Product Details

• Actors: Tatiana Troyanos, Hans Sotin, Ursula Boese, Heinz Blankenburg, Cvetka Ahlin
• Directors: Rolf Liebermann
• Format: NTSC, Full Screen, Subtitled
• Language: German (Mono)
• Subtitles: German, English, Italian, Spanish, French
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Arthaus Musik
• DVD Release Date: April 24, 2007
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000NJLPRU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,726 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #5 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Languages > Polish

Editorial Reviews

PENDERECKI:DEVILS OF LOUDUN (DIE TEUF - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Music, April 13, 2008

By 

A. Mena (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Penderecki: Die Teufel von Loudun / The Devils of Loudon (DVD)

The music in this dvd is simply gorgeous. It's complex, terrific, sarcastic, cynical... just one of the best operas of the second half of the last century. The libretto is also great, as it creates a dark landscape of sorrow and despair (just like a hell). It also achieves creating a myth, that only the best ones (Strauss and Hoffmannstahl's, Wagner's, etc.)achieve at doing.
Tatiana Troyanos as Jeanne is amazing, and the conductor Marek Janowski manages to create a rich amount of sounds from the orchestra.
Too bad the film direction is not as good as the rest, although has some pretty good ideas.
Anyway, it's a very recommendable dvd. Penderecki's music is worth every dollar/euro.

23 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spare yourself!, October 19, 2007

By 

Giordano Bruno - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Penderecki: Die Teufel von Loudun / The Devils of Loudon (DVD)

I've given this "opera for TV" five stars, but I urge you seriously not to watch it. It's extraordinarily painful, and enough pain will come your way without the help of music and cinematography. Still, anything that disturbs me so strongly must be potent art in its way.
This is a depiction of dementia (as in possession by demons), sado-masochism, flagellation, torture, and burning alive at the stake. It could, I suppose, be perceived as an indictment of religious depravity and the corruption of organized faith. It is certainly depraved, but I take it to be more a portrayal of the torment of religious doubt, the hideous psychological self-hatred innate in a religion of guilt and redemption. The composer, Krzysztof Penderecki, if I remember correctly, went through a religious crisis and "conversion" not long after writing this opera. The visual and verbal impact of this film are much more powerful than the music, if that matters to you. I defy you to remember a musical passage, or to forget the image of the gleeful torturers.

It was filmed in 1969. I would have said, before watching it, that the world has become a more violent and tormented place since then, but The Devils of Loudun has reminded me of the dark and twisted anxiety many of us lived through in the era of nuclear nightmares, Vietnam, the Zodiac and the Zebra killers, etc. I'm glad I survived. I'm glad I have a few flower boxes to water and cultivate. I'm glad I'm not oppressed and perverted by any demons of religious dread. It's good to look at the hills and see millions of years of gentle erosion, to play with my son and feel proud to contain the whole sublime history of evolution in our DNA, to look at the sky and see only stars, not devils nor gods.
Above all, dear reader, you are not required to suffer through Penderecki's obsession; some art is optional. There are plenty of other options.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Goos Testimony, November 27, 2010

By 

Garnier Eric "Haruka Tenno" (France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Penderecki: Die Teufel von Loudun / The Devils of Loudon (DVD)

I just can simply say that this recording is the only testimony we can afford if we have to study on Penderecki's work (for the CD recording is not avaible any more or at a outrageous price...)
It is weird and gloomy, however there is no reason to steer clear of it =)
Perhaps the staging is not always true towards History. Anyway, what Penderecki and his libretists made of that historical episode is remarquable (in the meaning it must be watched and discovered)

The performance in itself is quite catching, the lipping technique is not always obvious. So every feeling is well given on screen.
Staging is also well built enough to make this work terrifying, oppressive, frightening and horrible (the scenes "buffa" with the two scientists where pseudo-science is melt with religion making something even more striking than it could be).
Please don't feel reluctant towards this opera for those reasons. Considered as a whole, it is worth discovering =)