Customer Reviews

Herbert: Eileen [Complete Opera]

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

 

 

Though not quite a perfect production, this stands at present as the only complete score to any Victor Herbert operetta, and that includes the dialogue to boot. (Vox has "The Red Mill" and "Sweethearts" almost musically complete but will not reissue them.) There is no attempt to camp things up or condescend to the music, but the line readings are typical of "operetta readings": not for one moment believable. The vocalizing, however, is quite acceptable. Newport Classics was wise to put the dialogue on its own tracks so one can program it out after a first hearing; and a complete libretto is supplied. The lyrics are turn-of-the-century horrible, the music ranges from just nice to really memorable...which is more than we say about most recent musicals. Any theater department should have a copy, and local groups should consider doing this as their next production.

Not a great performance, but the only complete recording of any Herbert operetta. The singing is very good, but the speaking parts are less than perfect and we hear noise from the cast moving around the stage. Eileen is typical Victor Herbert; beautiful music but not a particularly good play. Still, the Ohio Light Opera gets my thanks for performing this work and I hope they do more of Herberts operettas, but with better recording techniques in the future.

When are we going to get a good production of a Herbert operetta with the best actor-singers, a high quality orchestra, and a director who understands restoration of historical music? Herbert's music sounds the best when his original arrangements are used. Lets have more of him.

I adore Victor Herbert and am sad there have not been more recordings available until now. The Ohio light Opera series
of complete operettas has been most welcome and exposes, of course, both the delicious music and the often-creaky books of what are, after all, century-or-more-old frothy entertainments,
hardly meant to compete with Mozart or Handel (whose lyrics are not always so sophisticated either, if one translates).
The meltingly beautiful voice of soprano Suzanne Woods in the title role is a real plus, and for a live performance--complete with stage noises, audience laughing, coughing and applauding--the distractions are few. Only a curmudgeon would protest. Buy it!

I wish someone had told me that this is a recording of a strictly amateur production before I plopped down full price for this. I find it painful to listen to.

The performers are terrible actors, and at best mediocre singers. The performance is "directed" under the philosophy of having the "actors" overact every line as loudly and as quickly as possible. Nothing is ever said in any remotely normal or realistic way.

I've often heard people criticize early (and late, for that matter) musical theatre, but I'm afraid it has more to do with the PERFORMANCE of the material than the material itself. I have a theory that many people dislike musical theatre because their first (and after the experience, their LAST!) exposure to it is some high school production. Forever after, the work (whether it's My Fair Lady, or Oklahoma, or whatever) is associated in their minds with LOUSY acting and singing.

I myself took years to overcome a prejudice against Finian's Rainbow because my first exposure to it was an atrocious junior high school production.

Well, that's the feeling I get from this performance of Herbert's Eileen. This is a college production, by college students and other amateurs who have a long way to go before they are effective actors and singers. As I said above, the amateurishness of it all is painful to hear -- and it gives a bad impression of what seems to be a beautiful light opera.

What I say here goes even more so for the other two Ohio Light Opera works I've suffered through, Veronique and The Arcadians. Not only are these works ruined by the performance, they're cut and rearranged in ways which do NOT improve them. The tragedy of it all is that these will almost certainly be the only recordings of these works that will ever exist -- but, even so, I can't stand listening to them. Sometimes, nothing IS better than something!

Under my philosophy of three strikes and you're out, I will not be getting any more Ohio Light Opera recordings. And the next stop for the three I naively bought is the Used Bin at the record store, where at least I can get maybe 25% of my money back.

I'm just wondering this: WHY are these marginally talented people cast in these productions (I'd hate to hear the people who DIDN'T get parts!); WHY did Newport Classics record these productions; and why are they gypping the public by selling these recordings at full price?

If you love musical theatre -- and more importantly, if you HATE musical theatre, and are looking for something that might change your mind -- AVOID these Ohio Light Opera recordings!