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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Documentaries of Tenors from the 'Shellac Era', 25 Aug 2005
This DVD was released as a VHS tape around eight years or so ago, but I did not see it them. It features separate thirty minute segments, made for European television, on six great tenors of the 78rpm era: Lauritz Melchior, Helge Rosvaenge, Jussi Björling, John McCormack, Georges Thill and Ivan Kozlovsky. There is also some extended footage (in the Rosvaenge segment) of Max Lorenz. All great singers, all coming of age just as recording and sound film was gaining popularity, each singer has his own segment featuring much film footage, often played while their sound recordings act as underscoring. There is much talk with elderly folks who knew and worked with them -- some of them have widows that were still alive when these documentaries were made -- and discussions by various experts in the art of singing, most important of which -- and most valuable of which -- those by the voice maven Jürgen Kesting, who also wrote the booklet notes. Among the other experts are John B. Steane and the irritating but knowledgeable Stefan Zucker. (There is, in the extra segment [about which more below] a hilariously awful video clip of him demonstrating in his peculiarly ugly voice an aria from a bel canto opera.] This is not a film for people who want simply to hear these great singers exercising their art. It is, rather, a documentary that mixes biography with discussions of vocal technique. Fascinating as that is, it is sometimes frustrating to have the singing submerged or interrupted so that we can hear old friends gossip about the singer in question. I might have preferred more singing and less talk, except from Herr Kesting, whose demonstrations via recordings of the abilities of the singers is most instructive. There is a seventh segment called, for some strange reason, 'The Singing Robot', that includes much about Fernando de Lucia, a singer from a previous generation who is considered one of the greatest carriers of the bel canto tradition and whose singing had an effect of many of the singers presented here. Herr Kesting points out these influences as we go along. There is a risible section featuring a German philosopher explaining, presumably, the psychology of recordings; it is an example of the worst sort of academic twaddle but is mercifully short. This is the second volume of a series called 'Belcanto: Singers of the 78 Era.' And like its predecessor, it is lovingly assembled and for those of us who are fascinated by singers of a bygone age, well-night indispensable. TT=200 mins. Sound: Dolby Digital; Subtitles: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish; Liner notes in English, French, German. Scott Morrison
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