Customer Reviews

Strauss: Capriccio

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

 

 

Cappriccio may well be the perfect opera for DVD. It is not as rare to find in the opera house as it used to be but it still has a way of getting lost in empty spaces unless one is sitting close. So, it is a pleasure to have a performance as good as this, subtitled, with excellent sound, to watch comfortably at home. And what a beautiful, witty "conversation with music" it truly is.

The singers are all excellent with fresh, well focused voices, playing well with and against each other as this paramount ensemble opera demands. Standouts for me were von Otter, a superb musician in top form, as an elegant, decadent, slightly wacky Clarion; Hawlata, as LaRoche, authoritative, sonorous, indeed stentorian and, in the end, humane, as he should be; Reiner Tröst, one of the most beautiful lyric tenor voices around, bringing much poetry and ardor to Flammand, the musician. Renée Fleming is in glorious voice but occassionally, though not very often, brings a strange "pop music" color to the voice quite alien to Strauss. It's an artistic choice I find distracting and baffling and wish she would not take. Her Countess is more country-club than aristocratic, but the vocal splendor makes this sound like quibbling. Indeed, everyone is fine, very musical, and warmly supported and encouraged from the pit. The opening sextet is played ravishingly.

The opera is staged in 1942, otherwise, like in the libretto, at the Countess' chateau outside Paris. It works well and does no violence to the spirit or letter of the work (other than some reference to horses and coaches). However, the DVD producer has grafted some shots to what otherwise seems to be a live Palais Garnier performance, to "open-up" the work, and to me these don't work well at all. Thus during the opening string sextet we see Fleming walking around the Grand Foyer of the Garnier and sitting herself in the auditorium as if she were dropping in on a rehearsal in her chateau's theatre where the characters are gathering. The idea is clever but it proves discontinuous with the performance of the opera itself. Similarly, the great "mondschein" interlude with its ecstatic horn melody later passing on to the strings is visually marred by shots of the Countess and her brother at a box, poet and composer at an opposite box, nodding at each other while waiting for the Final Scene of the opera the latter two have composed for the Countess to begin. Well, to me this is a tasteless distraction, a disastrous lapse: the music is some of the most beautiful and eloquent Strauss ever wrote, it needs nothing but itself. Shots of the orchestra playing it would have sufficed. Other than this gaucherie and the earlier miscalculation, the production is quite witty, energetic and alive.

The overall spirit, drive, and verve of the musical realization and the production, with the added treat of the Palais Garnier setting make any quibbles I may have something to note but dispense with in deciding to acquire this splendid performance. It will give much joy. Repeatedly.

I liked the production of the opera, the sets within sets and the mirrors, the very final scene when the sets were lifted up was very ingenious, but the singing was not as uniformly good. Finley and von Otter very outstanding, and Hawlata is always a pleasure to hear, but the delivery of the main star was not the best. Fleming is acclaimed for her Strauss but I was surprised at the liberties she takes with the music line, to the point where I found it irritating. This is a second opera on film after Manon where I found her delivery spoiled the enjoyment of the opera for me. There is another Capriccio DVD available with Te Kanawa and Troyanos which is much better production overall, this one should be noted mostly for the beautiful sets and costumes.

I was lucky enough to see this production in Paris in July 2004. I had already seen Carsen's brilliant 'Hoffmann' at Bastille with Dessay and was not disappointed by his 'Capriccio'. Though some may find his approach 'minimalist' or 'distracting', for me there is a very profound exploration of theater in/as performance but also as metaphor. The usual boundaries between onstage-backstage-house, performer-stagehand-viewer dissolve away, allowing Carsen to capture the theatrical event in all its complexity. 'Capriccio' is the perfect vehicle for this type of exploration, with its tension between words and music AND (what often gets left out of the equation) the theatrical art that allows both to come to life. It is no accident, I think, that one of the strongest and indeed central performances in this production of strong performances is given by Franz Hawlata as the theater director. I also do not want to forget the brief appearance of the great Robert Tear as M. Taupe, the prompter.

