Product Details

• Actors: Luciano Pavarotti
• Format: Color
• Number of discs: 1
• Run Time: 183.0 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000AB4FRS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,931 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High praise indeed, February 1, 2010

By 

Mr John Haueisen (WORTHINGTON, OHIO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metropolitan Opera: Idomeneo (DVD)

This is a unique piece of history in that it is from the weeks of the first-ever performances in 1982 by the New York Metropolitan Opera of Idomeneo, perhaps Mozart's first work on the scale of grand opera.

It is also unique in that the Met "got it right the first time" with perhaps the best possible cast. Here are the major roles:

Idomeneo: Luciano Pavarotti
Idamante: Frederica von Stade
Ilia: Ileana Cotrubas
Elettra: Hildegard Behrens

This work is a good illustration of the basic distinction between opera seria and opera buffa. Mozart's later opera buffa works were written primarily to entertain. Opera seria works told a story, here in the case of Idomeneo, that of a Greek tragedy.

The story line of Idomeneo is that, in order to be saved from a terrible sea storm, Idomeneo, the king of Crete promises Greek god Neptune that he will sacrifice the first person he meets. Perhaps typical of Greek tragedy, that person turns out to be Idamante, Idomeneo's son. The story is further complicated a bit by the two women who fall in love with Idamante: Ilia, a captured Trojan princess, and Elettra, a Greek princess, the daughter of Agamemnon.

Although Idomeneo was not written to entertain in the same way as the Marriage of Figaro, Magic Flute, or Abduction from the Seraglio, those familiar with these later works will recognize precursors of some of those delightful Mozartean melodies, when they hear "The Sea is Calm," an aria near the beginning of Act 2, when Elettra is getting ready to set sail.

Luciano Pavarotti was sometimes criticized for putting most of his energies into singing rather than his acting. Not so here! Near the end of Act 2 we hear Luciano furiously challenging Neptunre to take his life and spare innocent victims. Pavarotti's eyes (perhaps with the added assistance of Met lighting master, Gil Wechsler) seem to shoot out lightning bolts, just as Zeus himself might do.

Ileana Cotrubas takes her turn at impassioned singing and acting as Act 3 begins, with her beautiful "Mozartean-just-right" bel canto plea to the flowers and breezes to tell her beloved of her love.

So, what Idomeneo lacks in later Mozartean slapstick or comical characters, it does offer a chance to hear Mozart's developing creative genius paired with perhaps the greatest tenor ever--Pavarotti--at his very best--which is high praise indeed.