Customer Reviews

La Scala Opera Collection

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Not everything here is the greatest, but there's enough good stuff that at the price it's a great buy. The productions are basically television relays from La Scala productions of the 80s, so the visual quality isn't exactly hi-def, and sometimes a bit muddy and rough (all the operas but one are on a single disk, so I'm sure the bit-rate isn't very high), and the audio is good but not spectacular. I haven't watched everything, but I've sampled all the operas, and every one looks like it has something interesting in terms of production or performance. The productions are very straightforward and sometimes grand and impressive in a traditional way. No nutso Euro-trash modernist reinterpretations here! Only the William Tell is anything but straightforward: it uses huge photo back-projections of scenes from the Swiss Alps, and isn't ridiculous. The Muti Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni are both excellent, as is the Maazel Fanciulla del West. The casts are mostly strong, if not always overwhelmingly good. Some terrific performances, some good ones, and some that are just so-so - basically what you could hear at the Metropolitan or another major international opera house, rather than the attempts at all-world casting you get (or used to get) in studio recordings. Apart from all that, maybe the biggest attraction is the relative rarity of the operas themselves: Verdi's Attila (early), I Due Foscari (early), and I Vespri Siciliani (unusual), Rossini's mammoth William Tell (the only 2-disker), Cilea's not-that-often-encountered verismo opera Adriana Lecouvreur, and, rarest of all, Pergolesi's Lo Frate 'Nnamorato, set in Naples and mostly sung in Neapolitan dialect, and a delightful production! Most of the operas are conducted by Riccardo Muti, but there are one or two by older La Scala regulars like Gianandrea Gavazzeni. For less than ten bucks an opera, what can you lose?

Opus Arte presents outstanding television archive recordings of performances from the Teatro alla Scala beautifully packaged as a high quality box set, each title complete with an informative booklet.
The La Scala Collection brings together works from some of the best loved composers. Donizetti, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Verdi and Pergolesi. Renowned conductors Riccardo Muti, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Lorin Maazel and Stefano Ranzani lead the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala in these magnificent productions. These splendid performances feature some of the most famous opera singers in the world including Thomas Allen, Placido Domingo, Renato Bruson, Daniela Dessi, Alessandro Corbelli, Giorgio Zancanaro, Chris Merritt, Cheryl Studer and Sara Mingardo. A collection no opera lover should be without. The titles are:

Mozart: Don Giovanni
Riccardo Muti conducts a great cast, with Thomas Allen in the title role of the great seducer, in the 1987 La Scala recording of Mozart and Da Ponte's tale of lust and subversion.

Rossini: Guglielmo Tell
Riccardo Muti conducts a fine cast led by Giorgio Zancanaro in the title role of Rossini's towering and opulent last opera with the Corps de Ballet, Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Donizetti's great tragedy is his undisputed masterpiece of melancholic romanticism, with the doomed love between Lucia and Edgardo retold from Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor. The 1992 production heightens the story's powerful libretto with its dramatic visual design and first class musical performances.

Puccini: La Fanciulla del West
Lorin Maazel conducts this cast in Jonathan Miller's 1991 production of the compelling and evocative opera, which Puccini himself considered his best work.

Pergolesi: Lo frate nnamorato
Rediscovered by conductor Riccardo Muti, this forgotten opera was filmed in the 1989 period production. A rare recording of Pergolesi's second opera.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte
Daniela Dessì and Delores Ziegler lead the cast in Mozart's brilliant and witty opera as the two women whose faithfulness in the face of romantic love is ruthlessly tested in Da Ponte's comic tale. Mozart lavishes some of the finest music ever written on the unfolding story of the two sisters chaotic love affairs with their two Italian army officers.

Verdi: I due Foscari
Renato Bruson takes the role of the Venetian Doge Francesco Foscari in Verdi's dark, three act tragedy based on a drama by Lord Byron set in 15th century Venice, Gianandrea Gavazzeni directs the 1988 La Scala production of a work that is hailed among the best of Verdi's early operas, and that led him to a career of operatic immortality.

Rossini: La donna del lago
Director Werner Herzog and conductor Riccardo Muti combine with the finest of casts to lavish Rossini's rarely performed Neapolitan masterpiece, set in feudal sixteenth century Scotland, with the genius it deserves. June Anderson is an outstanding Elena (the Lady of the Lake) in the 1992 production of the melodrama based on Sir Walter Scott's poem.

Verdi: Attila
Riccardo Muti conducts a fine cast in the powerful and atmospheric 1991 production of Verdi's ninth opera, whose story of the heroic tussle between Ezio, a Roman general, and Attila, the Nordic invader, was written for the 1846 Teatro la Fenice season and premiered there to huge acclaim.

