Customer Reviews

Isaac Albeniz - Merlin / Wilson-Johnson, Skelton, Marton, Vaness, Odena, Eusebio (Teatro Real Madrid 2004)

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

 

 

Back in the last decade of the 1800s, a rich man's son named Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (Coutts is mentioned in "The Gondoliers" as bankers) decided to write the librettos to a trilogy that would do for England what Wagner's Ring cycle had done for Germany. He chose the story of King Arthur and wrote the librettos for "Merlin," "Lancelot" and "Guenevere." The composer who accepted the challenge was Isaac Albeniz, known mostly today for his piano music and only recently given respectful attention by Spanish musicologists.

Well, the music for the latter two is still lost, but conductor Jose de Eusebio made it the task of many years to restore "Merlin" and at long last we have a DVD recording on the BBC Opus Arte label (OA 0888 D) of a complete performance given at the Teatro Real de Madrid.

First of all, the text is in English, but you will understand very little of it without using the subtitle feature (in English, German, Spanish, or French). Sopranos are notoriously difficult to understand in any language (so much do they love vowels at the often total expense of consonants), and casting Eva Marton as Morgan le Fey makes even her vowels fairly incomprehensible. The Nivian of Carol Vaness is a touch better.

As often happens, the men fare better on the enunciation side. David Wilson-Johnson (Merlin) and Stuart Skelton (Arthur) are not exactly exemplary, but at least half the words come across.

Several of the choruses are off-stage, so understanding the words is out of the question; those choruses sung onstage are little better. Still the singing is of a high quality, so back to the subtitles!

On the acting side, there is little to recommend. Nowhere do I see any depth of characterization; but these are standard mythological and legendary (yes, there is a difference) creatures. Angel Odena plays the evil Mordred looking too much like *** of the Monty Python group in the Spanish Inquisition sketch to elicit anything but a smile; but Vaness nearly makes a believable character as the Ariel-like slave of Merlin who turns to Morgan for her freedom. Marton's acting is of silent-film vintage.

Interestingly, the characters of Lancelot and Guenevere show up only as dancers in this opera.

The sets and costumes are minimal and symbolic, the costumes fetching. Much of the opera is given over to ballet and the opening to Act III is stunning. Most of the solo singing is of the post-Wagner declamation genre but without the wonderful use of leitmotif that Wagner used as the basis of his scores. Only in a chorus or two will you find any melody. But all in all, with the video aspect, the music takes on a timeless quality that seems right for the action on stage.

For once, some of the bonus material is very informative, namely the interview with the conductor concerning the work, Albeniz, and the problems of reconstructing the music. What Marton and Wilson-Johnson have to say is of less interest.

Two serious complaints. How many "live" performance DVDs must be issued before some engineer copes with the problem of acoustically dead spots on stage? And when will so many editors of the program notes stop using white print against grey textured backgrounds? I found the Merlin booklet practically unreadable and sent yet another e-mail to BBC about this. They never do answer.

On two DVD discs, the opera runs about 155 minutes. The picture is wide screen (16:9 ratio)

I like the piano and guitar music of Albeniz, and I have a very large collection of videos, music, and, primarily, books on the subject of King Arthur, so I leapt at the chance to buy "Merlin". Unfortunately I bought it directly from the producer rather than Amazon so it cost me almost twice the Amazon price. I'm afraid it wasn't worth it. Other reviewers have complained about Eva Marton's vibrato. Vibrato is supposed to aid the singer in establishing an accurate pitch. In this case, that vibrato was so overwhelming it made it very difficult to discern the pitch. The opening scene was spactacular, as were most of the rest of the sets. The lighting was also first rate. I thought the costumes of the knights to be ridiculous. I am glad I have this performance on DVD, but primarily because it extends my collection of Arthuriana. Having looked at and listened to it once, I expect it to just sit on the shelf, untouched, for a very long time.

Eva Marton used to be a great singer. During the filming of Merlin, however, she demonstrates the perils of remaining before the public too long. Her voice, now with a shrill, penetrating quality more appropriate to a dentist's drill, and a vibrato so wide that the entire round table could be moved through it, has long since passed any reason for continuing to be recorded. However, with this recording, she does provide something of a comic relief: such stupendously bad singing can be wonderfully entertaining. She is the single misstep in the cast if your premise is that all the singers in such a production should be good ones. If, however, you stipulate that an unattractive and vengeful character might usefully be sung by a voice so unattractive that it is humorous, then you find an entirely new dimension to the recording. Either way, Merlin is a wonderful addition to the operatic repertoire and this recording is very good.

