Arts Movie Reviews

Starring: Sonny Chiba, Bill Louir, Aaron Banks, Judy Lee, Etsuko Shihomi.
Sonny Chiba, the fiercest martial arts screen hero since Bruce Lee, demonstrates his deadliest fighting skills in this raging action crime thriller. Japanese and New York City Drug-running gangsters face off against him in this brutal gand war showdown.

This 1998 production really shines on this 2-disc set. First, you have Russians singing Russian lyrics. These Russians just happen to be the A-list of of the Marynsky (Kirov) in St. Petersburg. Gergiev is the current darling of the opera conducting world and rightfully so. The staging is typical of the Marynsky. Colorful, two-dimensional drops and set pieces, with enough 3-D pieces for the actors to walk, sit, or stand on. It's just right. The bigness of houses like the Met and Covent Garden and the massive sets they demand sometimes bury the opera in question. The Marynsky is a smaller house than those, but big enough. The Marynsky scenic painters can do more with color and shadow in 2-D than some of the Met's big-budget extravanga designers. The singing is first class all the way. But what I like most is simply that, while the story is well presented, the theatrical ambiance of the whole affair is preserved. The photography of the singers is wide enough to see the context and close enough to feel like you're on the stage with the performers. It has a DTS soundtrack and is in anamorphic widescreen. There are subtitles available in 6 primary languages. The audience is absolutely silent until the end-of-act applause. An opera DVD isn't going to get any better than this one. And that it is one of the most romantic Russian operas makes it all the better. The Polovtsian dances in the original choreography are just superb. How can anyone forget the theme that was later used in the Broadway show Kismet - Stranger in Paradise. Well, here's the original. Finally, if you're lucky enough to have a DLP or Plasma widescreen TV and surround sound, you're going to be in opera heaven with this DVD. The picture quality is almost 3-D on my standard TV. I can only imagine how it'll look on the new digital TVs.

The 1989 performance of the San Francisco Opera's production of Boito's 'Mefistofele' could not have been more brilliant, more vibrant, more beautiful. It was captured well during the original performance and the transfer to DVD was superb. Having not seen the show performed live, I should state that I am at a bit of a loss in that department, but having seen enough operas live in my days and having recorded them as well, I can safely say that this particular DVD is well worth the money.

Ramey's performance is without question phenomenal. The supporting cast shines as well, but in contrast they are merely props to his indomitable presence on stage. He owns the role and he steals the show.

The staging, lighting, set design, choreography, and costuming are without a doubt some of the best opera has ever seen or will ever see. If ever a company could capture both the choirs and angels in heaven and the sin and vice on earth so perfectly, the SanFran Opera Co outperforms on all levels.

The sound quality on the DVD is excellent and the picture was great. Overall, any and all opera fans should add this one to their collection. For that matter, any and all stage/theater fans should pick this one up, as well. You will not be disappointed.

Boito's opera is certainly the least successful of all the adaptations inspired by that cornerstone of Western literature,
Goethe's Faust. Poor Boito was hardly in the same league as Berlioz, Gounod or Liszt. Although it has great sense of theatre,
a very good libretto, it lacks good, hummable tunes the likes of
Gounod's Faust. It is an awkward, long winded work and had to be revised several times.
Boito tried too hard to include as much as possible of Goethe's
metaphysical play searching for the great unanswered questions like man's purpose on earth, his relation to God, Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell etc. It is hard to tell if Boito has
succeeded.
And yet, the opera survived, not the least due to this magnificent production, and came through with flying colours. There is much to admire here: a highly imaginative concept, some great singing and very sympathetic conducting by Maurizio Arena.
He seems in love with the score and it shows.
In the title role, Samuel Ramey dominates the performance, his voice is worthy follower of all the great singers of this role like Feodor Chaliapin and Boris Christoff. His acting is mesmerizing. Secondly, Gabriela Benackova, with a beatiful voice and wonderful characterization is truly impressive in the tragic role of Margherita. As Faust, Dennis O'Neill is somewhat less memorable, but with an attractive voice.
The opera, unfortunately, is not immediately appealing, but it gets better as it goes along. After a bit rocky first act, the second act quartet and subsequent love duet are already quite good, while the third act is very highly inspired.
Great highlights are the Prologue in Heaven with its bemasked Seraphim in a silver and blue Baroque theatre setting; the ingenious double choruses in Walpurgis Night (conducted here in a
tongue in cheek manner by our protagonist, Ramey); the very moving Prison scene where Benackova shines, and the Epilogue.
Outstanding, very enjoyable DVD. Highly recommendable.

