Customer Reviews

Anna Netrebko - The Woman, The Voice

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I hesitated for the longest time in getting this DVD because of all the conflicting reviews. Fortunately I chanced upon a copy going at bargain-price and just had to see what the hoo-haa was about. Now I understand why so many viewers disliked it. It's a collection of "music videos," much like what you'd see on MTV. Personally, I thought the videos were on the whole quite well done. My complaint is that there is so little here. The main programme is barely 49 mins long and consists of a sum total of just 5 "music videos," each preceeded by Anna's introductions and interspersed with interviews with her on her life and career. Together with 19 minutes worth of bonus clips, the DVD lasts just over an hour. The 133min running time stated on the back cover needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt because it involves various permutations of watching the videos - without the introductions or without the interviews or just watching the interviews without the videos etc.
The five music videos in order of appearance are:
1. "Les grands seigneurs ont seuls des airs...Ah! je ris de me voir" (Jewel Song) from Gounod's "Faust"
2. "Quando me'n vo' (Musetta's Waltz)" from Puccini's "La Boheme"
3. "Crudele? - Ah no, mio bene! Non mi dir" from Mozart's "Don Giovanni"
4. "Care compagne, et voi, ternei amici" from Bellini's "La Sonnambula"
5. "Mesicku na nebli hlubokem" (Song to the Moon) from Dvorak's "Rusalka"
These are all taken from her debut CD "Opera Arias" and she lip-synchs to them in the videos. The DVD looks more like a promo for her CD than a full-fledged operatic DVD. Which brings us to the pricing. If you want to make a music video, than price it like other music videos, not as a premium-priced opera DVD.

The real treasures here are the 3 bonus clips - live recordings of Anna as she appears onstage. My favorite is the exerpt from Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" recorded in 1995 at the Mariinsky Theater in her home city of St. Petersburg (Act I aria "Grustno mne, roditel' dorogoy!"). Of the 2 Traviata exerpts, the "E strano! ... Delirio vano e questo!" & the "Sempre Libera" aria (Act I Finale) from her 2003 Vienna State Opera debut performance are exhilarating and fully deserving of the thunderous bravos from the usually sedate Viennese audience.

Throughout the disc, Anna's singing is superb. She has a gorgeous and very expressive voice. And she is without doubt one of the most beautiful sopranos to have ever graced the stage.

Much of the vitriol of critics center around the videos themselves which bear little relation to the operas although most are inspired by the text of the arias being sung. Several are just simple updates to more modern settings. The "Jewel Song" video could be easily mistaken for any modern pop music video. The "Non mi dir" is impressionistic and rather avant-garde. Personally I found them creative and quite enjoyable. I still don't get the significance of the dancers with tree branches for limbs in the "Don Giovanni" aria (much like the mutilated Lavinia in Julie Taymor's avant-garde production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus) but it was visually arresting and quite unforgettable. My favorite piece here remains Rusalka's "Song to the Moon." It is beautifully sung, quiet and restrained yet so full of longing and heartache that it brings a tear to the eye. Unfortunately that doesn't extend to the accompaning video which was, strangely, rather disappointing. For once the video gives a very literal interpretation of the aria. Rusalka is a water spirit who asks to be made human so that she can be near the Prince that she loves. The video opens with a lovely shot of the moon, followed by a pan down to gently lapping waves. What spoils the illusion is the sight of Anna lounging or clinging on to a plastic inflatable as she floats in a darkened swimming pool. Tacky doesn't even begin to describe it. Still, she is a pleasure to watch, no matter how insipid the setting.

The main programme comes in a 16x9 anamorphic widescreen (enhanced for widescreen TV) with very good picture quality and excellent surround sound. Three sound tracks are provided: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo (CD quality). The sound has more presence than most classical music DVDs I've come across. Of the 3 bonus clips, the 2 Traviata exerpts are in 4:3 fullscreen while the Ruslan is in letterbox widescreen (Non-anamorphic). The "Traviata" exerpt from Bavaria looks rather shabby due to overly bright stage lighting but the "Traviata" from Vienna and the "Ruslan" from the Mariinsky both look very good indeed.

Grouses aside, credit should be given to all involved for attempting something new. Opera audiences are shrinking by the day. If this endeavor has even minimal success in bringing the MTV generation to the sublime joys of opera, kudos to it. For the sake of us fuddy-duddy old folk who have enjoyed opera for years, I hope Ms Netrebko releases another DVD of more traditional performances soon. Live performances, even short exerpts like that shown in the bonus clips would find a ready and deeply appreciative audience.

