Handel - Agrippina / Gens, Jaroussky, Perruche, Smith, Gregoire, Deletre, Di Falco, Malgoire, Paris OperaRating:
Release Date: 06 July, 2004 Retail Price: $43.98 OUR Price: $39.99 You SAVE: $3.99! Cast: |
Handel - Agrippina / Gens, Jaroussky, Perruche, Smith, Gregoire, Deletre, Di Falco, Malgoire, Paris Opera Reviews
Handelian delights of flirtatiousness, plots and true devotions
What a delight this DVD is!
The instrumental playing and conducting are wonderful and appropriate, providing excellent support for the equally wonderful and appropriate cast. Each member not only sounds right, but all of them sound right, too.
Right? More than right. Veronique Gens is utterly admirable as the scheming Agrippina - she looks beautiful, and that lovely caramel-and-champagne voice of hers is wonderfully right for the role. Her not-quite-as-intelligent-yet-scheming son Nerone is beautifully portrayed by Philippe Jaroussky, and particularly as he warms up, he sings delightfully. I particularly enjoyed his final aria, a killer of an aria that requires precise and fast control.
As the pair of flattering courtiers interested in somehow gaining Agrippina and licking the boots of whoever is in power, Fabrice di Falco and Bernard Deletr� are good indeed, and in their personas as well as their singing, they convey the right blend of seriousness and comedy required.
Ingrid Perruche is a charming Poppea - I do agree with the review below that the voice does not really soar, but after a reasonably good start, she gets even better. Shorter than the statuesque Ms Gens, Ms Perruche presents a vivacious and pretty Poppea.
Claudio himself is beautifully sung and played by Nigel Smith, whose attempted seductions of Poppea are deliciously hilarious to watch - do not miss his crawling across the floor as he hems in the reluctant Poppea whose major concern is whether Agrippina will arrive in time to thwart her husband's lovemaking. Wonderfully done!
The sympathetic role of Ottone is sung by Thierry Gr�goire - and beautifully, too. He cuts a heroic figure (the only honest one in the whole bunch!) and he is willing to give up the throne of Rome for love of Poppea. (Never mind about the historical reality - this is Handel, not the true history - be prepared to have fun rather than take notes.) His singing has moments of very great beauty indeed, and he looks right for the part, too.
The faintest of drawbacks may be seen in the backdrops, which are inexplicable, but thankfully for the most part one doesn't even see them. The setting itself is simple, a minimum of blocks on the stage - and this detracts not one whit from the beautifully acted, beautifully sung opera.
All in all... so delightful that it's a keeper. I'll be watching this DVD again. More like this, please!
Il Caro Sassone!
"Agrippina" was Handel's first "hit" - an unmitigated success that ran for over 200 performances, quite impressive in a time in which opera was a "high turnover" commodity. Even though almost three centuries have passed since its premiere, it is still easy to see why: it has an entertaining and (for the time) fairly racy libretto, with beefy parts for both female principals; a historic framework with which most of the audience would be familiar; and last, but by no means least, a string of irresistable and inventive arias that clearly illustrates Handel's almost superhuman gift for melody. Here we see the young Saxon broadly flexing his muscles, and obviously enjoying every minute of it (a literary comparison could be the amazing poetic flights of fancy in some of Shakespeare's early mature comedies, such as "Midsummer Night's Dream" or "Twelfth Night").
The opera was never revived in Handel's lifetime (although he mined it for material for later operas and oratorios), and was all but forgotten until recently. It has been exceedingly fortunate in recent years, however, with two excellent CD recordings issued in the 90's (from McGegan on Harmonia Mundi and Gardiner on Philips).
And, believe it or not, this new DVD from Dynamic is actually the second production of this charming work available in video format; the other being a production from the 80's conducted by Ostmann.
And, of the two, this new version is by far the superior. Not only is it more complete (the Ostmann version cuts almost an hour of music), it features a much more idiomatic cast, the castrato parts are sung at correct pitch (the Ostmann performance has tenors and baritones cast in the castrato parts), and has a much more winning heroine(or, one may argue, anti-heroine).
Malgoire was a pioneer in the early days of period instruments, and his Handel recordings from the 70's and 80's still hold up today. This performance finds him still in fine form after all these years, with a clear understanding of Handel's score and 18th century performance practice in general. His tempi aren't "cutting edge", perhaps, but they're not stodgy by any means, and I feel few would find fault with anyone in the pit.
Veronique Gens is virtually ideal in the title role. Not only is her voice, lieing somewhere between lyric and mezzo, peculiarly perfect, but, physically, her youth and beauty prevent the character from degenerating into the realm of the "old battle-axe", and also make her role as a seductress that much more believable. Although not the ingenue role, it is Agrippina that really keeps the action (what there is of it) in motion, and Gens does not dissapoint in that respect.
Although the opera is named for Agrippina, Poppea may be considered more of a plumb role: she has the most well-known aria from the work ("Bel Piacere") and is the central figure of dispute among all the main characters (wanted by Nero, Ottone and Claudio, and used as a pawn by Agrippina), so this is a part which must be carefully cast as well. Ingrid Perruche handles this all in good grace, and with the right amount of coyness and perkiness. Vocally, she's virtually note-perfect, although the voice never truly soars (one could only imagine what Natalie Dessay could do with this part).
There's not enough room here to go into great detail about the supporting cast (which includes three, count 'em, three counter-tenors!) except to say that there seems to be no weak link in the chain. Jaroussky (Nero)falls prey, at times, to the male alto hoot, although his singing, throughout, is most admirable; Gregoire is amazing as Ottone, and moving, as well; Nigel Smith is an impressively masculine and sexy Claudio, although he sounds strained at times, and Fabrice di Falco (billed as a "male soprano") soars in the small part of Narcissus -- I hope we hear more from him.
The production is essentially static, which, to my mind, is not necessarily a bad thing. Too many directors try to compensate for the basically stop-and-go dramatic nature of 18th century opera by adding too much unnecessary stage business during the arias -- thankfully, that is not done here. A troupe of statuesque dancers grace the stage throughout, striking abstract poses on abstract stage properties -- the best that can be said of this is that it is only mildly distracting. Otherwise, the production, with its over-the-top and highly stylized 18th century costumes, is appealing to the eye.
Agrippina's libretto is fairly typical of Venetian opera of the period. The historic subject is treated with no reverence whatsoever (in fact if we were to give each of the characters different names we would probably not even recognize them) so don't expect another "I, Claudius" here. However, if taken for what it is, its farcical nature can be quite entertaining, especially, as is done here, when campiness is included but not over-indulged in.
All-in-all, three of the most pleasurable hours I've spent in quite some time. Video and audio reproduction are high, and the fact that the performance was filmed (rather than video-taped) gives it a rather glossy feel. The 180 minutes are spread out over two DVD's, which ups the price a bit. However, in this reviewer's opinion, it's worth every penny.
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