This is one of my two all time favorite operas on tape - the other being the imcomparable Abbado/Von Stade Cenerentola which is probably the finest opera video ever. Don't know what someone else mean by minimalist sets - they are completely over-the-top.

I can never watch it without wishing I could watch it with Boito just to see what he would make of the production - I think it brings out a lot of the wryness and irony that has been lost in most traditional stagings - most significantly, that God wins the wager by cheating!

I got to say a good word for O'Neil. I think he's great in this, and his voice really complements Ramey's. I managed to catch the opera live, after seeing it many times on the tape, with an inferior tenor, and the difference was notable.

At least, the only recording on dvd of one of the masterpieces of the 2oth century music; Britten opera, based on Melville's book and with a libretto by Crozier and Forster (!) is a marvellous opera, rich of ambiguities and dark music. The star of the opera is not Billy himself but Vere: here we have the greatest successor of Peter Pears, Langridge. Van Allan (Claggart) is clearly presented as a miltonian Satan, full of unhappiness and yet very proud, terrible and self-hating for his physical attraction to Billy, Thomas Allen is a superb Billy but he really does not have the good and freslooking appearance requested by such a role.I hope we'll soon can capture on dvd Kenlyside performance.

This is one of the most powerful of the 50-60 opera DVDs I personally have managed to view so far. Britten somehow seemed to get wonderful librettists -- for example, the libretto for The Turn of the Screw captures the essence of James' novel in about five percent of the words James used. The same goes for the libretto Crozier and Forster (yes, THE E. M. Forster) wrote for this opera. They have absolutely captured the dramatic essence of Billy Budd, Foretopman in a form that Britten could then use to express effectively through his music.

If you read the various reviews of this production (for the originals as well as the recording), you will hear carping to the effect that (1) Thomas Allen is too old to be Billy Budd; (2) the set is too abstract; (3) the older Vere shouldn't be on stage at the climax; and so on. This is all nit-picking nonsense. The positives of this production so far outweigh the negatives that the overall result is overwhelming. You will find few opera video recordings as moving and effective as this one.

By the Way: one of the other Amazon reviewers complains about how the orchestral interlude between the scenes in the final act is cut in half. This is not an issue with the DVD -- everything proceeds seamlessly.

This is a finely acted production. The only flaw is some odd business at the beginning with books (why are sailors rowing books? Peculiar symbolism). Once the story gets going, the odd staging disappears. The singers are well cast, and the parts finely sung. The DVD has very clear sound and a perfect picture.

Other viewers may respond more positively than me to Britten's "Death in Venice." The searching and inward qualities of the writer Aschenbach are certainly noble, but, while I am far from a prude, there is a repulsive quality here which loses me. Nonetheless, Britten is a terrific opera composer, his last opera has magnificent music and the performance is superb. Robert Tear is very moving as Aschenbach. He is in excellent voice and his superb, plangent tenor is matched by eloquent acting. Alan Opie, too, is quite fine, in very good voice and offering a wide variety of acting skills in his numerous roles. The staging, video and sound are first rate.

Although this is in English, I wish subtitles were available, as they would have made it decidedly easier to understand the entire opera. Fast moving choruses are indecipherable without them. I definitely got more out of this by reading through a libretto as I watched. Still, if you can embrace the story, this is recommended. By the way, the production is not from 1973 but from 1990.

I saw this picture in the theatre many years ago and remember not liking it, though I didn't recall exactly why. Seeing it again, it is quite obvious: with one glaring exception, it consists of the most unrelentingly awful choreography I have ever seen in a company of any nationality...... that it is the Bolshoi adds insult to the injury.

