Product Details

• Actors: Natalie Dessay, Juan Diego Florez, Michele Pertusi, Evelino Pido, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
• Directors: Mary Zimmerman
• Format: AC-3, Classical, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Italian (DTS 5.1), Italian (PCM Stereo)
• Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Decca
• DVD Release Date: February 16, 2010
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002Y5FKUE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,405 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

La Sonnambula (Bellini)
In his latest Decca DVD release, bel canto star Juan Diego Flórez undertakes the role of Elvino in Bellini's romantic drama, playing opposite the mercurial French soprano, Natalie Dessay, in the MET 's striking, modern-dress production from March 2009. Bellini's romantic opera La Sonnambula (1831), hinges on the love and misunderstanding between Elvino and Amina (the `sleepwalker' of the title). Discovered in the bedroom of Rodolfo, Amina is assumed to have been unfaithful, and Elvino cancels their wedding. But in the dramatic final scene, he witnesses Amina sleepwalking, understands her innocence, and all ends happily. Mary Zimmerman's production plays with the dual realities of a rehearsal of the opera and a performance of the opera itself.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars saved on my DVR, January 6, 2010

By 

James Walters (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bellini: La Sonnambula (DVD)

This is the only live from the Met broadcast I have saved on my DVR for longer than a month. The singing is very good all around, some of the best I've seen from Dessay and Florez. The production is hit and miss for me.

On the hit side, updating this drama to current day make sense because it is a simple story of a girl being mis-accused of infidelity, and the storyline translates well to any age.

On the miss side the director thought it would be a brilliant idea to set it as an opera in rehearsal. The opera in rehearsal bit is cheap and does not translate well at all. In fact you can't really tell when they are in rehearsal mode and when they aren't, it was a really dumb idea. In fact the show only works if you more or less ignore that they are supposed to be somehow in rehearsal. Once you ignore the dumb concept seeing them in current day clothing makes the interaction between the characters more believable.

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Audio heaven, visual hell., January 17, 2010

By 

Jaydoggy (Essex, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bellini: La Sonnambula (DVD)

I should start off to say that the entire cast was probably the ideal for this show. Florez and Dessay make an amazing pair on stage - they blend very well together and are amazing soloists in their arias too. The orchestra was also great. The chorus was lively and sounded together as a group... didn't hear any individuals wailing. It looked like they had quite a bit of fun for some of the conflict scenes.

Some newcomers may find the opera's story itself a little cheesy - in a sense it's supposed to be. It's a lighthearted and charming piece with a very basic story. It's not a particular favorite of mine but the music certainly makes up the missing excitement. If you think about it - this is a very elaborate opera of a simple misunderstanding which in the end gives you a happy ending and all are at peace. Really, it's pretty fun! With such a light-hearted story like this, some may say it calls for regietheater.

Mary Zimmerman and the rest of the production team was booed on opening night and did not bow for this recording. It has been staged here as a New York opera company rehearsing the opera La Sonnambula. Our issue here is characters do seem to be rehearsing some scenes and others they seem to be having out-of-character interaction. The main problem is that when the libretto doesn't change but the action does, we have a mess. It's made even more bizarre that there's this conflict that matches all the music (but not the words) and the unseen orchestra plays on - actors and instrumentalists disregarding one another's presence.

Other times the people don't seem to act like human beings at all - for a literal and specific set and place we have here, too often the action and character direction seems completely unrealistic (not all the time though). For all direction though, the performers acted with perfection and showed all the emotion in them. The action becomes so confusing that at times it may even be better to look away and simply listen (hopefully you know the libretto or Italian). I would highly recommend looking up a libretto for this because the subtitles are also not very good - though that's never something to judge when listening to an opera; it comes with the territory with most DVDs in a foreign language.

It's audio heaven but visual hell. The set itself on a purely visual level with props and costumes and all are in fact great with what they are. It's like a great stage for the wrong show. I should also mention the fact that I'm also not biased against regietheater or modernizations either - this particular experiment though I think was a failed one, and it has a lot to do with an unfortunate mishandling of libretto and direction, and possible lack of research on Bellini and this piece (Zimmerman by her own admission did not research Donizetti much when she staged Lucia, I do not know if the same was true for Bellini).

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Forget the silly production - Dessay is the real problem, February 28, 2010

By 

Ivy Lin (NY NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bellini: La Sonnambula (DVD)

This production of "La Sonnambula," when it first premiered at the Met, drew some of the most vociferous booing in recent memory. And some of the booing is deserved -- the concept of the production is muddled. Instead of giving us the story straight up, director Mary Zimmerman decided to stage the opera as a "backstsage rehearsal," where the drama of Amina and her sleepwalking actually happens to the soprano who plays Amina. Do you get it? The whole opera is set in a rehearsal room, with the cast dressed in backstage rehearsal clothes. During "Come per me sereno," Amina's charming opening aria, Natalie Dessay tries on and throws away a bunch of wigs. At the end of Act 1, Dessay and Florez (the Elvino) are being wheeled around on a bed (how'd a bed find its way to a rehearsal hall?) while the chorus frantically rips up and throws away music sheets. The sleepwalking scene has Dessay actually walking through the Met audience. The problem with this rehearsal concept is that the main plot point (Amina sleepwalking into Count Rodolfo's room) make no sense if it's all set in a rehearsal room. Why is "Count Rodolfo" shacking up in a rehearsal hall? Who is he anyway? I have no idea why Zimmerman (or Dessay, who supposedly pushed for a non-traditional production) would think that this sweet, pastoral tale needed to be altered that much.

Nevertheless, many many operas survive extremely silly productions because of the strength of the singing. Natalie Dessay once had an amazing pyrotechnic voice. It wasn't large but she could hit acuti like nobody's business and her stage presence was charming, if a bit frenetic. Unfortunately, she developed nodes and required several surgeries, and her voice just isn't what it used to be. In the quieter moments, she can still sound charming and her slightly piquant timbre is still there. She's still a musical singer. But her high notes now tended to be screamed approximations (time to take the lower options in the musical line?), and she can no longer negotiate any of the faster passagework with anything resembling beauty. Under pressure her voice tends to curdle and sometimes squeak. Her final cabaletta, "Ah non giunge," is disappointingly weak, sparsely ornamented and, dare I say it, squeaky.

The best performance belongs to Juan Diego Florez, who avoids the sillier stage business of the production, and instead focuses simply on singing beautifully. The voice is losing its rapid flicker vibrato, and now sounds warmer and his skill at negotiating this kind of music is unparalleled. I think the best moments of the video are the lovely duets between Elvino and Amina. Florez and Dessay have sang together many times before and they have great chemistry -- there is real tenderness to their duets. "Son geloso" might be the highpoint of this video.

"La Sonnambula" is one of my favorite operas, but it's never for some reason been terribly popular. It might be "weak" dramatically but I love the simplicity of the story and the tenderness and romanticism of Bellini's melodies. "Prendi, l'anel to donoi" and "Son geloso" might be two of the most beautiful love duets ever composed. They always sound like pillow talk to me. I thought this video was a lost chance to introduce a larger audience to one of the operatic repertoire's most unfairly maligned. But due to the weakness of both the production and Dessay's singing, people might yet again walk away with the wrong impression of the opera.