Customer Reviews

Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Vol. 2: Astronome - A Night at the Opera

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

 

 

I produced the sound for this release...

i can confirm (on behalf of Tzadik -- we double-checked!) that there was NO COMPRESSION added to the music, it is the same as the cd release -- however because of the Dolby specs there is a 3dB reduction in gain (which causes NO DISTORTION OR CLIPPING). as a matter of fact, a HIGHER QUALITY source was used (24 bit/48 khz) than was issued on cd.

the fidelity of Richard's voiceovers and sound are indeed compressed and lofi, as they were in the performance, as they are in all of his theater. anyone who knows Richard's work will recognize this as accurate.


travis just
DVD sound design, Astronome
sound engineer for Richard Foreman

Given Richard Foreman's "profound influence" on Zorn, to quote from the accompanying notes, their collaboration on this opera makes it an important release for anyone interested in Zorn's music. As would be expected from the brief but beautiful notes accompanying the CD release of Astronome, this is a non-narrative opera, and neither Zorn nor Foreman has any interest in telling a story. The imagery is not what I would have expected from the "libretto" packaged with the CD, but represents Foreman's unique artistic vision. I probably would have imagined something much darker, but Foreman certainly does provide the sense of ritual and mystery suggested by the libretto, without following it very literally. It has little in common with traditional Western operas (there is no plot, the actors don't sing, and rarely speak), but reminded me more of Chinese opera or traditional Japanese theater.

As usual, the Tzadik packaging is first-rate, but as usual, makes no attempt to explain anything that is presented. While I have never seen Foreman's work before, an accompanying 20-minute bonus film by Henry Hill provides a brief introduction to his philosophy via an interview cut with excerpts from another of his plays, filmed in a kind of You-Tube dancing-cat style. The video quality of the hour-long opera is better than I might have expected, considering that it was filmed with two small consumer video cameras. It was carefully edited from 5 live performances, with some black-level enhancement to compensate for the low-light conditions. (Expanding to a dual layer format may have allowed it to be presented with less compression, but could have caused continuity problems on some players.)

The quality of the stereo soundtrack is excellent, and in spite of the typical AC3 compression, is comparable to the CD release. (A linear PCM track would appear to have fit on the DVD, and would have been a welcome upgrade, however.) Because of another review questioning the audio quality, I took the trouble to view the entire decoded waveform with editing software. There are absolutely no instances of glitches or clipping, apart from a clipped "thump", about 0.2 seconds in duration, that first appears 46 seconds into the opening titles, and is repeated several times later, each time with a precisely identical waveform indicating that it is a probably a recorded sample. There is no audible effect from this clipping, and it could be intentional. See the user-provided images for wave profiles of the entire opera, a one-to-one zoom of the first "musical" passage showing a wide dynamic range and glitch-free recording quality, and a picture of the "thump" to show what clipping would look like. It would be a shame if a questionable review prevented this fine work from reaching its audience.

There are no sound problems on my copy. I think this is an awesome DVD.

Being a long time Zorn connoisseur, and having greatly enjoyed the CD version of Astronome, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of this DVD. As such, it greatly saddens me to write this review.

** update **

I had initially taken issue with the distortion-riddled audio production. However, I obtained a second copy of the DVD and the audio is as others have described, which is to say, there are no issues. Clearly I had a defective disc.

** end update **

Second, I'll discuss the project itself. Foreman has created an inscrutable stage production--bizarre set, weird costumes, non-sense narration, everything. There is literally nothing to latch onto here. Maybe with many repeat viewings, I'll find some entrance into this world, but for now, I'm completely perplexed. I know this isn't some narrative-based song-and-dance production, but I don't think you can just drop a spectator into something this bizarre without any help at all.

I usually abstain from critiquing the thing itself, as I feel judgments of taste are best left to the individual on a case-by-case basis. However, I have a legitimate complaint here: Foreman has taken Zorn's three act "opera" and turned it into four acts, with the third track on the CD being split in two parts. This seems like quite a liberty to take. Between the music, there is silence, distortion on the DVD track, and some strange narration, where a man with an unpleasant voice talks in riddles.

The good part is Henry Hills' video work and editing. He edits together twelve video streams taped over the course of five nights in a manner that helps focus attention on ostensibly relevant portions of the production. I say "ostensible" because I have no idea if there ARE relevant portions here. The downside is this was taped with consumer-grade DV cameras and it looks exactly like it. Maybe this has something to do with Hills' aesthetic, but the video quality is grainy and generally not great. This doesn't bother me as much as the sound, but it's worth noting for anyone who cares.

After doing a bit more research on Foreman, I've come to the conclusion that I find his idea of theater to be cluttered, bewildering, and, on the whole, unappealing. I realize that plenty of people enjoy his work, but I cannot count myself one of them. His exercises motion and excess are not features I enjoy watching - surprising since those are features I do love about Zorn. It's all subjective, granted.