By foregrounding Carsen, whose wonderful work does not seem to be appreciated by some of the other reviewers, I do not wish to deemphasize the strength of the performances here. The cast is musically and dramatically superb, and through their ensemble work 'Capriccio' becomes the 'conversation piece' that Strauss imagined. When I saw it in the theater, I thought that von Otter's stupendous talent was somewhat wasted, but the DVD has completely changed my mind about that. I found myself regretting every time the camera left her.

Generally speaking, the filmed version here does a good job of capturing the performance. The film director follows Carsen's lead of expanding the playing spaces to embrace not just the backstage areas and the parlor behind the stage, but the house and public spaces as well, which are beautifully filmed. One particularly powerful moment that is not as effective as it was in the theater comes in the final scene, when Fleming steps over the fake footlights, a good example of Carsen's technique of breaking the frame. This was nothing short of breathtaking in the theater, at least for this viewer. My only complaint about the DVD is that Fleming's voice is not always well captured as she moves about the stage, at times becoming almost inaudible when she sings upstage or toward the wings. But this is a minor quibble compared to the many riches of this marvelous DVD. I would not necessarily enjoy this approach to every opera, but I strongly recommend Carsen's `Capriccio' to anyone who likes Strauss and a thinking approach to opera as theater.

This 2004 Paris National Opéra production of Strauss's last opera 'Capriccio' is extraordinarily successful. The casting is luxurious: Renée Fleming as the Countess; Dietrich Henschel as her brother, the Count; the fast-rising baritone Gerald Finley as the musician, Olivier; tenor Rainer Tröst as the poet, Flamand; Anne-Sofie von Otter as the glamorous Parisian actress, Clairon; the Wagnerian bass Franz Hawlata as the impresario, La Roche; Annamarie Dell'Oste as the Italian soprano; Barry Banks as the Italian tenor; the big-voiced (and hunky) bass Petri Lindroos as the stentorian Major-Domo; and, still singing extremely well, the venerable tenor, Robert Tear, as the poor sleepy prompter, Monsieur Taupe. Add to that the inventive staging by Robert Carsen, the sumptuous stage sets by Michael Levine and costumes by Anthony Powell (the Countess's gown in her magnificant final scene is gorgeous), amusing choreography by Jean-Guillaume Bart, as well as the rich orchestral accompaniment by the orchestra of the Paris National Opéra under Ulf Schirmer, and you have a real winner. I have not seen the competing version of 'Capriccio' from the San Francisco Opera starring Kiri te Kanawa, so I can't compare the two productions. But I am completely satisfied by this one.

The opera, whose libretto clearly indicates that the action takes place in the 1770s, is set by Carsen in the Nazi years, in German-occupied France. Aside from some jarring anachronisms (references to Gluck and Piccinni as contemporaries, the Count and Clairon going to Paris using 'four horses' [to which Clairon archly suggests she is surprised the Count isn't using 'six horses'] and so on), the setting is reasonably apt. The Nazi presence is not obtrusive or freighted with 'meaning' at all. The costumes and sets are consonant with the early 1940s -- indeed, Renée Fleming never looked lovelier with her 40s hair-do and gown. The other conceit in this production is that it supposedly actually takes place on, rather than being acted out upon, a stage (rather than the libretto's indication that it takes place in the Countess's palais), with some singers occasionally placed in the otherwise empty auditorium of the Palais Garnier. This is more or less appropriate since the subject of the opera is Opera itself and a debate about whether the words or the music are more important. (Olivier: 'Prima la musica, poi le parole.' 'No, no,' answers Flamand, 'Prima le parole, e poi la musica.') And, of course, the Musician and the Poet personify their two arts and vie for the hand of the Countess. It is Strauss's and the librettist's, Clemens Krauss's, masterstroke that her choice, at the opera's end, is left unclear. Renée Fleming, in the long final (and musically stupendous) solo scena, is ravishing, both musically and visually. The Major-Domo's final comment - 'Dinner is served' - serves the same purpose as the appearance of Mahomet in the final moments of 'Der Rosenkavalier', to bring us down to earth and remind us that this is only a play after all. Brilliant dramaturgy.

