Bellini - Norma / Patane, Caballe, Vickers, Veasey, Theatre Antique d'Orange
by Pierre Jourdan
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DVD details
Actor: Agostino Ferrin, Jon Vickers, Jos?phine Veasey, Marisa Zotti, Montserrat Caball?Director: Pierre Jourdan
Writer: Felice Romani
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Italian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Unknown); English (Subtitled)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 160 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-03-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Video Artists Int'l
DVD Reviews of Bellini - Norma / Patane, Caballe, Vickers, Veasey, Theatre Antique d'Orange
DVD Review: 1974 vs. 1978
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this 1974 Norma, for the same reasons the other reviewers do. Just a comparison note: In 1974's Guerra, Guerra, Caballe's still relatively gentle Norma "plays" the gong with a percussionist's stroke. Bel Canto has a 1978 performance on VHS in which Caballe gives us a furious Norma, a Norma who truly knows she has run out of options. Guerra, Guerra sees Norma beat the Hell out of that gong, from side to side, using about 1,000 pounds of strength per square inch. Then she beats it some more. She finishes by slinging the mallet down as hard as she could. Two different interpretations, and I love them both. DVD Review: it's so good
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know if Caballe's was the best Casta Diva ever; I only have four Normas, and I know how people argue about these things, and I really don't care whose trills don't quite work or whose energy flagged toward the end. I absolutely love this recording. More for its drama than for anything else, and for me drama is the real heart of opera. The conducting: the tone set in the overture, attacked with a ferocity you usually only get when lives are actually at stake. The costumes, which make Vickers look like a real Roman general (see the tenor's costume in Sutherland's DVD of the same opera, for an unhappy counterexample) and the Druids (through some cosmically serendipitous prescience) look disturbingly like Palestinian Arabs. The setting, giving an opera set in Roman-occupied Gaul a stage built by the Romans when they occupied Gaul. The acting, as Vickers declares his love at the top of his lungs (he doesn't hit the high notes others do but damn! he knew how to be the hero) and makes it work, as Caballe convinces us all she IS the priestess who sees the end of the world. The titanic, magnificent central trios, as our three main characters blunder about the stage like blind giants or Greek gods, banging into one another and wondering why it hurts.
It is true that it's not nearly as satisfying to listen to this with the video off. Callas' studio version brings out the tenor's role in the trio much better, exposing a great deal of music that doesn't come through in this, and it's well known that the Sutherland/Horne duets were actually unachievable, and thus probably the only real evidence we have for the existence of God; but get this one too. Get this one too.
DVD Review: a dignified norma
Summary: 4 Stars
Most bel canto operas can get away with a soprano with limited acting skills. Unfortunately, Norma is the exception. Once Norma has decided to immolate herself, she enters an exalted state, she is "beside herself". Maria Callas tore through this like a raging tiger. Montserrat Caballe does it with regal dignity. I don't think it works. Kevin R.DVD Review: Too Old to Carry Production Values
Summary: 2 Stars
The performances by Caballe and Vickers were excellent, but the visual quality of the video is inferior, blurred with mushy color. The original was too old to reproduce satisfactorily, I assume.DVD Review: Opera as it should be
Summary: 5 Stars
I never fully appreciated Norma till I saw this perfomance. Of course, I've heard Callas, Sutherland etc sing the roles but the opera always seemed to slack in parts. The music is beautiful however and it is filled with memorable arias and duets.
That all changed with this DVD. Every note, every gesture was filled with so much drama and emotion. So much immediacy. It was as close to perfect a video recording of Opera as I have seen. Caballe was simply magnificent as Norma. Her singing was beautiful and while she does not have the dramatic intensity of Callas, she was utterly rivetting. Her gestures, movement and expressions were just right, especially in the duets with Vickers and Veasey. All three of them made this opera come alive but Norma is an opera that lives or dies by the perfomance of the title role and Caballe commanded. This is opera as one wants it...great drama and acting with sublime music and singing at the same time.
I understand now that Norma is truly a great opera and it needs to be seen to be appreciated.
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