Menotti - The Consul / Patricia Neway, Chester Ludgin
by Bill Butler, Di Drew, Frank Arnold, Julian Pringle, William A. Graham
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DVD details
Actor: Chester Ludgin, Geoffrey Rush, Ivar Kants, Patricia Neway, Peter GwynneDirector: Bill Butler, Di Drew, Frank Arnold, Julian Pringle, William A. Graham
Writer: Gian Carlo Menotti
Writer: Michael Craig
Writer: Michael Jenkins
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); Italian (Original Language); English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Italian (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Classical, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Video Artists Int'l
DVD Reviews of Menotti - The Consul / Patricia Neway, Chester Ludgin
DVD Review: A Powerful Re-discovery
Summary: 5 Stars
It has been three days since I first watched the recently released DVD of
Menotti's "The Consul" and I have spent a good portion of those days
ruminating over the experience.
First off, even though quite familiar with the work, I was nonetheless
devastated by seeing, for the first time, Patricia Neway re-creating her
Magda Sorel. I simply am incapable of adequately putting into words what
her performance did to me. For the first time, the completeness of Magda's
self-sacrifice hit me with full force as never before, both in its
earnestness and in the horror of its ultimate futility.
Neway's face is a truly magnificent actor's mask, the possessor of an
endless range of expression giving multiple facets to a potentially nearly
constantly hysterical character. She makes Magda a truly believable woman.
Her Magda is an unlikely example of one character simultaneously worthy of
admiration and pity. Neway does not possess a particularly large voice and
in certain climatic moments of the score she sounds just about at the end
of her resources. While some may find "fault" with this, I find that,
typical of everything else Ms. Neway does here, she is giving her all and
this contributes to a performance that can only be described as shattering.
Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the great scene "To this we've
come" which is about as perfect a wedding of text, music and emotion as I
have ever experienced. I watched in sheer awe unable to control my tears.
Writing this now, I'm again shaken with emotion. Neway completely shatters
here. One of the truly most magnificent performances by any artist of the 20th century.
As John, Chester Ludgin is every bit as real as Neway's Magda. Though
together but briefly in the opera, there is never less than a sense that
this is a real couple, one who's dedication to each other is total, unable
to live without the other and equal in sacrifice.
Regina Sarfaty's all ice princess stickler of The Secretary, is chilling,
finding compassion only too late to alter the outcome. The diminutive
Maria Marlo is especially touching The Foreign Woman incapable of
comprehending the world she now exists in. Leon Lishner is a chilling
presence, even when not singing and the "revelation" in the third act with
his menacing smile made me think Spoleta had a more handsome, more sinister
brother. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent.
Unfortunately I've not seen much in the way of discussion or review on this DVD and wonder how many others have
been similarly destroyed by Ms. Neway's definitive performance.
This receives my highest of recommendations.
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