A beautifully costumed production with wonderful music. Although sung in English you need the subtitles to understand some fo the words. The casting of Eva Marton as Morgana was really inappropriate. Her vibrato is excessive to the point of distraction. As a leading character, She really should not have been cast in this production

Alb?niz' opera MERLIN was never staged until 28 May 2003, a full century after he wrote it. I attended the ninth and last performance of the premiere run at the Teatro Real in Madrid, on the 12th of June 2003. The libretto is in English (which the cast pronounce correctly), the music is somewhat Wagnerian but incorporates fragments of Gregorian chant in a very interesting way, and the staging is quite impressive. See the review by Roberto Herrscher in the Opera News of August 2003, page 59.

-- Since I sat up in the gallery, I didn't have a very good view of the stage. The up-close camera work on the DVD is giving me a better picture of the production than I had live in the theater!

I had never heard of this opera, but it was for sale at Chapters-Indigo books where I live. No one at the store could find out a thing about it, excepting that it had never been performed in the composer's lifetime. And in all truth, the ONLY reason I bought it was because Eva Marton was singing in it. For those who believe she is past her prime, you are right, but of all the people singing, she was the only one I really have heard with any regularity (and the next was Carol Vaness). The rest of the cast meant nothing to me.

I have to admit, even the composer was not one that was "high on my list" of composers I would listen to, not because he is a poor composer, but just I really am not one into listening to piano music all the time (it was bad enough having to learn to play all these "never heard of composers no audience really wants to hear" while I was studying performing).

I was surprised by such great beauty that I heard in this opera. The orchestration was incredibly lovely, the choruses were magical, and there were really some wondrous moments to hear and behold.

HOWEVER, the production, though visual interesting, was very confusing. I was not familiar with the story line, so I had to read everything that came with the DVD, a painfully horrible task because of the color of the print and its size and what it was printed on for background. I couldn't make heads of tales out of what people were doing and what it had to do with the storyline. The acting, if one could even call it that, was so minimalistic that for the most part it looked like endless "swimming motions." Eva Marton certainly was more "out there" with her acting, and one reviewer likened it to the silent picture era. That is actually a very excellent way to describe it. And I have to say, I am glad she DID act that way. At least I KNEW she was a raging woman filled with hate. The emotional motivation of the other characters was completely lost.

People go on about the "Wagnerian connection" to the work. I have to admit, I really didn't see it at all. I likened it more to the meanderings of some of Richard Strauss's less well known works -- lots of orchestra, lots of "endless melody" that never quite hatches into anything, and no real lietmotifs that informed me of anything. With Wagner, all his leitmotifs are recognizable, they even move the drama forward, and since he invented the system and knew exactly what he wanted to do with it, it is not too surprising that those seeking to "copy" him don't quite master it like he did.

Still, the music was very beautiful, and in some places extraordinary. The choruses and dance numbers stand out as the most beautiful.

However, when one gets to the actual vocal lines of the main characters, they have NO melodic beauty, seldom actual form into anything, and seem to be barked more than sung. Albeniz was NOT very good at creating climax with his music, especially when it comes to vocal writing. Even with all of Wagner's "endless melody" (and even with Richard Strauss, whose melodies are much harder to find that Wagner) one ALWAYS feels a climax building, a moving forward of the plot and the emotions of the characters (even if they take a long time to do it). And we actually DO have melody. I just didn't feel that in this opera at all. The "arias" (if one could even say there were any) had no real anything to actually help us understand what and where the characters were going.

What really distressed me with the opera was the complete inability to understand a word of it. It was hard enough to follow the plot with the Fantasy mists and aimless acting (visual interest that clarified nothing going on), but to remove any possibility to even understand the WORDS really threw me into a mind-numbing place. Whatever beauty there was in the music could grab my interest only so long while everything else remained so lost and encrypted I couldn't figure out a thing.

The voices were not all that beautiful to listen to. Marton did have an extremely wide vocal wobble that made you wonder at times if she was singing actual notes at all. Carol Vaness was somewhat better, but not much, and neither one of them sang so you understood a thing. Some of the men were better, but only marginally.

I have to admit, I did fall asleep during it the first viewing. The next viewing I jumped ahead in the scenes to those that seemed more interesting than others (as listed in the scene guide). That way I watched the entire opera (minus quite a few things) in about 35 minutes, which gave me an overview of where it was going. Then I watched it a third time (and many days passed between each time I viewed it) and I got a lot more out of it, but understood no more of the words than the first time (thank goodness for subtitles, and even then, I saw no relationship between what I was reading on the screen and what I was hearing).

