Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Richard Bonynge, The Metropolitan OperaRating:
Release Date: 26 September, 2000 Retail Price: $29.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: |
Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Richard Bonynge, The Metropolitan Opera Reviews
Embalmed Lucia
Some have commented that this is the best Lucia on DVD. If it is, are we hard up. Sutherland is beyond petrified, she is at the embalmed stage. This is just an eerie echo of her famed
Lucia from 25 years earlier. Some parts are transposed so that
she can "appear" to sing the familiar high options.
Pushing part of the mad scene downward puts sections of it in the area were Sutherland is forced to growl to get through them.
In all fairness, much of Sutherland's technique is still intact and she still is able to do the amazing feat of darting around the stage during the flute cadenza of the mad scene. It's just too bad there isn't a video documentation from her prime.
The production is typical Met musty routine, with no real attempt to bring any drama at all to the performance.
Bonynge leads the performance in a very careful way to help Dame Joan avoid as many vocal risks as possible.
Yes, the ageless Kraus sings Edgardo and he does it well. But at this point point his voice had taken on a somewhat wooden quality.
Both lead singers are approaching their 60th birthdays and it is impossible to avoid the march of time.
I would recommend getting the Devia Lucia on DVD or the Opera Lyon Lucie DVD
Alfredo Kraus saves the performance
Lucia di Lammermoor is a bel canto masterpiece that requires both vocal agility and a good sense of dramatic skill. By the time this DVD was recorded, Dame Joan no longer had the beautiful high notes she once possessed. Her voice is now droopy, her Italian slurred by some strange force of nature. In other words, her Lucia is a maddening disaster. Callas and Sills and Moffo at least brought some justice to the role, and throughout their career, the good Lucias were preserved on record. Sutherland was a vocally good Lucia, but she lacked drama, an essential component to the bel canto school of singing. Thank goodness Alfredo Kraus was there to save the performance.
And for the demented Callas basher, don't bring your [...] around here. Callas' genius does not deserve to be insulted by the despondent pool of dumbness [...] that you come from. She can sing Lucia around dame Joan and you know it.
More Customer Reviews (16 total)
You like Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Richard Bonynge, The Metropolitan Opera?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from credit card debt management, Debt Relief Freedom, and Mortgage Key
