Cheap Handel - Ariodante / Bolton, Murray, Rodgers, English National Opera (DVD) (Kriss Russman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Handel - Ariodante / Bolton, Murray, Rodgers, English National Opera

Time to join the 20th Century (then we'll talk about the 21s
I read the other online reviews with much amusement (i.e. liberal homosexuals have destroyed opera?? Aren't we the ones who have kept opera alive?) and I decided to write my own reactions in hope someone with a little actual knowledge about art of the 20th Century might find it useful. Yes, the production is "post-modern". (If you don't know what that means, look it up. It might save you grief later.) The director has obviously tried to both produce the opera and comment on it at the same time. Some things work; some things don't. But it is not "boring" to me and it is not something to be despised or shunned. Most of the singing is very characterful, emotionally true, varied, and accomplished. If Ann Murray does look at her hands too much, she is still very alive to the words and the emotions. (She also has a tendency to harden on higher notes. Voice fanciers--you know who you are--should take note.) Most of the motivations of the characters are perfectly clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence who is willing to think about them. But you have to actively participate in the performance. That is the point of much 20th Century art: to get the audience to mentally participate. The director does not want you to sit back and let it all wash over you. He probably does not want you to forget you are at a performance and just immerse yourself in the story. It is not the only way to produce this opera but it is not invalid just because it flirts with being "degenerate." Whoever said that a good performance only brings a mindless emotional response? And no traditional stage performance is "realistic" either. Art is not realistic. Some art avoids all pretense of "realism." "Realism" is not the point of art to some people. Neither is "tradition". Their "radical" views are just as valid as anyone else's. (I would say more valuable than our homophobe reviewer from south of the US, but I digress.) If you can't stand anything that isn't "realistic" go buy a CD. For others, what you'll get if you take a chance on this DVD is some passionate accomplished singing of a very literate translation that makes the emotions of the music quite clear as a counterpoint to a production that tries to complicate your relationship to the story. The 20th Century happened. Sorry. You can't go backward. (Both the Russian communists and the Nazis tried really hard to do just that, of course. They couldn't stop "modernism" either. Their thinking is not something I, for one, want to emulate, ever!) I personally think only small minds and ignorant ears want to. Luckily, the MET is museuming most of the works for all you that only like it like they used to do it...I advise most of my fellow online reviewers to save your money for a plane ticket.

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Turn off the television set and enjoy
This film features marvelous music and gorgeous voices. Everything else about it is awful. The costumes, representing all sorts of periods, are a joke. The lighting is dark and terrible. The staging is designed to make you forget the music and the voices and wonder only if Leslie Garrett will have a climax and if she will avoid Christopher Robson's eager tongue and anxious hands. The dancing, if that's what you want to call it, is simply pointless and pretentious. So, to enjoy this opera, simply listen to it. Turn off the television. By the way, Ann Murray alone is worth the price. What a glory.

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A Baroque Nightmare
"Ariodante" can easily be regarded as Handel's most romantic opera - "Flavio" is a close second. It does not deal with the fate of nations/kingdoms but rather focusses on the individual and his/her romantic desires. Many scenes are set in the outdoors: the countryside, the royal gardens, or a forest; and a lot of the drama takes place at night. These different locations afford Handel the opportunity to 'indulge' his fertile imagination to compose the most sensual and programmatic music of his or any other time - like the rising of the moon at the beginning of Act 2. To go into the musical and dramatic 'architecture' of "Ariodante" and Handel's breaking with the Baroque tradition would take too much time here. (Please see Winton Dean's "Handel and the Opera Seria" for more information on this and Handel's other operas.)

The director clearly had a (weird) personal agenda. And to expect the performers to be at their best in a production like this is not realistic: Ginevra and Ariodante (respectively the future Queen and King of Scotland) look like they receive EST treatment very regularly; the King of Scotland looks like a dirty old man who has not bathed for months. And Dalinda (the Lady-in-waiting to Ginevra, the future Queen of Scotland) looks off like an Italian widow. The scheming Polinesso, Duke of Albany, who is an elegant courtier (who can insinuate himself into the crown princess's private chambers!) ... just does not look like he could/should be allowed into polite society.

One should always try to be objective when reviewing a product and this is one of the few DVD's I would not recommend you to buy. It is a dark, ugly, unintelligent and sexually explicit production. The characters are not believably portrayed as indicated in the libretto as Handel set it.

Finally, if I can be abstract, Ariodante should remind one of a Renaissance garden (at night) saturated with the scent of jasmine and other summer flowers. Instead here we get stuck in a stinking bog. A great pity as the ENO's 'Serse' was a beautiful, imaginative yet truthful reading as this one is unattractive and uninspired.