Cheap Alban Berg - Wozzeck - Claudio Abbado (Video) (Brian Large) Price

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Customer Reviews of Alban Berg - Wozzeck - Claudio Abbado

Good work on the stage, but not so great in the musical part.
Wozzeck is one of my favourites operas, a work which I know in some of the most important performances: Bohm (DG), Boulez (CBS/Sony), Dohnanyi (Decca), Barenboim (Teldec), Abbado (DG)... I'm sorry about this is not, from the musical point of view, one of the best available. <
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>The stage direction is good, a very objective work, in a high correspondence with Berg's words, very appropriate for a first watching of this opera, because you can know exactly what's happening, it's not the typical modern stage in which the action take place in a different context than the work and words talk about. So, from the visual point of view is a very clear, interesting and well designed version. It's well shot in video, putting together different takes of faces, full bodies, the full stage and even some takes of Claudio Abbado and the orchestra.... But... <
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>... but the musical part is not so well done like the visual part. It's incredible what Dohnanyi's version, very close in time and with the same orchestra (even it's a studio recording), can do if we compare it scene by scene with this. Dohnanyi's vision of the work is very, very modern, very clear, very technical, very impressive; with a Wiener Philharmoniker in state of glory. Listening some parts like the Orchestral Postludium is amazing and much more well done than Abbado's version, in which it seems the difficulties of the work are over them, even the same orchestra did it before and Abbado is a conductor of guarantees. The orchestral playing and the conducting is not of my taste, I'm sorry. <
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>The singers are good, very interesting in some cases, but not so modern in his singing like those conducted by Dohnanyi or Boulez, and not so expressive and amazing like Böhm's version, my favourite in the vocal part, with the most amazing Wozzeck ever listened, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and a captain full of craziness an irony, Stolze. Even, the most modern about voices is the version conducted by Dohnanyi, as you can imagine, my favourite version for Wozzeck. <
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>So, putting together all these things about this DVD: stage direction, conducting, orchestra and voices, I think it worth for three stars. The stage could be four and some voices too, but in general I think it's Ok in three. <
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First rate!
Great performance, vocally and orchestrally. The acting is good as well. Staging is appropriate throughout, and visually at times quite lovely, as in the drowing scene.

One minor caveat, already noted by another reviewer: the images on the box have nothing to do with what's inside! They look like they were taken from a Disney version!

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Deceptive Packaging!
Let's not be fooled, folks: the VHS reviews, which appear under the DVD listing, refer to an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT version. This is SUPPOSED to be a different staging, as you can tell from the cover of the DVD. It looked like it was done by the same people who did Yellow Submarine, or maybe by Julie Taymor (who did Oedipus Rex for the Tokyo Met, and Titus with Anthony Hopkins).

But here's the kicker: it ISN'T! The video case for the DVD SHOWS a different staging, but the actual video is of exactly the same staging featured on the VHS version, and recorded (in a slightly better performance) on the double-CD set released by Deutche Grammophon.

This is REALLY irritating. I was expecting a different staging, since i've already heard this one, and seen it as well. The whole point was to see a DIFFERENT one, and that's what the packaging implies is recorded on the enclosed DVD.

I don't know why they took the poorly-taped 1987 performance, and put it on a DVD with all these photos from an entirely different production (with even different actors, it appears) but that would be called fraud in almost any context. Having just watched this DVD production, i'm going to contact the company and demand an explanation.

You've been warned.