Customer Reviews

Rossini - Semiramide / Conlon, Anderson, Horne, Metropolitan Opera [VHS]

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

This recording of Semiramide captures an all-star cast of Rossini specialists all in good voice and clearly "on" for the evening's performance. There are some glorious examples of duet singing for the soprano and mezzo executed with brilliance and style by June Anderson and Marilyn Horne. I own a CD recording of this opera with Marilyn Horne made back in the 1960s. The quality of Marilyn Horne's singing in the DVD makes it hard to believe that some 30 years separates her audio recording and this taped performance at the Met! Having seen this production of Semiramide at the Met (unfortunately with a different cast) the DVD captures the lavish scenery and costumes of the opera production well. The tracking on the DVD is well done and permits one to skip through the entire performance and get all major segments of music (arias, ensembles, etc.) with relative ease. The special features could stand to be beefed up some more but the ability to turn the multi-language subtitles on and off is an added bonus Iuseful. The other (minor) draw back I noticed was that in certain scenes, the reflection of the opera house lights off of certain character's costumes (i.e., Semiramide's crown) in several scenes created a split-second glare that was distracting at times. Despite this, I still give this five stars and would more than tolerate that minor distraction for the quality of picture and clarity of the DVD provided. Overall, a good addition to anyone's home viewing opera collection. With the aid of surround sound speakers as part of a home theater system, this DVD is the next best thing to actually seeing the performance live.

Despite what Amazon.com says about this DVD, it is indeed widescreen. The aspect ratio is 1.78:1 for you technos out there.

Other than that note, I can't really add much else to the other reviews. This performance was wonderful. 220 minutes of Rossini bliss! Mercifully, the audience makes very little noise which helps the viewer get lost in the performance. The digital sound quality was excellent, as was the picture for the most part. Lighting could have been a bit brighter throughout - this seems to be a pervasive problem on these live recordings.

I should note that this DVD did not play well on my computer's DVD drive, but worked OK on my television's DVD player.

Credibility of plot is not the strong point of this opera. It seems that June Anderson (Semiramide) murdered her husband (the late king) and took the throne herself. It turns out that it's all Samuel Ramey's fault (he's Assur). The high priest knows what happened but never tells anyone until Marilyn Horne (Arsace)comes back home (Arsace is Semiramide's son, only he doesn't know that). The ghost of the murdered king shows up to let everybody know that something is seriously wrong (although he doesn't say what). Semiramide decides to marry Arsace, although he already has a girlfriend (somehow, she doesn't recognize her own son). Arsace, seeking revenge on Assur and swinging his sword around in pitch darkness, mistakenly slices up his mother instead (perhaps explaining how she came to be called SEMI-ramide). Astonishingly, she drops dead on the stage without singing another note. Arsace takes a minute or two to feel bad about this before marrying his girlfriend and taking the throne. Don't let any of this put you off; drama does not depend on plot, especially if it's music drama. The Met's production is absolutely terrific and they couldn't have assembled a better cast. June Anderson, for all her flaws, is the best Semiramide since Sutherland; Marilyn Horne, even so late in her career, sings Arsace's music with incomparable bravura; and Samuel Ramey's combination of technique and swagger make him a perfect Assur. The remaining singers are uniformly excellent and James Conlon leads the cast, orchestra and chorus in the best performance of this opera I've ever seen. Rossini's music is, of course, absolutely wonderful. Don't miss this one.

The VHS version had no subtitle and the quality of video/sound wasn't quite good. So I switched to this DVD version. It's just great. The sound is remastered to Dolby Digital 5.1 and the video is so clear, much brighter and it makes the decor and the costumes look even more authentic. Of course it came with English subtitle which you can put on/off as you wish.
June Anderson is superb. Her Bel Raggio is impeccable and she receives a huge applause. Horne is still great, just like 30 years ago. Her voice and technics didn't fade at all. Amazing. This opera has so many beautiful arias and duets. Anderson/Horne's duets are particularly memorable.
Great opera! Great performance!

In this monumental opera Rossini bade farewell to the Italian operatic stage, leaving behind in this work a template that composers who followed him for the next fifty years would feel constrained to follow even as they were modifying it. Even Verdi in Aida has parts that can only be construed as cabalettas. It would be Arrigo Boito who would eventually free Italian opera from those constraints essentially by freeing the verse forms of the libretti.
In Semiramide Rossini laid out a very clear musical pattern for the numbers that form the opera. The pattern is fast/slow/fast, repeat last fast to allow the singers opportunity to embellish and strut their stuff. The numbers are linked by orchestrally accompanied recitative that explains the plot and sets an emotional temperature that is then expounded upon in the following number.
The performance at hand is a telecast of the much-delayed Metropolitan Opera production mounted for Marilyn Horne. She is excellent as expected, perfectly articulating the incredible coloratura that Rossini created for Arsace, as well as showing how to shape a legato line on seemingly endless breath. She is joined by June Anderson, Samuel Ramey, and Stanford Olsen, who are all no less wonderful. The production is in the glorious "traditional" manner, now so widely derided as hopelessly old-fashioned, before we were told that "great opera is great theater," an arrant absurdity. The stories of most operas are based on theatrical conventions of 150 or more years ago, and trying to make them theatrically relevant today is an exercise in futility that serves only to obscure the music that creates the emotional feel of the work and is its essence.
This performance is quite magnificent and is unlikely to be equaled any time soon.
Highest recommendation.

This dramatic Rossini opera is different from many of his other works - not least the almost Wagnerian duration of the performance. It is well cast with all the performers instilling some drama into the work. Marliyn Horne's vocal pyrotechnics as Arsace still astound after many years of stage work, and one can see why she was so renowned in the bel canto repertoire of Rossini and Bellini. June Anderson in the title role is within her territory and copes well with the sometimes fierce vocal demands, although I couldn't help recalling when Sutherland performed the same part with more gusto and brilliance in Melbourne in 1965. As Assur, Samuel Ramey puts a lot into the role and seldom fails to please. He looks the part in this production, without being saddled with the strange headwear he wore in the 1980 Aix en Provence production of this work, also with Marilyn Horne as Arsace. Stanford Olsen sings with a lovely unforced tone and does what he can with the relatively colourless role of Idreno. The performance is kept moving at a lively pace by James Conlon and the rather static Metropolitan Opera chorus do what is required of them. If you like dramatic bel canto singing, lavish sets and costumes it is excellent, with the only disappointment being the lack of any insert or descriptive booklet with the DVD.

This recording has obviously been transferred from a VCR tape, but at the price, nothing else could be expected. I think it is a tremendous bargain. And there is no alternative. I have no intention of being ultra critical as over-all I thoroughly enjoyed the production. On the whole, the sound and picture are fine. The cast is first class, though some act better than others. It is an opera I will watch many more times.