Ravel's Valse Nobles are set to consistently incongruous choreography ..... 19th century dance steps (preparation and all, à la Petipa) to 20th century music which epitomizes chic ..... More than any other part of this film, it shows the aesthetic isolation of Soviet ballet, even in 1967. There is a serious disconnect between music and dance that is never resolved. For a good example of masterfully apt choreography to this music see Balanchine's La Valse which incorporates the Vales Nobles et Sentimentales in its first part (I believe it was choreographed in the 1940's).

Paganini is an absurd contraption with long haired male dancers fiddling away on imaginary violins. At least one can close one's eyes and listen to Rachmaninoff.

Ravel's Bolero is another atrocity. Imitation bad pseudo-Spanish smoothed-out flamenco dancing with long walking steps and tourist-book hand movements, no .... this is meant to be descriptive, not valuational. I wish it would at least have been funny. The only interesting choreography of this music I have ever seen was by Bejart, ironically with the great Maya Plisetskaya dancing up a storm on a stage-within-a-stage round table surrounded by an ever-more-excited male corps. When Jorge Don took over the Plisetskaya role it created a dynamic the '67 Bolshoi would have rather died than portray .....

The star turns by the likes of Ekaterina Maximova are fleeting "visits" to the classroom performing a variation (less than a minute or so...) of classical ballet..... Laurentia, Giselle, etc..... but so short that if you look away for a minute they are gone. One does get a whif of the greatness of the Bolshoi, which adds to the irritation over the travesties being offered.

Now, to close with the one worthwhile dancing in this film: an excerpt from Prokofiev's Stone Flower with the ever engaging Raïsa Strukhova.... who performed with the Bolshoi several times in America. Here one can truly discern the expressivity, energy, flashiness which marked Bolshoi dancing at its best. In the absence on DVD of such films as "Plissetskaya Dances" or the first Bolshoi compilation (which includes a butchered ... by the film-maker.... yet priceless second Act of Giselle with Galina Ulanova), it is worth seeing the Stone Flower segment alone to get a glimpse of what exciting Bolshoi dancing could be like during the Soviet era. For this segment only do I give the film two stars.

This semi-documentary film about the Bolshoi Ballet has flaws, but there are enough good performances and interesting classroom scenes to make it fun to watch. Unfortunately, the scenes that supposedly document the offstage activities of the dancers and students are very staged and sometimes laughable, and I found the score that accompanied the choreographed classroom scenes irritating. It's also frustrating that the format isn't letterboxed, so in the excerpts of films the dancers occasionally disappear.

Several complete pieces are presented--"Ravel Waltzes," with Ekaterina Maximova, "Paganini," with Natalia Bessmertnova, and Ravel's "Bolero," with an ever-growing host of dancers stamping their way up and down stairs. For me, the best was the last: a Russian festival scene and gypsy dance from the ballet "The Stone Flower." The gypsy woman is performed by Natalia Kasatkina, one of the Bolshoi's best character dancers, the pas de deux features radiant ballerina Raisa Struchkova (who starred in the Bolshoi's filmed version of "Cinderella" in 1961), and there's plenty of Russian character dancing.

Compare this video with three documentaries about the Kirov, Russia's other famous ballet company: "Children of Theatre Street" (1978), "Backstage at the Kirov" (1984) and "The Leningrad Legend" (1989). There are also two full-length productions of "The Stone Flower," the Bolshoi version (1990) and the Kirov version (1991).

The right attitude: discipline, seriousness, concentration on the work with great love. The right use of music, the ability of dancers who know how to listen to music, through a great tradition of classical ballet. Dancing with the whole body from finger to toe, with full coordination, full involvement and full identification. These dancers have nothing to hide. I also like watching class of dancers who do not need to cover anything, not by customs, not by speed, not by effects. They have nothing to hide, they are responsible for every movement, and their honesty is convincing. The movements are very clean and precise, even the most simple one, as said in the DVD: "the simplest things are the most difficult and the most beautiful". I like the use of the camera and it's ability in Ravel's Bolero. I like the dance and it's original interpretation of the Crescendo with spanish dignity. This DVD shows the Bolshoi from a different point of view, and when we see what George Balanchine did with the New York City Ballet, adding to these materials the American spirit of freedom, we always have to remember the origins.