Cheap Verdi - Rigoletto / Downes, Gavanelli, Schafer, Alvarez, Royal Opera House (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Verdi - Rigoletto / Downes, Gavanelli, Schafer, Alvarez, Royal Opera House

Grand opera! Grand production! Grand singing!
First - the subject of sexual content...I thought it was a startling attention grabber at the beginning and was very effective at portraying a corrupt society. It reminded me of another wonderful opera production that is also well represented on DVD: the English National Opera's wonderful presentation of one of Handel's many operatic masterpieces ARIODANTE.
Seeing this RIGOLETTO for the first time - I wondered why many outspoken opera-lovers object so much to nudity that would be barely noticed in a movie.
In any case - for post-modernists - this is an outstanding RIGOLETTO. It appears from other reviews that everyone appreciates the cast and well they should! It really does bring an opera to life more vividly when the performers look like they could be the characters they portray - and in addition to that, these people act and sing SO well!
If you read these reviews and generally feel repulsed at the idea of nudity in RIGOLETTO, then steer clear of this dvd. If you prefer videos of staged operas as opposed to movie versions (like the Pavarotti RIGOLETTO), this is for you.

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Uneven singing !
This performance is a disappointment especaially I bought it because of rave review by other customers.Schafer's sing is uneven and she is not suitable for this coloratura role. I saw her in "Lulu" at the Met last year and she was great,maybe she should stick with more Germanic roles.Alvarez's singing is unimpressive and sometimes he is pushing his voice so much that the sound becomes unpleasant.Gavanelli is the best of all ( Well, that's why the opera is titled " Rigoletto " ).He sings with good tecnique and acts well too.He sounded very good life at the Met.The staging looks cheap and boring and I don't see the need for frontal nudity in the first act.

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It shocks, it rocks, it satisfies
This version of Verdi's classic, Rigoletto, performed by The Royal Opera at Covent Gardens, England offers all the features you would expect in a DVD: great digital picture and sound, anamoprphic wide screen, and special features about Verdi and a slide synopsis of the opera which is quite good, though brief. The performances are strong and the sound recording is excellent. The production value, too, is without flaws, except that this version is a darker presentation than I would have preferred. Darker, meaning, post-modernistic, apocalyptic set design which seems to be the rage nowadays - a rage that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Modernism has to be used wisely, and here, while it is not offensive, didn't lend itself to the color one might expect from this opera. I never quite knew if the setting of the Duke's castle was inside or outside of the towering wall that I guess is supposed to represent his residence. The minimalist approach, as I said, has its drawbacks. Still, watching a performance on a DVD is so much more preferable than tape that it makes up for some of the shortcomings in set design. The performances, particularly that of Paolo Gavanelli, as Rigoletto, are superb - truly superb. He has a wonderful baritone voice that never falters or barks. Christine Schäfer, soprano, is marvelous as Gilda, his daughter. She delivers a sensitive and beautifully acted performance. Indeed, all the performances are outstanding, gritty and real. What distinguishes this version from the others I have seen is the full frontal nudity in the opening scene which introduces us to the debauchery that ostensibly occurs inside the Duke of Mantua's great hall regularly. Bare-breasted women and the stripping of both a buffed male and female comprimario forced to engage in a sex act (not depicted) was really unnecessary - and the audience showed its displeasure when after the first Act, the applause was tepid, at best - as compared to the other Acts where the applause was thunderous. It's not that the full frontal nudity was not appealing, rather it was almost forced. It wasn't one of many things occurring in the scene, it became the central focus. It was more like, okay folks; here is our - gasp, genitalia. Had the simulated sex act occurred in a background context with other things occurring all around it might have been more palatable, but making it center stage - for so short a duration - was almost laughable. This kind of "peek-a-boo" simulated sex is more of an insult than turn on. But, it is brief, very brief. Everything shows and then goes, and what you have left is a wonderful opera, performed by an outstanding cast that makes this DVD a good buy and one which I recommend.