I like this pretty little DVD, and I have watched it several times since I got it, but it's an expensive piece of Anna. If you want to get this enjoyable and luxurious, albeit pricey, Netrebko release, it is worth it, but I think it would have been even greater, and possibly even more of a chart topping, hot selling product if it was priced at the standard music video $14.99 level. DG Label, listen up please!
"Anna Speaks!" interviews are cool, she comes across as a smart and little crazy cookie, and the videos are great, bad lipsyncing and all. I especially like Non Mir Dir, done in artsy and creepy Julie Taymor style, and Rusalka, campy fun at its best, but the real reason to get this DVD would be the three live pieces, two from Traviata and one from Anna's early days at the Mariinsky Theatre. What a firecracker she was on stage even then! It's also interesting that while her overall diction is still mushy nowadays, she sounds great in Russian in this Ruslan and Ludmila piece, I can understand every word.
I don't understand what the ruckus was about with this whole "opera video clips are evil and will mean the death of opera" campaign geared against Anna's videos. I think many people still like their stodgy, immobile Fat Lucy clones too much to embrace a singer that looks hot and sings great. It's time to wake up though, evolve or die. I think the days of dominance of trim, athletic and shapely singers who can sing, move and act the hell out of any opera and are not allergic to modern productions are finally here. Netrebko, Roland Villazon and Simon Keenlyside for starters, there's no going back.
There is a little promo for opera DVDs included on this release, and among other footage, it shows Eaglen and Heppner in Met's recent Tristan and Isolde. This production looks like National Geographic special on whale mating, that's bad enough, and it's distressing to see Tristan and Isolde that cannot even embrace, because of their enormous girths, but it's Eaglen's totally expressionless delivery and "just standing there" school of acting that freaks me out the most. Give me Anna instead, singing in a Planet of the Apes Rigoletto, or floating on a lilo. I'll choose her over the old school any time.

It would be extremely difficult to create a truly bad video whose subject is a stunningly beautiful soprano with a gorgeous voice - difficult but not impossible as Vincent Patterson ably demonstrates in this lamentably ridiculous disc.

The DVD rates two stars only because Netrebko's beauty and talent speak for themselves. What a pity that they have to be violated by Patterson's miserably failed attempts at creative artistry.

What are we to make of Don Giovanni sung amidst a forest of "human trees" portrayed by gauze clad wimps of indeterminate sex, the frequent changes of Ms. Netrebko's clothing in a single scene, the soprano groping at a man in a shower and the many other examples of amorphous staging that have nothing to do with opera, music or anything else? Patterson's efforts are less than I would expect from a small town high school play.

The best parts are the all too brief and too few scenes from Netrebko on stage. They, with the added music, make this disc an acceptable purchase for those who wish permament documentation of an excellent talent. Some may wish to wait for more serious and sensible examples.

This is a great idea: opera in little tasty morsels, set to outlandish, stylish images.
I saw the Non mir dir clip on TV and that reignited my interest in opera, after years of sticking to instrumental and choral music. I thank the beautiful dark haired siren that lured me into this new music world.
I love the videos, especially Mozart and Dvorak, they are throwback to glamorous, old style movies. The mini story of desperate housewife shown in Musetta's Waltz is great, too. The interviews let us meet Anna on more direct plane and see her searching for interpretation of the role. And the added live footage is fantastic: great Violetta and utterly charming Lyudmila. It's easy to get a feel for how exciting it must be to see Netrebko live on stage.
Opera purists who are up in arms about this release need to pipe down a little bit; a few clips like these are not going to kill the opera, but they may bring new people into the field. Why give no credit to someone just because she is gorgeous and clearly having fun. And she has not to date commited a single crossover, sacred aria or pop ditty that many current divas are guilty of. I hope to see and hear more of this young lady in the future!

Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice is a gorgeous DVD.
Anna is stunningly beautiful with the voice of an
angel. The interview is fascinating and she answers so
many questions that I feel are fresh. I loved
discovering about her history as well as how she
handles fame and success.
The video interpretations of her arias are fantastic.
The mesmerizing 'Don Giovanni" aria has Anna singing
among a "people" forest. It is haunting and surreal.
The suppressed trophy wife in "La Boheme" made me sad
and yet hopeful. And where did they shoot "La
Sonnambula?" That place looks like a sci-fi museum.
Beautiful.I loved seeing contemporary takes on some of
my favorite arias. It is a great DVD.

Hilarious! Thank God Miss Netrebko is so young - she will look back at this and laugh some day. There is some splendid singing and she looks terrific but the videos are so early 1980's MTV that one can't help laugh at the "look-at-me-I'm-making-ART!" self importance that floods them. That isn't to say they aren't worth looking at - or hearing.