Cilea: Adrianna Lecouvreur
Cilea's four act opera of jealousy and tangled love, first performed in Milan in 1902, is based on the true story of Adriana Lecouvreur, an 18th Century actress at the Comedie Française, whose rival for the love of Maurizio, Count of Saxony, is the married Principessa die Bouillon.

This was a wonderful set that I got from Amazon. When you break it down you are only paying around $6.50 per opera dvd. I love to go to the opera just like any other opera fan, but you can pay anywhere from $40 to $80 for one viewing. For $70 you can watch these over and over again and enjoy them just as you would if you saw them live in the theatre.

I,honestly, thought the price must be a misprint.What a fantastic collection of operas for a nominal price! Top drawer singers,conductors,costumes and scenery.My favorites are the "Cosi Fan Tutti" and "Attila". Fiordiligi & Dorabella's entrance duet is breathtaking. Samuel Ramey's Attila is legendary.His voce is so full of excitement and passion.I am a great fan of Renato Bruson.However, he succeeded in destroying the beauty of the sextet from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The projected scenery in the William Tell was unusual. Mirella Freni's Adriana was very moving. Her beauty of tone was phenomenal for her age. Great performances across the board. A wonderful acquisition for the novice or jaded opera enthusiast.

Not only are the performances top-notch, but the production values exceed what one has grown to expect from operas on DVD. Each opera in this collection conveys the feeling (almost) of sitting in the audience.

This collection was recommended by a friend who works in opera. He not only is a talented producer, but is very close with his euros. I was about to order an opera DVD which cost most of what I paid for this entire set!

First Class Opera at a bargain basement price.

This is a superlative collection of live opera transmissions from the most important opera house in the world, La Scala. The Lucia and the Due Foscari are among my favorites. Superb voices, gorgeous settings and sumptuous costumes. Verdi's Attila is seldom mounted, and this is a chance to witness this very exciting opera in a monumental production. I count this as a most important section of my operatic video library.


Patrick C. Byrne
CALLAS Corner

It's amazing to see this collection. Not all of the performances are spectacular, but there are many surprises of excellence. My favorites for singing are ADRIANA, LUCIA, COSI, and I VESPRI.

Very, very nice collection of first rate performances! If you enjoy opera on DVD it is a great opportunity to enrich your collection! The price is right and the selection is very tasteful and encouraging. I especially liked "Attila" it is a real treasure recorded.
Highly recommended! I'm short on words to describe how magnificent this collection is

I have been buying opera recordings and videos since I was 12 (first purchase: the Klemperer "Fidelio" with
Christa Ludwig and Jon Vickers.) This is easily the best bargain I have ever seen in opera and it provided me
very good performances of some must-have works I didn't yet have ("Lucia," "Cosi," "Fanciulla.) In addition,
you get some operas that you might otherwise not purchase and all of them are worthwhile. Rossini's "William
Tell" is especially good to have despite its Wagner-like length. The "Don Giovanni" is not my favorite performance
of what I consider the greatest opera ever written, but it does have Muti and the great Thomas Allen. In
fact Muti, who conducts most of these, is excellent throughout. Performers I found particularly impressive:
Cheryl Studer, Mariella Devia, Alessandro Corbelli, Giorgio Zancanaro, Rockwell Blake, Samuel Ramey and
Chris Merritt, a tenor who is considerably better than I expected. I've never been a big Renator Bruson
fan but he brings a great deal of authority to "Lucia" and Verdi's infrequently performed "I Due Foscari."
"Cosi" offers delightful sets and a fine ensemble cast. A fine "Adriana Lecouveur" starring Mirella
Frenia and conducted by that superb old pro Gianandrea Gavazzeni is most welcomed. And, surprise
surprise, Placido Domingo is great in "Fanciulla." If you don't have the majority of these operas,
this collection is a steal.

(I'm sorry?)... my revew is in in castellan.

Esta colección de óperas representadas en el teatro La Scala de Milán constituyen una excelente selección de títulos célebres y grandes intérpretes.
El teatro milanés -como todas las salas de ópera del mundo- puede ofrecer puestas de diferente nivel, pero en general y cuando se dan las condiciones (lo que sucede a menudo), la suma de cantantes, orquesta, escenografía, vestuario, coreografía, etc., etc., alcanzan resultados que muy pocos teatros consiguen. El mejor espíritu de la tradición operística italiana y el gusto por la voz humana entendida como el más perfecto instrumento musical, cuando se suman, consiguen resultados únicos, como lo demuestra esta colección.

Luciano Tanto
Salta (Argentina)

Lucia in this La Scala series was the best I have ever experienced, even better than Sutherland's. This was the first time I ever heard Mariella Devia( Lucia) singing and what a singing it was! Vincenzo la Scola as Edgardo was also superb. This Lucia alone is worth buying the whole series, in my opinion. Other operas were all of high quality, in singing, costume, staging. It might have something to do with the size of the theater but the sound from La Scala seems better than Metropolitan Opera's.