Customer Reviews

Janacek - The Makropulos Case / Davis, Silja, Begley, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

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

 

 

The unique headiness of Janacek's music cradles a compelling psychological drama that examines the benefits or otherwise of longevity. The opera is only 95 minutes long (similar in length to Strauss' Salome), and this DVD is a profoundly satisfying performance in every department.

Silja is Emilia Marty, an opera prima donna who, despite being 337 years old (a fact unknown to everyone around her) is sexually irresistable. She has consumed an anti-ageing potion brewed by her father, and towards the end of the opera the question is raised of the desirability of such a potion being available.

Smaller parts are all very well taken although Emilia so dominates the opera it wouldn't particularly matter if they weren't. Silja is perfect vocally and dramatically - although an argument could be made for Emilia to look and sound slightly younger. The production captures and illuminates the drama so well it is hard to imagine a better one.

Andrew Davis conjures just the right sound from the London Philharmonic.

I wasn't bothered by Brian Large's video direction myself - I found the camera always unobtrusively where I would want it.

Reviews on the back cover:

"Anja Silja's Emilia...is a nonpareil triumph... This is a near perfect production..." Wall Street Journal

"Anja Silja... an electrifying performance... a perfect example of just what video opera can and ought to be." Opera Now.

Picture format is 4:3; Dolby Digital is only Stereo 2.0; Subtitles in English, German and Spanish.

I couldn't agree with the editorial review more. This is about as perfect a performance as one could ever expect. Anja Silja is incredible. The drama especially shines through in Acts 2/3. Act 1 felt a little slow to me but that's because of the composer, not the performance. Only a few minor quibbles. The camera work in Act 1 jumped around too much, from one character to another, and was rather disconcerting. And what was that leather outfit for Silja during part of Act 3? Just bizzaar!! If you've never seen a Janacek opera, this should definitely be your first!

Silja was 55 when this Glyndebourne performance was video-taped, and in 2003 she was still singing Herodias at the Paris Bastille Opera, in an accoladed production of Salome. Will her career ever end, one wonders, or is she planning on going the way of Emilia Marty, the protagonist of this work, once a rarity in opera stages but nowadays thankfully far less so? For here we are in presence of an outstanding rendition of the work, from the hands of a veteran long acquainted with it and very much responsible for the opera's rescue from oblivion. Her voice appears to still have a lot to say, despite some wobble at the top register, I'd say with no disrespect natural at this stage in her career. It's like drinking now a 1976 Chateau Mouton Rothschild that has been well preserved: the colours may not be the same bright ones it had when new, but the experience is likely to be unforgettable. And she's also in fantastic physical shape, making for a handsome and erotically charged Elina Makropulos, Ellian MacGregor and all the EM's the main character assumed throughout her 337 years of her life many a singer tackling the part hopelessly lack. She might as well had shown her naked body in the third act (she doesn't) that the house would had come down, so attractive a woman Mme Silja still was.

The Glyndebourne production has made its rounds in and out of the UK for some time now, being revived from time to time, and even travelled to the Brooklin Academy of Music; most times it featured Silja, I understand in a few ocassions didn't. Those who missed a Silja performance of it were left with 3/4 less the pleasure ...

And yes, lest one forgets, the other singers are of a very high level, making for excellent teamwork. Fine playing from the LPO and spotless conducting from Sir Andrew Davis complete a very good DVD that sadly features no additional material and supplies only the barest documentation possible (when will these companies stop shortchanging the customer, I wonder?), which would have been helpful to a lot of would-be purchasers in a work and composer that hardly may be considered mainstream.

Yes, everyone else is right. This is an absolutely brilliant and absorbing account of this powerful opera. One misses a live audience but all the singers are completely committed and top notch. The orchestral sound and definition as good as Mackerras. Silja very moving, incredibly thoughtful, even when slightly off pitch. The booklet in the Mackerras CD has a very helpful essay about the opera; unfortunately nothing is provided with the DVD.

This will be considered, I'm sure, a historical performance; Silja is genius. The singing, all round, is glorious, the acting credible, the conducting is fine.

I cannot argue with other reviewers' assessment of this DVD that it contains many musical felicities. The conducting by Andrew Davis (who has long demonstrated his affinity with this composer's dramatic works) is exemplary. The singing of the cast is certainly exceptional, and were this an audio-only performance, its dramatic flaws might have gone unnoticed. But, alas, I found Nicholas Lehnhoff's staging to be pedestrian, heavy-handed, and thoroughly lacking in subtlety. And, despite the praises it has garnered from various quarters, Brian Large's video production strikes this viewer as rather unimaginative, with composition after composition featuring one character almost directly upstage of another. . . . The acting from nearly every singer (Anja Silja being a notable exception) is fussy and overly gesticulated, a flaw that is exaggerated by the close up camera work. And while I'm on the subject, Silja's work may be remarkable for being strongly characterized and well sung, but she was in her mid-50s when this was filmed and it is impossible (for me at least) to buy her as a young-looking femme-fatale who has men of all ages pining for her. Her character Emilia Marty reveals that she was sixteen when her father administered the fatal potion that has enabled her to live to the age of 337. She has taken many lovers over the centuries, but has had to leave them one by one after about 20 years, because they have aged while she has not. How are we to suspend our disbelief to the point of accepting that this woman (as embodied by Silja, with her deeply wrinkled face and neck) has not lost the blush and perfection of her youth? Musically strong, but if you care about the dramatic values in opera as I do, you might want to consider buying the DVD of "Jenufa"--better cast, better staged, and better filmed.

I'm a major Janacek fan. I'd love to give this performance a five-star rave, as others have, but I find myself agreeing with the three-star reviews. Anja Silja (the Alma Mahler of our times) is a powerful femme; it's almost believable that even in her obvious 60s she could attract those men and boys fatally. It's her singing that has aged beyond attraction. She's far from perfect in tuning and she doesn't command the orchestra with her voice as the character needs to do. Her DVD performance as the mother in Jenufa, by comparison, is plenipotent. That DVD would be a far better intro to Janacek than this one, even though the sound recording is mediocre. The best performances of Janacek on DVD are the two available of The Cunning Little Vixen. The worst by far is the Katya Kabanova, to be shunned at any price.

Anja Silja is someone I respect, and I am all for 'grey power', but this is a performance too far. In the opening scene her light grey trouser suit makes her look like an elderly Scandinavian tourist. She does not look sexually desirable. Her attempts to be sensual are simply embarrassing, as are some of the outfits she later fits into. Furthermore her voice has none of the mysterious warm colouring of Söderstrom in the excellent Mackerras LP version and is often stridently off the note. The supporting cast, orchestra and conductor are fine. The staging is ok, but not very innovative. Finally, why could we not have a Czech singer in this role, someone who does not have to strain to pronounce correctly?