The Opera Gala: Live from Baden-Baden
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Actor: Anna Netrebko, Elina Garanca, Ludovic Tezier, Ramón VargasBrand: Opera
Soprano: Anna Netrebko
Mezzo Soprano: Elina Garanca
Tenor: Ramón Vargas
Baritone: Ludovic Tezier
Composer: Vincenzo Bellini
Composer: Georges Bizet
Composer: Ruperto Chapi
Composer: Leo Delibes
Composer: Gaetano Donizetti
Composer: Franz Lehar
Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Composer: Gioachino Rossini
Composer: Camille Saint-Saens
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Orchestra: SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 138 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
DVD Reviews of The Opera Gala: Live from Baden-Baden
DVD Review: Good Baden-Baden.
Summary: 4 Stars
This DVD will provide a plenty of a light-weight evening entertainment, with some of the most popular arias nicely sung by top-selling singers. Anna Netrebko's beauty is matched by her voice, and she steals the show with a great show of herself in Lehar's Giuditta, when she starts seducing the audience slowly by breaking the roses from a huge bouquet she holds in her arms and throwing the flowers into parterre, with well-behaved well-tied well-suited well-aged solid Baden/German burgers catching the treats with delight, with their equally important and aged fraus watching over them and the young singing siren in various degrees of astonishment, from admiration to disapproval.
When Netrebko finally kicks-off her high-heeled shows and starts leaping the stage, dancing, the uproar sets in and for this one piece this DVD is worth watching. This Baden-Baden crowd, so unsmiling and utterly serious, as typical German audience, was so shaken off and made to finally laugh with pleasure! For anyone who has ever been to that theater it is also amazing to see that it is almost full - we are talking of a Metropolitan Opera size opera house in a relatively small city! I was amazed when I saw its size inside - from the outside it seems rather small, but they only kept the old facade; inside it is a huge house. But it was not nearly as full for one of the greatest productions of Tosca I had ever seen, with Catherine Naglestad and Alexandrs Antonenko. How hype the names of this gala must be to fill this cyclopean edifice for this performance!
Next prize, this time for virtuosity in singing, goes to Elina Caranca. Her command of her voice and the sheer beauty of it is at the level of Vesselina Kasarova or Lorraine Hunt; she is truly a great mezzo-soprano, exceptionally gifted. Her singing of "Nacqui all'affano" from Rossini's La Cenerentola is breath-taking. Perhaps she does not have Netrebko's sex appeal and could not be as believable a Traviata (albeit soprano part), but...I do not think Netrebko is the same-level virtuoso.
Their Norma rendition is very good, and sounds better to me than Sutherland/Horne, but perhaps not than Mirella Freni/Renata Scotto; but it is comparable. It is interesting to notice that Netrebko's voice is so Callas-like here, and it is a pleasure to listen to. But as with Callas, I suspect that are limits to what she can do as a singer; and as an actress and singer together, she yields to Natalie Dessay, for example; however, her Traviata is probably one of teh most memorable. Together with Garanca their "Mira, o Norma" was quite a treat, visually, too, as they are dressed in Escada and their jewelery is by Chopard, marvelous.
As for Vargas, he is quite good as Duca di Mantova, and it would be great to listen to him live; but I would not call his performance here dazzling.
Ludovic Tezier is a baritone whose looks make him a perfect Lord Ashton or other romantic opera nobles, but I think his voice is too high for COunt de Luna or Don Giovanni. He has put a good performance here, but nothing to rave about.
Overall, a nice entertainment for the evening, truly this show fits Baden-Baden heavy 19th century bourgeois inclinations so well.
A treat.
Description of The Opera Gala: Live from Baden-Baden
Deutsche Grammophon proudly presents the new faces of the opera world in a glamorous new live concert DVD: Anna Netrebko, El? - na Garanc?a, Ramón Vargas and the highly acclaimed young French baritone Ludovic Tézier sing a wide range of Italian and French opera favorites. This recording features highlights from concerts at Baden- Baden's Festspielhaus, where tickets to this extraordinary event sold out in record time. The DVD features the four young stars performing duets and the popular quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore" from Rigoletto. Other highlights include Delibes' famous flower duet from Lakmé performed sumptuously by Anna and El?-na. Total Playing Time: 139 min.The Festival Theatre at the German spa town of Baden-Baden is a spanking modern concert hall behind the façade of a handsome 19th-century railroad station. In July 2007, it hosted an evening of wonderful singing by a quartet of leading operatic stars in a program that could have been titled "Opera's Greatest Hits." After a brief orchestral piece from Bellini's Norma the fireworks begin with the duet Mira, o Norma featuring soprano Anna Netrebko and mezzo Elina Garanca, their voices blending beautifully. From then on, it's one familiar, well-loved operatic chestnut after another, all done with spirited fervor and admirable vocalism. Tenor Ramón Vargas is a positive presence, giving us the bel canto gem Una furtive lagrima from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore in a flawlessly idiomatic interpretation that includes stunning diminuendos and a melting mezza-voce. Ludovic Tézier's rich baritone scores with a subtle rendition of Riccardo's death scene from Verdi's Don Carlo and, in yet another highlight in an evening full of them, joins Vargas in the great duet Dio, che nell'alma infondere from that opera.
Garanca's Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix from Saint-Saën's Samson et Dalila is undersung but her showpiece aria from Rossini's La Cenerentola sparkles, with impressive coloratura fireworks. Netrebko is among the most brilliant stars of today's operatic firmament and while overparted in Norma's Casta Diva, she's effective elsewhere. She brings the house down with the first of the concert's many encores, a performance of Lehar's Meine Lippen from the operetta, Giuditta, that includes seductive singing and acting, sexual flirtations, and energetic dancing. Her enthusiasm is infectious, sparking her colleagues as well as the audience. All four singers join in the quartet from Rigoletto that ends the formal portion of the concert, and in the final encore, they trade verses in an arrangement of the Drinking Song from La Traviata. Conductor Marco Armiliato, whose supportive accompaniments help make the concert a rousing success, directs the capable orchestra.
So this two-hour singfest provides joys for vocal buffs despite the hectic video direction that keeps the cameras moving endlessly, unnecessarily swooping around the auditorium, zooming from balconies to the stage and back, and otherwise distracting from the main event. --Dan Davis
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