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Amazon.co.uk Review
The DVD has subtitles in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, as well as trailers for other Arthaus Musik discs. --Roz Kaveney
Special Features
English\French\German\Italian\Spanish
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Customer Reviews
To start off with the star of it, Cecilia Bartoli. From the famous aria in act 1 scene 2, she enthralls the audience. It is refreshing to hear Bartoli's great range taken into full advantage here. Her charm and comedic touched are also very evident.
Now for the male stars. Almaviva is played by David Kuebler who is a joy to see from the first moment. When you look at him you have to smile and even laugh at his comic face when he is disguised as the drunken soldier and Basilio's assistant. His singing is nothing less than great either. Both the comedic acting and the singing are joined perfectly. Equally impressive is the Figaro of Gino Quilico, singing the famous entrance aria in scene 1 with so much style, charm and tonal splendor, that you know that this going to very entraining, even before Bartoli knocks you futher off with her aria in the next scene. Carlos Feller's Bartoli is nothing short of brilliant. What he misses in steady tone, as the others have, the makes up in acting. He really lives the part he is playing fully. And then there is Robert Lloyd's Basilio, who sings his famous aria with so much style and dark tones that he reminds me of the wonderful Feodor Chaliapin. He too plays the role he is playing fully.
Gabriele Ferro is the conductor who put the whole performance together. He leaves the solists room to do their natural comic touches that is fully in line with their characters and at the same time having a firm timing on the orchestra and phrasing it perfectly.
This is without a doubt a virtually perfect performance of one the funniest operas and I highly recommend it.
However ... time has now passed by and this recording really does show its age, especially in less than sharp camera focus which shows up on all shots other than close-up. It does not begin to compete with modern high definition sound or vision experienced via either DVD or even better, Blu-ray. This would not be so vital if the more modern recordings were below par musically but this is no longer the case. There are two rivals I would suggest as being much better purchases nowadays - the Florez/Bayo offering (Blu-ray) and the Zurich production under Santi with a marvellous Kasarova (DVD) which would be my own personal top tip. Both offer excellent acting as well as singing and come with far more modern sound and vision.
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