Product Details

• Actors: Christine Schafer, Natascha Osterkorn
• Directors: Oliver Herrmann, Pierre Boulez
• Format: Classical, NTSC
• Language: German
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Arthaus Musik
• DVD Release Date: June 18, 2002
• Run Time: 126 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008G6F0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,956 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Christine Schäfer: Pierre Boulez" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, hypnotic, sensual, disturbing, sublime, essential viewing, December 5, 2005

By 

Steven Guy (Croydon, South Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christine Schäfer: Pierre Boulez (DVD)

One Night. One Life is one of the first DVD recordings of Classical music that uses this new medium in a creative and interesting way. Instead of merely plonking a camera in front of Ms. Schäfer, both the Dichterliebe and the Pierrot Lunaire are turning into short films. I like this approach and I have watched this DVD repeatedly and I see and hear something new every time I experience this marvellous product.

I loved Christine Schäfer's interpretation of Alban Berg's Lulu - also on DVD - and I have enjoyed her interpretations of Baroque music with period instrument orchestras. Ms Schäfer sings in clear and straight voice without vibrato. Her voice is perfect for modern/C20 music as well as Baroque music. She explains why she dislikes vibrato and the whole "diva scene" in the interview.

One Night. One Life is a disturbing and utterly compelling presentation. I have a recording of this work - Herreweghe's with the Marianne Pousseur singing, I like this recording, but I never engaged with it in the same way I do with Schoenberg's piano music and his beautiful Verklärte Nacht. When I first watched Schäfer's interpretation (with Pierre Boulez directing the Ensemble Intercontemporain) I was stunned - it was an epiphany for me. At last I really felt connected with this strange, weird, difficult and beautiful music. I think I needed to see it performed. The CGI and Matrix-like scenes are beautiful and exciting to watch.
"What is the colour of thought?", we are asked at the start of One Night. One Life, perhaps, Christine Schäfer, Arnold Schoenberg and Pierre Boulez offer us some suitable visions and speculations? I felt like I was taken deep into a very strange and dreamlike place - a place that asks us more questions than it answers. The poetry of Pierrot is full of visions and fantasies. You have simply got to see this thing!

The Schumann Lieder cycle is turned into a short film, too. Christine Schäfer presents the works in a small modern nightclub with a small audience drinking and smoking around her. I like this approach very much and it takes the music into a realm in which we don't normally expect to see or hear Lieder. As you know, the Dichterliebe was written from a male point of view and these songs are usually sung by a tenor or baritone. So the concept of an attractive young woman singing these songs accompanied by an attractive young woman on the piano, Natascha Osterkorn, offers us a chance for some sexual tension between the two women and subtle hint of repressed lesbianism - which adds a slightly disturbing element to the poignancy of the songs.

Warning: there is some nudity in both films.

However, if you are not bothered by this, and you shouldn't be, then you are in for some magical music and vision here.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Great, the Brave and the Banal, March 7, 2008

By 

Robespierre (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Christine Schäfer: Pierre Boulez (DVD)

If you're like me, you're considering buying this DVD because you love Schoenberg, Schumann, and Schaefer, in that order. You might also be partial to song cycles, expressionism, romanticism, Schoenberg's pivotal atonal work and Schumann's greatest art songs. You might also have heard Christina Schaefer's interpretations of Berg and Krenek, and be familiar with her unearthly tone and startlingly clear intonation -- rarities in the interpretation of twelve-tone, atonal and free-tonal early twentieth century music.

If so, you'll want to own this DVD if only to know more about Schaefer's performance style, development and milieu in Berlin, which seems more open to off-kilter (non-academic) ambition than classical music's rigid hierarchy in the States.

The great: The performance of Pierrot Lunaire is stellar. Additionally, Schaefer's rendition of Dichterliebe may be enjoyed without -- or with -- the imposition of non-music-related video footage (the DVD offers both options). Personally, I prefer seeing the performers without an imposed visual narrative.

Singing Pierrot, Schaefer is in her own lofty league; in terms of intonation, she even bests greats like Jessye Norman and Christa Ludwig. I still prefer Dichterliebe versions by Fritz Wunderlich and the incredibly literary Dietrich-Fischer Dieskau, but Schaefer's interpretation is well worth hearing (and seeing).

The brave: Schaefer deserves props for sheer courage. In her videos, the singer appears nude, soaks in unpleasant-looking viscous solids, caresses hanging meat and consents to several other potentially embarrassing scenarios that other acclaimed classical singers would never dream of trying (let alone, preserving on DVD). Aside from Charlotte Moorman (whom I love but who isn't as good), no other musician of Schaefer's caliber has ever risked so much dignity for work that's as likely to be ill-received.

Be advised, parents and sticklers for good taste: The videos aren't for children, but neither are they meant to titillate. Think of these vids as in the spirit of 60s experimental work -- Cage/Cunningham, Paik, Cornelius Cardew -- but with a 90s horror/Euro art film vocabulary.

The inclusion of these vids with Pierrot is entirely appropriate: vast numbers of listeners hated Schoenberg's song cycle in the early twentieth century, and his use of Sprechstimme was at *least* as suspect in 1912 as Schaefer's videos seem at present. Yes, Schoenberg's achievement was infinitely greater. But both musicians deserve respect for doing what they felt was important and not what audiences expected.

The banal: Watching Oliver Hermann's videos can be excruciating. If you've seen them once, there's little reason to watch again. While I appreciate their having been done in the first place -- in the sense that lesser films by Lars von Trier had to be made to allow for better work -- they distract from the rich ambiguities of the music itself. In a sense, they're reminiscent of bad Ken Russell.

If you're partial to the Schaefer-Boulez performance of Pierrot but can't stand the idea of gratuitous video content, then I suggest you pick up the Deutsche-Grammophon CD version instead of this DVD. The CD contains additional works by Schoenberg as well -- "Herzgewachse" (Op. 20), in particular, is exceptional.

The world of classical DVDs is filled with failed experiments: The release of Penderecki's Requiem, for example, which tries to allow us to read the score while watching the orchestra but prevents us from doing either. In certain ways, this DVD is another such failure.

Still, failed experiments are often suffused with promise and ambition, and can reveal more in fragments than they deliver on the whole. That's why I hope potential buyers and fans will support an effort like this: ambition leads to greater things. Schaefer's artistic choices are as unconventional as the arc of her career, but her gifts are undeniable.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modern scenes with original (real Schoenberg )., August 12, 2003

By 

Adam L. Molella (Joliet, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christine Schäfer: Pierre Boulez (DVD)

This is an excellent video of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with an actual performance of Schoenberg's music with Pierrot Boulez doing an excellent job. Christine Schafer does an excellent performance. The visuals are far from classical; neverthless, are completely in the spirit of Pierrot Lunaire. Computer effects and animations are heavy, as well as modern interpretations by director Oliver Hermann; but, the soundtrack itself is totally classical Schoenberg. Adult scenes make this a questionable choice for young viewers-- they truely do make intellectual statements which are disturbing and nightmarish. This DVD would appeal to both those who like modern music for the visuals, and those who like modern classical music for the actual music itself. This DVD is in region code zero, and works fine on US machines. The 37 minute performance of Pierrot is accompanied with Schumann's Dichterliebe, and a huge interview, both of which are disappointing. It would have been better to have kept up with more Schoenberg and those brilliant surreal interpretations in the 37 minute portion. Of course, subtitles are available, but only if you push the right buttons manually.