The best of the lot would have to be Non mi dir (which is probably the best sung of the tunes here). Here Netrebko looks positively stunning - set in a stark wintery stage forest with 8-10 androgynous dancers - all in see-through black tops and long skirts , with tree branches for hands -Julie Taymor's "Titus" will instantly be recalled by anyone who's seen it. Anna moves gracefully, matching the dancer's lithe movements and I have to say this video - for me - works. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

The Sonnambula aria is a mess - but it's a fun mess and everyone involved seems to be having a ball.

The Dvorak is glamorous in an old Hollywood style with Anna in a bathing suit floating in a pool, but then we see the naked guy in the shower - and who shows up again in front of the moon after she sinks. There is a gorgeous video waiting to be made with this stunning aria, this wasn't it.

The DVD has several live moments of Miss Netrebko on stage in actual operas and one can see immediately her appeal (though her Violetta wasn't what I'd hoped, it holds a lot of promise and should become a great role for her).

The long scene from Ruslan and Lyudmila is alone worth the price of the DVD for hear the mystery of Netrekbo is revealed. She is stunning in voice and movement and she nails a long, difficult aria with a naturalness that is almost alarming. For this and the Non mi dir she earns the five stars.

She's only going up from here baby, sign me up as a fan!

A seriously gorgeous woman in shimmering dress floats out of an urban high-rise on the heels of her well-bred and overly-manicured significant other, and into the waiting backseat of a sleek limo. Driver and passenger exchange knowing glances; the husband busies himself with his cellphone; and Anna Netrebko, staring lonely out the window, lets her heart speak its pain and longing: the glorious "Musetta's Waltz," from La Boheme, heard by no one but us, fills every inch of the car.

If opera has meaning beyond its historical place in music and theatre, director Vincent Paterson and soprano Anna Netrebko have uncovered the path to its mystery, charge, and beauty in a convergence of fiercely contemporary yet East-European timelessness that will stun both the willing and the unwitting viewer.

Human trees, like a dark forest of Prada, shelter Anna from a foreboding sky in the aria, "Crudele? - Non mi dir, bell'idol mio" from Don Giovanni. We are outside time and safety, the feeling fairy tales had before Disney took them over, as the trees sway with and about Anna, their branches like Japanese fans. It looks like snow, and so it does, - gently and magically - at the end.

Paterson, in Rusalka's "Song to the Moon", divines a dreamy marriage of Ingmar Bergman and Esther Williams: Anna floats in a dark pool of mystery, backlit by an enormous moon (ready for its close-up!), her lover appearing too late to save her (Exit, stage underwater). It is the Golden Age of Hollywood as it might be reimagined by a lonely astronomer in his midwinter midnight observatory.

If any of this troubles you, rest reassured: more often than not these innovative juxtapositions enhance, rather than detract from, one's irresistible surrender to Ms. Netrebko's entrancing voice, or - let's face it - one's swooning infatuation with this soprano's charming beauty.

After feasting upon these five "short stories", as it were, one awaits, hopefully, the novel: A full-length cinematic collaboration between singer and director promises even more gifts of the heart's secrets.

Anna Netrebko is a beautiful woman with a rich Slavic voice. In this DVD, she looks ravishing... but this does not provide forgiveness for the atrocious lip-mis-synching. It does not make up for the bizarre mish-mash of images married together higgledy-piggledy by Vincent Paterson.

We're told that Mr Paterson is an opera lover. In no sense is this conveyed - he seems rather to be determined to sever the arias from their place in opera, presenting them as bleeding limbs thrust into the pot plant of his own concept. Any connection with the images to the arias themselves is... tenuous (or strained at best).

There are three "looks" for the first aria, Margeurite's "Jewel Song" from Faust. They are juxtaposed without reason and without a sense of continuity. Granted, Ms Netrebko is beautiful in whatever garb she is attired, but beauty without sense, beauty without an inner connection, marred the entire video.

Further atrocities include a weird portrayal of Musetta's famous waltz song which has the soprano searching vainly for interest in her business husband's face. Why include a husband, I ask? The story behind Musetta's aria is riveting enough to be transposed to a video clip - why not simply have Ms Netrebko walking sinuously along the street, exchanging glances of interest with various men, while her hapless lover fumes jealously in the background? But no - this isn't "original" enough, I suppose... Some directors are only happy if they strip something of its original meaning in order to find a "deeper truth" - meaning, their own idea imposed ruthlessly upon the work.

