Watch Puccini - Turandot / Franco Zeffirelli - Marton, Domingo, Mitchell, Plishka, Cuenod - James Levine, MET Online
Lunes, Diciembre 14th, 2009This is one of the best opera DVD’s I have ever seen. You could not ask for more. It was recorded during one of those MET nights where everything goes perfect.
The title role is held perfectly by Marton. She isn’t a mammoth opera actress, but she IS a stout soprano, and for Turandot that’s enough.
As for Domingo’s warm notify, it has rarely been more keen. For him, everything went perfect that night. Calaf’s role suits him perfectly in both acting and singing. You could contemplate him suffering during high C’s, but this is even more thrilling especially since they approach out perfectly.
Mitchell’s Liu adds the cherry to the perfect Cake, while Levine’s extinct conducting is astonishing.
Zeffirelli’s sets alone would have made a sterling reason why to remove this DVD. Acts I and II are majestuous.
Finally, the DVD’s digital sound and image quality are outstanding. In summary, everything is Perfect!
Highly Recommended.
I gaze a lot of opera on DVD, and there’s usually some element of each performance that doesn’t quite match the others. Perhaps it’s a singer who isn’t on par with his or her cast members, or — more likely these days — the fabricate and/or directorial “notion” is anachronistic and distracting. But there’s absolutely nothing — and I mean nothing — that doesn’t work about this Met “Turandot.” One can quibble perhaps with the scope of Zeffirelli’s production, but for once his obsession with size pays off. This is an Asian fairytale, and the construct is appropriately fantastical. (I actually recommend that, if you glean the chance, you perceive this production in the house, as it has to be experienced live to be believed.) And the VOICES!! I was leery about Marton and Mitchell, as I haven’t always loved their work in the past; but they’re intelligent. As is Mr. Domingo, whom I’ve always loved. To be impartial, “Nessun Dorma” doesn’t quite explode the design it should, but I’ve rarely heard him in better bellow. All in all, I cannot imagine a better “Turandot” on DVD.