Like many people, I am accustomed to opera being sung in a language not my own (though I do speak most of them fluently that they are sung in, so I do enjoy the words as well as the music, and in most cases singers SING WITH MORE CLARITY, even the women, when singing in German or Italian, and even French at times), but when I have the occasion to hear one sung in my native tongue, I find it gives me an added sense of excitement -- finally to understand without having to constantly translate. In NO cases of opera in English (recorded, live, or on DVD) have I ever left the experience feeling filled. I have left feeling cheated and mocked. I felt this way with this opera as well. I really don't care how lovely the accompaniment is, how beautiful the orchestration is, or how wonderfully it portray atmosphere, if in the end I couldn't understand a thing that the characters were singing. Everything becomes as empty as listening to endless vocalizes sung by singing students trying to learn their craft.

I rated it a 3 because it is a beautiful work, but it needs a lot of work to make it become a work anyone would really flock to see. And it needs singers and conductors who don't just worship it as such wonderful music (which is truly is) but have enough on the ball to realize it has to be performed in such a way so that every aspect of the work touches the audience that is listening to it. When they do that, then perhaps we will have an even better opportunity to judge the work on its full merits. But all in all, I have come to enjoy much of this opera, even if I have to jump to different scenes to really remain excited about the work.

I didn't like it the first time I listened to it, but after I listened to it several times, the music took over. The libretto is not in ideomatic English;it's downright odd. It's a grand opera, with fine choral scenes and the plot is sensible compared to most operas. The opera is a major work from an unexpected composer.

I bought this DVD when it first came out, not soon after I went seeking some specific versions of Wagner's Ring Cycle, and was intrigued by a new production of an opera I had never heard of before. With a name like the BBC behind, and a name composer, I went ahead and splurged the then hefty $40+ price tag at the former Tower Records Classical Annex that used to be between North Beach and Ghiradeli Square.

I've seen lots of opera, but had excused myself from it for a while. One grows tired of seeing the same variations on the same dramatic themes. It's part of what attracted me to Merlin. This was something new. Something not conjured by a popular musician who wanted to "get back to his classical roots", but a composition that had been lost, restructured, and executed by a virtuoso.

It did not disappoint.

I found a very clean and dynamic opera that pulled me into the story with an appropriately magical intro. We have here the tale of King Arthur told from his and Merlin's vantage points. Admittedly the actual drama itself is more mythic in scope than personalized. Example, we're drawn into the emotions of the gods and those they interact with. With Merlin were more or less drawn into the epic as opposed to the characters. That much I do recall, and were I to point out a weakness in the Merlin Opera, it would be a lack of character depth.

But otherwise it's a fine piece of mythic saga brought to the classical music scene. The other two pieces of the trilogy, as of the first performance of this opera, were being researched and reconstructed. Or so the extra interviews would have us believe. I personally would love to see the rest of the trilogy come to life, even if only on DVD. But, it's been over ten years (or near there) since I purchased my copy of Merlin, and my hopes are on the wane of ever hearing or seeing the other two sagas in this epic.

Either way, do yourself a favor and take a peak at this performance. You will not regret it.

A discovery that will likely become broadly popular, especially in English-speaking countries. Merlin captures the mood of Camelot in a melodic and artistic presentation. Marton seems screechy (maybe due to the nature of her character?) but overall the singing is delightful. The choreography and staging add to the overall enjoyment. Even with the English subtitles I had trouble understanding some of the dialogue, which didn't detract from the entertainment of this recently uncovered masterwork. Is it "Wagneresque? Perhaps slightly, but also more popular, easier to grasp than the ponderous "Ring". I wish Albeniz was able to complete the other 2 operas, then go on to Tolkien!

The really interesting way to watch this is on Discovery HD theater, with absolutely no information whatever except the title, and try to figure out what it is. At first you think it might be a modern ballet to old music, performed by a European company operating under EU rules mandating a percentage of fat people in all ballet companies. But then one of them starts to sing, and you realize it's some kind of mixed media thing. Eventually, a few English words emerge from the fuzz of sound, though not enough to explain what's going on. Why is Merlin involved with people on an atoll somewhere in the south seas? And wearing a voluminous white silk dressing gown? These are only two of many puzzles. Then the scene changes, and a lady in red with green hair appears in a scene with what might be Welsh miners standing on tree stumps.

If it weren't for the reviews here, I'd still be in the dark.

I'm sure the Albeniz music is worth listening to. But this is the kind of thing that gets art a bad name among thinking people.