Customer Reviews

Resurrection--Complete Opera

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

 

 

I was fortunate enough to see this opera live at the Houston Grand Opera, so I waited patiently for it to be released on compact disc. It is a marvelous new opera. For a "modern" opera, the effect on the listener must be akin to what audience members would have felt when hearing the premiere of a new work by Verdi in the 19th Century. The "modern" touches are subtle; the music is hummable. The plot and libretto, based on Tolstoy, are excellent. The recording quality is superb, as is the singing and playing. An all-around first-class experience. Warning---if you like John Adams, you probably won't like this opera. If you like Verdi, Puccini, or Britten, you'll love it.

I heard this opera live in Boston. The composer may well be a computer genius, but as a composer he lacks the most basic skills. I suggest he studies counterpoint, harmony, and real orchestration (not fixing up afterwards with computers) from scratch. After the exhaustingly unimaginative pseudo-barroque, nuddle-soup-as-counterpoint openning, in some sort of a D minor, I was already ready to leave the theater. Also as a person with a Russian background I was seriously offended to see Russian peasants singing and dancing to a Celtic-Elizabethan gigue. The opera abounds with mispronounced Russian names (Ignorance begets ignorance!), the vocal writing is awefully boring and cliche at the same time being bland and unmemorable. A singer friend of mine who was one of the soloists complained how poorly the vocal lines were written. If you think Andrew Lloyd Weber is great then you may like this guy too. I think they are both pretty aweful.

I bought this for $9.99. I remember reading about T.M. at IRCAM in the 80s and his electronic instruments. I was expecting 21st aesthetics and sophistication. But OMG! This is like music written in the shadow of Samuel Barber or something. Sing-songy 6/8 rhythms, very static and simplistic tonality. I don't mind new tonal music at all - how can you avoid it in the age of post minimalism. But good tonal music is actually quite hard to write. Just like good atonal music is hard to write.

I guess M. Boulez never heard this opera.

I found it to me more in the quasi idioms of Britten...was nice to hear original melodic lines interwoven in a manner which kept your interest and your attention focused.

I'm not sure what the other reviewer actually saw/heard, but it wasn't this performance. Of course I'm also interested in the premiere of HIS masterpiece.