Customer Reviews

Handel - Tamerlano / Jonathan Miller, Trevor Pinnock - Bacelli, Randle, Pushee, Norberg-Schulz, Bonitatibus, Abete - Händelfestspiele Halle 2001

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tamerlano is Handel's most dramatically convincing and musically appealing opera, in my opinion. It is a shame it is not as well known as some of his other works. This DVD is a well filmed and documented performance from the 2001 Handel Festival in Halle. The singing is for the most part excellent and the acting is appropriate to the subject, the music, and the visual concept. The costumes, borrowed from a spectacular Glimmerglass Opera production, add much visual interest (important since the stage setting is oddly sparce). One might quibble with some of the static nature of the staging (difficult to avoid in Baroque opera), and with the somewhat unmasculine singing and acting of Monica Bacelli in the role of the warrier Tamerlane, but overall this is a very satisfying performance. Thomas Randle gives a vocally and dramatically intense reading of the crucial role of Bajazet, and Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz and Anna Bonitatibus are tremendous. The "Score Plus" feature is nice, but it does NOT actually appear as a "subtitle" - it is superimposed over the screen. Useful if you want to watch portions of the score, but otherwise distracting. I highly recommend this DVD.

Let's be clear; I love Handel operas; I have DVDs of every Handel opera available on Region 1. I worship Trevor Pinnock; he'd never disappointed me before. But... this performance is ponderous and unconvincing. Perhaps the lovely costumes so much praised by other reviewers inhibited the singers from adequate blocking and gesture. Monica Bacelli is the chief problem; she is completely unconvincing as Tamerlano, both as an actress and as a singer. She lacks all ferocity. I'm inclined to think that Pinnock's tempi are too "judicious" throughout, which also contributes to the ponderous air of the production. The superimposed score is absolutely worthless, unless you want to pause the opera dozens of times in order to read it clearly.
I will watch this disk again sometime. Perhaps I'll see or hear some redemption in it, but for the moment it's my least favorite Handel DVD except for the disastrous Ariodante.

Although Tamerlano is not the best opera ever this dvd is the most equipped thing in terms of technical advancements. It is a must buy for music majors because of the added score which appears kind of transparently over the picture, something I have never seen before. I have always had to hold the score pamphlet and look on and off at the screen. Secondly there is bonus materials on making this opera, etc. You will not be disappointed in this dvd unless you hate the opera in genreral like my brother.

The cast of this Tamerlano is excelent. There is not criticism to any of these talented young singers, particularly Randle and Bonitatibus. The costumes are lavish and the interpretation of Handel's masterpiece is impecable to say the less (Bravo Trevor Pinnock). However,a three hours-long opera would require a more dynamic staging than the one that Jonathan Miller delivers here. Everything in this production is too static to my taste in spite of all the efforts put by the singers (particularly Randle) to convey some acting and humanity to their roles. The use of a single and very simple scenary all through the whole opera does not help at all to make this production a bit more attractive. You have to really love Handel to go all through the whole opera in one shot. This set of two DVDs have great extra features though, specially those related with the making of Tamerlano and a historic reaccount of the last 50 years of the Handel Festival in Halle.

This performance is aptly staged in a traditional manner (not a criticism, in my book) with opulent oriental-looking costumes. The singers are superb, and their acting is entirely appropriate. To lovers of Handel, conductor Trevor Pinnock--founder of the English Concert--needs no additional recommendation. The videography is flawless. In short, if you're looking for a DVD of a Handel opera, this recording will not disappoint.

If the magnificent Glyndebourne DVD of Giulio Cesare is Handelian Kabuki, this one is Handelian Noh. I'm mainly writing to offer a different perspective on the "static" staging. Other reviewers have extolled the costumes, the singing, and the opera itself, but some were put off by the lack of action. I was made leery by those reviews myself, but, having now seen the DVD, my perception is that the movements on stage and the dynamics of the characters--the "acting"-- were very carefully worked out and wonderfully executed by the singer/actors. The result was not static for us, but expressive, sometimes slowly so in accord with the music. Thus, the drama makes sense and the viewer who can enter that special world reaps the many benefits of the production. Everything extrinsic is stripped away. We believed in the woman playing Tamerlano; we believed in Bajazet's rage; and we came to understand his daughter and her lover's evolution of emotions and ideas. The excellent camera work helps a great deal, by the way; I've never seen better.

The opera «Tamerlano» (1724) by Georg Friedrich Händel has some of the most beautiful arias I have heard amongst the haendelian operas. Monica Bacelli as Tamerlano is very good, but it was a little difficult for her the gorgheggi in the most important aria of this character «A dispetto d`un volto ingrato» (third act), but her acting is outstanding and her portrayal of wickedness is superb. Mr. Randle as Bajazet doesn't have in my opinion a style of singing according to the haendelian opera and it seems that I am listening an opera by Mozart; however his aria «Ciel e terra» (first act) is sung very well. Graham Pushee as Andronico is outstanding: his aria «Bella Asteria, che il tuo cor mi difenda» is one of the most romantic arias that I have heard from Händel. Anna Bonitatibus as the princess of Trebizonda and Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz as Asteria are beautiful and have powerful voices. Antonio Abete as Leone is superb; his aria «Nel mondo e nell abisso» represents a powerful proof of his character. Excellent performance with Trevor Pinnock. I recommend this DVD set.

This particular production is hard to overestimate - and most of all, without being condescending to excellent singers and cast - for the theater where it was filmed, and for the location.

For Handel's aficionados, it is a unique chance to enter Goethe's theater, the one that was painted according to the poet's explicit instructions; to gaze at the benches and to imagine herself there...and the bonus material, devoted to the town of Halle, succeeded so triumphantly to show its total submission and devotion to its most famous offspring, citizen and genius - Handel.

The staging of Tamerlano itself is so marvelous, with phenomenal costumes, designed as Handel's contemporaries imagined the times of the action; singing and acting is par excellence, and only enhance one's desire to ever attend Handel Festifal in Halle one lucky day.

Musically,it is also interesting to compare this opera to Bajazet by Vivaldi, an opus on the same subject, and to hear how it was treated differently, and to appreciate again the unsurpassed mastery of the maestro of all times.

"Handel was the greatest composer that ever lived" -
Ludwig van Beethoven

What a fabulous DVD of Handel's music. The music is sung with great artistry and feeling. All the singers are exceptional and the acting is superb.

The costumes can justifably be called stunning. Some people consider this production static but we do not feel that way about it. This production concentrates on the expressiveness and beauty of the music. It does not distract with unrelated stage business. As with so much of Handel's music, Tamerlano contains pieces of very great beauty.

If you are looking for stage fireworks, gimmicks or shock value, you will not find that here - but you just may love it anyway. We have watched it over and over. It is a wonderful production. We hope to see more Handel done in this style from Mr. Miller and Mr. Pinnock.

The performances are great and the costumes and sets atmospheric. The INTERVIEWS, MAKING OF TAMERLANO, AND HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE make for a most enjoyable outing into one of the more obscure operas of GH Handel. MUCH RECOMMENDED!

Timothy Wingate OTTAWA CANADA