Monteverdi: Two Classic Operas - L'incoronazione di Poppea / L'Orfeo (complete operas recorded in 2009 & 2012) BLU-RAY
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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
Monteverdi: Two Classic Operas - L'incoronazione di Poppea / L'Orfeo (complete operas recorded in 2009 & 2012) BLU-RAY
Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Sarah Connolly, Miah Persson, Jordi Domènech / Teatro alla Scala, Georg Nigl, Roberta Invernizzi, Sara Mingardo
[ Opus Arte Blu-ray / 2 Blu-ray Box Set ]
Release Date: Wednesday 29 November 2017
This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.
Monteverdi's seminal first opera L'Orfeo, tells the dramatic story from Ovid's Metamorphoses of the descent of Orfeo (Georg Nigl) into the underworld to recover his beloved wife Euridice (Roberta Invernizzi), seen here in a production for La Scala, based on a painting by Titian and directed by Robert Wilson. David Alden's visually sumptuous production of L'incoronazione di Poppea, with its suggestions of a giant game of chess, puts the opera's potent blend of sex and politics in a context that sets ancient against modern - just as the action juxtaposes scurrilous comedy and stark drama.
Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT/CATALAN
Running times: 299 minutes
"a punchy 2009 performance of distinctively dark musical colouring...Nothing is overly camped up - even Dominique Visse in loud, bra-flashing drag...The whole is acutely paced and supported by Harry Bicket's orchestra, thei performance a reminder of how much progress has been made in the realisation of early Venetian opera in the last half-century...The hand-picked European cast is in fine fettle, Connolly's Nero outstanding" (Gramophone on Poppea)
"this Barcelona interpretation by [Alden] is almost Brechtian in the spare objectivity of its stage set, and Expressionist in its use of the shadowy, zombie-like figure of Time that shuffles across the back of the stage...Persson is a superb Poppea who can really act with her voice but whose body seems constrained by the direction...The orchestral accompaniments are nicely varied." (BBC Music on Poppea)
"I've never heard [the separation scene] more effectively sung by either Orfeo or Euridice...[Nigl] animates the recitatives by putting the words and their rhetorical structures first...In short, this is a wonderfully satisfying performance, featuring one of the finest Orfeos on disc, and a production which suits the needs of both the large-scale theatre and the small screen equally well."
(International Record Review on Orfeo)
"Director Robert Wilson takes his inspiration from a Titian painting, Venus with Eros and an Organist, and delivers a series of starkly-lit tableaux - strong geometric shapes framing the highly stylised gestures of the cast. The drama comes from Alessandrini's edition and the bite and brilliance of the La Scala orchestra, and Concerto Italiano's inventive continuo section."
(BBC Music Magazine on Orfeo)