The less said of the punky party which is the setting for the Sonnambula aria, the better...

In another clip, the character of Donna Anna is seen in a strange snow-and-trees setting which reminds me somewhat of a similar, although better, scene in the film "Titus" (based on Titus Andronicus) starring Anthony Hopkins. In that scene, the tree branches form a vital part of the scene in which Lavinia is found after a shocking attack. It's such a powerful scene... heartbreakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly horrific.

Here, the tree-people have no reason for being. They're simply there, I suppose, because Vincent Paterson said, "Hey, I know! Why don't we do with with tree-people? It'll be cool!" With Anna Netrebko attired in a quite stunning red outfit, the initial visual impact is quite beautiful, even though it has nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with Donna Anna as a character, in spite of the specious arguments used ("This scene shows Donna Anna's emotional state..." I paraphrase). Please. Should we next look forward to one of Don Giovanni's arias sung entirely in the pitch dark using the same specious reasoning?

But even the visual beauty of that initial scene is trodden upon by the lead-footed directing... Ms Netrebko is given some ghastly waving movement to perform, which had me cringing for her... and the gorgeous red outfit is replaced by a summery lilac gown which - again - is beautiful and flattering, but does not lend any sense of continuity to whatever it is that Paterson is trying to achieve. We are left with the idea that this is simply a fashion show, and that someone is accidentally lip-synching while on show.

The final piece is Rusalka's Song to the Moon. By the way, this is by far the best sung of the lot. Ms Netrebko has, as I've said, a very beautiful voice, but it's the wrong timbre for the bel canto material of Sonnambula, or the role of Margeurite (which requires far more lightness and a Romantic French period approach). It's also a voice which performs some coloratura passages adequately, but royally stuffs up others. (And oddly, there's no trill in the voice - it's a strange lack, and required in the Gounod aria.) Compare, for instance, the coloratura of the Sonnambula aria with that sung by Gruberova, or Sutherland in her heyday, or even Callas, who was such a phenomenon that she remains, for me, the most convincing Amina I've ever heard on recording, in spite of not being the voice type I associate with the role! - But Netrebko is not Callas. I feel Ms Netrebko is at her absolute best when singing the lyrical repertoire, where the rich and delicious beauty of her voice is sumptuously given room to expand.)

The final image we see of the soprano in the Dvorak aria is exceedingly glamourous - a white bathing-suit of very Hollywood style is her attire for this piece. Of the five clips, I felt this one worked the best - it actually had some sense of connection to the aria itself. But it was spoiled somewhat by the shower groping scene, etc.

In summary - Anna Netrebko is clearly a soprano of great personal beauty and a voice of quality. I believe she's singing repertoire to which she does less than justice - the Bellini, the Gounod - but in lyrical pieces, she shines. It's like listening to ruby wine.

But the DVD itself is... oh dear... just silly. Ms Netrebko looks stunning, but that doesn't redeem the DVD from its flaws.

I have read some of these mean-spirited reviews and wanted to write my own. I really like this DVD. I am not an avid opera fan, but I saw Anna on Jay Leno and I am hooked. She felt like an opera singer for this next century. One of the aspects i liked about this DVD is that it seems like Ms. Netrebko and the director had fun. I like the interviews and I really like the visuals. I like the music video interpretations of the arias, yet they are edited in a watchable pace.
I shared the DVD with some friends and they were so impressed. They are older than me but young in spirit. They feel that most work that you see today is over the top with the intent to shock that it's a major turn off. I told them that this was unlike anything they had seen but let them make their own judgement. Well, they were in awe! "She is amazing, gorgeous, what a voice! She moves so well too!
And of the interviews and behind the scenes. " The director is such a sensitive guy, he's a poet! WOW! "
All I can say is every time I watch this beautiful DVD, it gets me at a different spot each time. The feelings I get are so rich and mixed; I feel sadness and happiness all at once The excitement of the performers jumps right thru the screen as if they tried to grab me and pull me back into the screen to be with them. The music and Anna's performance are so pure and beautiful, that this alone moves me at a very deep level. I really like that it seems everyone involved is having an enjoyable time. Great music, great performer, great visuals.

The only passable sections in this otherwise awful DVD are the interviews that show Netrebko as a vivacious and beautiful woman who is still trying to cope with sudden stardom. The five lip-synced arias are an absolute outrage. Staged like second rate fashion shows, they are a pinnacle of bad visual taste and an insult to the music. The director of that piece, Vincent Paterson, should perhaps stay with his former subjects, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Don't waste your money on this DVD, buy one of Netrebko's CDs instead.