Cheap Offenbach - Des contes d'Hoffmann (Some Tales of Hoffmann) (Video) (Pierre Cavassilas) Price
CHEAP-PRICE.NET ’s Cheap Price
Here at Cheap-price.net we have Offenbach - Des contes d'Hoffmann (Some Tales of Hoffmann) at a terrific price. The real-time price may actually be cheaper — click “Buy Now” above to check the live price at Amazon.com.
Jacques Offenbach's last opera (his only grand opera) is specially vulnerable to such tensions because he died before finishing it. Musically, some of the opera's best-loved moments (notably the bass aria "Scintille, diamant") were cobbled together (using melodic material from other Offenbach works) after Offenbach's death. This production, the first video recording based on the new, critical performing score prepared by musicologist Michael Kaye, omits those beloved, spurious numbers. They are missed, but it's hard to complain about the omission of inauthentic material. In any case, conductor Kent Nagano has assembled a superb cast that does the music full vocal justice--most notably Natalie Dessay, Gabriel Bacquier, and Jose Van Dam.
While Nagano works hard to respect Offenbach's intentions, stage director Louis Erlo runs roughshod over them, so much so that at Kaye's suggestion the production's title was changed from The Tales of Hoffmann to Some Tales of Hoffmann. Offenbach's original treatment takes place in four European cities where Hoffmann fights the same implacable enemy through one doomed love affair after another. In this production, the locale shrinks to one location--a symbol-infested mental hospital. This fits the feverish, surreal atmosphere of E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories and Offenbach's imaginative musical treatment, but many patrons have found the staging offensive--as is their right. I find it often stimulating, but I would not want it to be the only Hoffmann on my shelf. --Joe McLellan
| CATEGORY: | Video |
| DIRECTOR: | Pierre Cavassilas |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 1951 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Kultur Video |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Classical, Color, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Classical, Opera / Operetta / Oratorio, Opera/Operetta, Performing Arts, Performing Arts - Opera |
| MEDIA: | VHS Tape |
| # OF MEDIA: | 2 |
| UPC: | 032031002838 |
Related Products
Customer Reviews of Offenbach - Des contes d'Hoffmann (Some Tales of Hoffmann)
Some prententious intellectualism There are several reason you may want to own that DVD. <
>First of all: Natalie Dessay. She is incredible. So much nuances and clear control of the voice! Not to mention she is adding two high G (same in the CD version) and one high high A flat (not in the CD version)without any strain. <
>Second, the marvelous Barbara Hendricks, loveliest Antonia with a vibrato more controled than usually. Beside her high C sharp at the end of the trio which seems a bit thight to my ears, the colour of the voice is opulent. <
>Third, the Van Dam-Bacquier duo with perfect style, "intelligence de la scène". <
>Galvez-Vallejo is an adequate Hoffmann but not a revelation. However you have to think that it was a non stop evening which is quite a marathon for the tenor, Hoffmann being one of the heaviest role of french repertoire. Isabelle Vernet has a fine dramatic voice for Giulietta but too heavy in her aria "L'Amour lui dit, la belle" much suited for a coloratura. The alternative aria "Venus dit à Fortune" would have been more appropiate for that kind of voice but that is a matter of edition's choice. <
>All that put together could have make an outstanding production of Contes d'Hoffmann. Instead we get a pretentious mixture of false new ideas. Indead, Offenbach and all the musicologists who edited it never understood the true meaning of this opera. But we, the guys of the Opera the Lyon, are way over them all. So let rewrite it all!!! Hoffmann is not a romantic poet having to sacrifice his terrestrial loves to reach artistic apotheosis. He is a mentally ill man who, at the end, turn to be ... a mentally ill man. How deep!!! This production is the reflect of the dictatorial denaturation pseudo-theater directors are holding operas these days. They dont hear nor read music. They dont care about musicians and librettist, those are sooo annoying! Result: emptiness, obtuseness and a missed opportunity. I just just wish they could be sued.
Magic.....magic.....OMG.....where's the magic???
You know what I hate? I hate musically challenged producers and directors who because of their lack of understanding of a masterpiece, and a penchant for robbing others of their due reward, invade the composers artistic impression just to rape it with a vile and grotesque version of their own. What we have here my fellow opera lovers is sin spewing out from the Grand Opera stage dragging some truely remarkable singers down to it's vulgar depths with it. I know what you grave robbers are thinking who gave birth to this test tube baby.....it's an esoteric work stupid.....and as such you who are unenlightened could never understand it. So we'll just sit back stroking each other. All the while an angry audience is demanding that justice be served. And how can justice be served? Who financed this project? Can we get a grand jury to indict them? Nay! Can we tie them up and drag them through town to be stoned? Nay? Then what are our options to help avenge the violation of our dear brother Offenbach? AVOID THIS MOVIE LIKE THE PLAGUE!
Vaguely Hoffmann
I was relieved (it's not so bizarre, grotesque as these other reviewers say) and mildly entertained. Though the music is sublime, beautiful, this version makes even less sense than the original. And if I hadn't known the original, I would have been hopelessly lost. I was anyway. It had some effective moments, particularly the draping of the corpse of Antonia's mother over Antonia's shoulders, in fact that whole story was wonderful I thought. The story of Olympia who in this version was called a mechanical doll but was actually a girl in braces who when she first stood could barely walk was, frankly, I thought, in very poor taste. Guilietta's part made no sense at all, it doesn't in the original to me either, but particularly not in this nonsense. The stories are arranged Olympia, Antonia, Guilietta. I won't give away the ending which I didn't understand anyway, I disliked the "modern" vocal sound effects that showed up towards the end, and the last words of the opera were inaudible, but fortunately there were subtitles, for all the good they did. There were no sets at all, it ran 2 hours with no intermission, the costumes were contemporary dress, I have only the reviewers here to assure me that it all happened in a mental hospital, it was a trip, kept my interest, but like most "modern art," was more of a curiosity than something to care about. It had no feeling whatsoever. But the music was grand. By the way, the reviewer who lambasts the old (old is new to someone) and calls it in bad grammar and all lower case "conservative," said nothing I remember about the opera at hand. And no one in his right mind who knows me would ever call me "conservative." I don't even like to say the word. But being old doesn't make a thing bad, just as being new doesn't ipso facto make it good. Look at "modern verse." But like the lower case reviewer who relishes all things new and despises all things old, I also think art is about dead, but not through want of novelty. Through want of genius. But that always was rare. And there has been a lot of it in Western music since Bach. Oh. I almost forgot. I for one did not think the tenor who sang Hoffmann was that outstanding. He was almost good enough, but I thought his loves were better.