTIFUL, SUBLIME MOVIE! ONE OF THE BEST OF THE SUMMER!”
-Jeffrey Lyons, KNBC/LYONS DEN RADIO DUVALL ROBERT SPACEK SISSY MURRAY BILL
SCREENPLAY BY CHRIS PROVENZANO AND C.GABY MITCHELL DIRECTED BY AARON SCHNEIDER WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM
STORY BY CHRIS PROVENZANO & SCOTT SEEKE WRITTEN BY LISA CHOLODENKO & STUART BLUMBERG DIRECTED BY LISA CHOLODENKO
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