Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!!!, 22 Sep 2004
By A Customer
This new production of Les Troyens at the Chatelet had been one of the major events in the celebrations for the 200th birthday of one of France's greatest composers, Hector Berlioz. Les Troyens is one of the greatest masterpieces of 19th century opera, one that stands alongside with Verdi's 'Otello' and Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde'. Director/designer Yannis Kokkos created wonderful classical sets, brown - gray for the first two acts, white - blue for the second part of the opera and directed a very effective and moving show. John Eliot Gardiner conducted his Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique magnificently. Various period brass instruments are used on stage according to Berlioz instructions. The Monteverdi Choir combined with the Chatelet Choir make a wonderful and precise sound. The linkage of the music of Berlioz with Gluck is presented here more than in any other performance of this masterpiece I have heard in the past. Major roles have been given to lighter-voiced singers than one usually associates with this score, but Gardiner assembled a great cast of wonderful singers - actors. Anna Caterina Antonacci is a magnificent Cassandra: a beautiful woman, a fascinating actress. She has a real sense of the text and sings with great beauty. Susan Graham sings a great performance of Dido with big violence and involvement for the tragic last scene of the opera. Tenor Gregory Kunde sings a lot of bel canto roles, while the heroic Aeneas needs voices like Vickers, Heppner etc. but Kunde as Aeneas is a great surprise. Ludovic Tezier as Chorebe is one of the best baritones singing in French. Mark Padmore sings Iopas aria 'Blonde Ceres' beautifully, and Laurent Naouri is an impressive Narbal. So is the young Mezzo from Croatia Renata Pokupic. Tenor Topi Lehtipuu sings the young sailor Hylas's Act V aria 'Valon sonore' beautifully. Great opera. Magnificent performance!
Highly recommended. Should be in every opera fan collection.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exemplary, 1 Oct 2006
As ever so often with the house of BBC Opus Arte, this is an outstanding product, with superior packaging and domumentation, hair-rising state of the art sonics and video quality, and relevant and interesting material supplementary to the main "feature" (a full-length documentary on the production itself deriving from a BBC TV programme, with interviews with the main singers, the conductor and the producer and a sound -i.e., read- detailed synopsis of the opera's plot with visual references to the performance itself). "The Trojans" is nor precisely a repertory work so these extra items do mean an important advantage.
In fact, there's practically nothing at fault here, although not all reviews in this site are favourable. I suppose US viewers will find it unnecessary that the greek invaders in Act 2 wear US Military uniforms and wield mock M16 rifles aimed at the trojan women, a precision at odds with the general timelessness attempted with the clothing, a stylised mixture of styles from several centuries (20th century raincoats, suggested antique breastplates made of some synthetic fibre, antiquity gowns, and the like). The same US guns are used by Aeneas's followers when they are summoned to help Dido's own forces repeal invaders of her realm, further on; an uncalled-for theatrical reference to the US as a world provider of violence instruments?
The production is indeed sumptuous, with outstanding renditions from both US-born protagonists (Graham and Kunde) and especially la Antonacci, who besides her considerable sung performance commands an immense stage presence; in the end, perhaps and in spite of Graham's exquisitely sung Dido, la Antonacci's is the performance that tends to linger in your memory, such is her strength of presence and character (others in the website have commented on her matching physical attractiveness). The exhilarating sounds produced by the original instruments used by the orchestra, especially the winds and brass (some of them traced by Gardiner to private collections as they have long fallen out of use, in France as well as elsewhere), are a delight to hear; this aspect itself sets this set in a class of its own.
The work is rather extravangantly spread over three discs, with the BBC documentary taking half of the third one and sharing it with the last act. But no complaints here either, as the price of the set is within bounds and more than justifies the outlay in view of what you receive.
So, in sum, a gem of a release that will put the way other companies present opera on dvd to shame, and a singular rendition of a key XIX Century opera seldom encountered in theatres today (and altogeher unjustly) in view of its demands.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!!!, 14 Oct 2004
By A Customer
This new production of Les Troyens at the Chatelet had been one of the major events in the celebrations for the 200th birthday of one of France's greatest composers, Hector Berlioz. Les Troyens is one of the greatest masterpieces of 19th century opera, one that stands alongside with Verdi's 'Otello' and Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde'. Director/designer Yannis Kokkos created wonderful classical sets, brown - gray for the first two acts, white - blue for the second part of the opera and directed a very effective and moving show. John Eliot Gardiner conducted his Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique magnificently. Various period brass instruments are used on stage according to Berlioz instructions. The Monteverdi Choir combined with the Chatelet Choir make a wonderful and precise sound. The linkage of the music of Berlioz with Gluck is presented here more than in any other performance of this masterpiece I have heard in the past. Major roles have been given to lighter-voiced singers than one usually associates with this score, but Gardiner assembled a great cast of wonderful singers - actors. Anna Caterina Antonacci is a magnificent Cassandra: a beautiful woman, a fascinating actress. She has a real sense of the text and sings with great beauty. Susan Graham sings a great performance of Dido with big violence and involvement for the tragic last scene of the opera. Tenor Gregory Kunde sings a lot of bel canto roles, while the heroic Aeneas needs voices like Vickers, Heppner etc. but Kunde as Aeneas is a great surprise. Ludovic Tezier as Chorebe is one of the best baritones singing in French. Mark Padmore sings Iopas aria 'Blonde Ceres' beautifully, and Laurent Naouri is an impressive Narbal. So is the young Mezzo from Croatia Renata Pokupic. Tenor Topi Lehtipuu sings the young sailor Hylas's Act V aria 'Valon sonore' beautifully. Great opera. Magnificent performance!
Highly recommended. Should be in every opera fan collection.
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