Product Details

• Actors: June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Stanford Olsen, Samuel Ramey, Young-Ok Shin
• Directors: Brian Large
• Writers: Gaetano Rossi
• Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: June 27, 1995
• Run Time: 219 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303522548
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,754 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Bel canto can be translated as "pretty singing," and that definition seems tailor-made for this production, which offers grace, charm, and a fine-tuned sense of style in abundance to compensate for its limited psychological and emotional impact. The four principal singers are all specialists in the bel canto style, and this opera has played a key role in building their substantial reputations. Their singing is more spectacular than their acting, but that is what bel canto is all about. Those who want gut-wrenching situations and passionate emoting should try the verismo style. Meanwhile, for its sweeping musical imagination and technical wizardry, Rossini's epic about royal assassination and misdirected lust in the ancient Babylonian empire deserves a place in any inclusive opera collection, and we are not likely to have a better video Semiramide recording in the foreseeable future.

June Anderson has an attractive appearance and sounds exactly right in the music's florid melodic lines. But she is not dramatically compelling as the wicked queen who had her husband killed and fell in love with a man who turned out to be her long-lost son, Arsace. Marilyn Horne rose to the highest levels of international fame in the role of that conflicted son, and her presence alone would be enough to give this video classic status. Her voice was a bit past its prime when this performance was recorded in 1991, but still there is no other voice quite like it, no other voice so suited to Rossini's heroic mezzo roles. Samuel Ramey is a close bass counterpart to Anderson: great tone, agile florid singing, and a rather wooden but visually appealing stage presence. Sanford Olsen has a small role and sings it almost perfectly. James Conlon gets excellent musical results; John Copley's staging is massive and static. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great theater superbly sung!, December 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rossini - Semiramide / Conlon, Anderson, Horne, Metropolitan Opera (DVD)

Finally, Rossini's greatest musical drama reaches the dvd screen with a cast and production worthy of the music and its composer. Critics praised Horne's performance but with reservations but the audience had no reservations in its acclaim and I was fortunate to have been at the last performance of the series. Unfortunately I did not enjoy the presence of Anderson and Olson, superior in every way to their replacements. Olson is one of the few bel canto tenors who can sing Rossini without sounding coarse,thin and labored. Olson is like a lighter voiced Vargas. Merritt is out of the running when we have Olsen to sing with such security and beauty. Cuberli was good but Anderson I find stunning in her coloratura, tone and security. No one but Caballe sang it with such security and with even more beauty of tone and timber. The Met never deemed to bless us with Sutherland in the role of Semiramide, (She and Horne made the opera present to the twentieth century. The lack of their presence at the Met in this opera is lamentable but the Met is good at that.) All in all then a peforance to cherish, a real treat! And Ramey is breathtaking in his coloratura, power, declamation with a timber that is velvet wrapt in silk. His "mad scene" in Act II is a tour de force and there is no one I have heard who can touch him in the role of Assur. Horne is astonishing in every category of voice, clarity and sheer beauty. The four leads sing the roulades and leaps with effortless ease with the drama intact. Only Ewa Podles can do this punishingly role any better and the Met doesn't seem to know of her in spite of her concert some seasons ago in a evening of Rossini arias with full orchestra at Carnegie Hall. From all revues that was a performanace for all seasons. The other roles have less time and music but all quit themselve with dignity. Rally no wink link in the cast. Conlon and the Met orchestra perform miracles that are too often taken for granted. This tape performance is better than the performance I saw (they must have been exhausted by the final performance) and we are blessed that this was the one we have on dvd for prosperity. Anyone who hasn't as yet heard this, is in for a vocal, musical and dramatically thrilling evening. Buying it is a personal choice, but hearing it is the duty of anyone loving beautiful music superbly sung, and played with brilliant warmth and musicality. Rossini must be screaming from above with bravos and kudos like the audience on the dvd and at the performance I attended. Probably one of the best dvd's yet to be produced and likely never to be surpassed. The scenes are dark but so was the production in the house. Listen toit! Buy it! Steal it from friend. But by all means hear it and then again. I don't think you'll be sorry.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular, June 7, 2001

By 

George R. Park (Allen, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rossini - Semiramide / Conlon, Anderson, Horne, Metropolitan Opera (DVD)

As a life long opera fan, but only familiar with Semiramide from various excerpts I came to this DVD ready to rate it somewhere below The Barber in enjoyment.

Boy was I wrong!! The costumes, sets and musical tour de force quite blew me away.

Marilyn Horn, June Anderson, Samuel Ramey and especially the Met Orchestra were in top form. Not only is this DVD in wide screen format, but it is an enhanced format for large screen tv's, so that the picture is not all crammed down to the middle.

The surround-sound is excellently accomplished, with the orchestra being featured not over and above the singers, but in combination with them. I totally enjoyed this performance, which proved to be a typical Metropolitan Opera show. In other words -- The best that you'll see anywhere.

If you don't have ANY other opera in your collection, I would highly recommend this one as the one to get for visually stunning costumes, tremendous sets, great singing, and great orchestral support

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Babylon circa 1200 BC, October 26, 2002

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rossini - Semiramide / Conlon, Anderson, Horne, Metropolitan Opera [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Samuel Ramey's international career began in earnest when he sang the role of Assur in Rossini's "Semiramide" at the 1980 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Two of his co-stars were no slouches, either: Marilyn Horne and Montserrat Caballé.

Horne and Ramey both repeat their roles in this 1990 New York Metropolitan Opera version of Rossini's last great dramatic opera, with Horne singing the trousers role of the young hero, Arsace. This is the opera video I'm going to wear out first because the singers are so perfectly cast (and because I'm a Rossini nut). Luckily, I've got a second copy.

I also have a video of the Aix-en-Provence "Semiramide," but the tenor was terrible and the costumes were atrocious--almost everyone was dressed up to look like chunks of ancient Assyrian architecture (perhaps because the soprano resembled a chunk of ancient Assyrian architecture, even without a costume). I'd give Caballé the edge over June Anderson vocally, but dramatically Anderson is 'the' personification of the flamboyant Met Semiramide.

Ramey is superb both vocally and dramatically in the role of the villain Assur. His powerful, agile bass is displayed to perfection in the long and very difficult duets with Semiramide ("Se la vita ancor t'è cara") and Arsace ("Bella imago degli Dei"), and in his own aria, "Il di già cade" toward the end of the opera. His singing is always elegant, never over the top, even in the basso mad scene (with chorus) when he sees the ghost of the king he and Semiramide had murdered.

The role of Arsace was practically invented by Marilyn Horne. She has trouble moving around the stage in this Met production and she is quite a bit shorter than the other principals, but that's not what you'll notice when she sings. Lovely. The notes just pour out in rich, musical passages with all of the dark coloring that makes her perfect for this role. I've got a CD of Jennifer Larmore singing Arsace (to Cheryl Studer's Semiramide) and as much as I love her voice, I've got to give my vote to Horne.

Stanford Olsen does a fine job as the thwarted Indian prince, Idreno (he has a much more brilliant and disciplined tenor than the Idreno in Aix-en-Provence).

The Met chorus performs with distinction in the grand manner but rather static staging of this John Copley production.