One cannot say enough about the ensemble aspects of this opera and how they are handled here. Strauss denoted the opera as a Conversation Piece; there are, for instance, three octets in the opera -- one laughing, one quarrelling and, most delicious, the comments of the eight servants after the principals have gone. The opening string sextet (the Overture) and the 'Moonlight Music' (the intermezzo leading to the final scene) are so gorgeous that one wants to hear them again (and I did, using the magic of the remote control -- aren't DVDs wonderful?). The transformation of Flamand's sonnet, 'Kein andres, das mir so im Herzen loht', first declaimed hammily by the Count, then read poetically by Flamand himself, and then set to music by Olivier and sung gloriously in the final scene by the Countess is a marvel. There is just so much to love in this opera, it's no surprise that it has become, after 'Rosenkavalier,' 'Elektra,' 'Salome' and 'Ariadne auf Naxos,' his most produced opera.

If you love Strauss and don't know this opera, you owe it to yourself to get either this 2DVD set or the San Francisco DVD of it. Or, better, get yourself to the next production that is staged anywhere near you. This is front-rank Strauss, and a miracle of his old age.

Scott Morrison

Canadian wunderkind Robert Carsen's productions veer wildly between the ridiculous (his "Rusalka" for L'Opera de Paris) and the sublime (his recently televised "Eugene Onegin" for the Met). Happily, this "Capriccio" lands firmly in the latter category. Led by the radiant Renee Fleming in a signature role, this is an elegant, thoughtful production that never compromises Strauss's original intent, despite a gratuitous update to German occupied WWII France. (The update does allow Carsen's designers to indulge in some chic, 1940s glamour, to stunning effect.) And for once, Carsen actually seems to have a discernible, not to mention reasonable, point of view about the piece, one that he supports with some unique, at times thrilling, directorial touches. The ending in particular is perfect for an opera in which the very nature of theatricality is so heatedly argued. The cast could not be better, with everyone not only singing beautifully, but acting their roles with wit, passion and unfailing honesty. The aforementioned Fleming, Hawlata and von Otter are standouts. In every way this is an artistically valid companion piece to the more traditional San Francisco production with Te Kanawa, also on DVD.

The production is nice, even if it is not what Strauss wanted, but the "extras" like the shots of Fleming and others sitting in the balconies and watching the opera are distracting and unnecessary.
The singing is good from von Otter and Finley but Fleming's delivery is simply bland, with occasional irritating swooping and other strange (jazz?) mannerisms. Also, her acting is below par, the last scene of her stroking the chairs was ridiculous, and most of the time she seems only interested in looking pretty. I did not care for the costumes, especially the blue dress was odd and almost made Fleming look misshapen at certain angles (just look at the cover!). Overall the whole DVD was a disappointing production. The other Capriccio with te Kanawa is miles ahead.

This opera is very short - sort of a "Pagliacci" length. The music is stunning - Strauss is one of those composers whose music I'd expect in the after-life (I don't really believe there is one - so I'm getting my listening in now)!
This is Fleming's forte - perhaps the greatest Strauss singer I've ever heard! Her voice is thoroughly at ease from top to bottom, without the slightest suggestion of strain or intonation difficulties.
The rest of the supportive cast is flawless, as are the costumes, sets and direction. This is seamless in its' perfection!
Rarely does one find a recording - let alone a video of an opera that is beyond critique - something is always seemingly errant - either in tone - stretch or simply because the cast is unbelievable in age, or looks - but not so here! This is a gem of flawless perfection, and I'm not so easy to please!
Fleming has an extraordinary technique, with an extraordinary instrument. Sometimes, if I really try, I can fault a few of her choices, either wishing her to use less chest voice, or a fuller tone, for dramatic effect she may opt for a different sound than I would choose for the piece. This and her Desdemona are not to be surpassed!
A thing of beauty is a joy forever! I will replace it if I wear it out from listening/playing. My library can't be found without it!

This IS the ultimate Capriccio!! Everything falls into place, and Robert Carsens solution of avoiding the usual and mostly boaring stage-orchestra tennis match is pure genious. Buy this - you won't regret it.

I confess that I often struggle to keep my attention focused on Strauss; the music is unquestionably splendid moment by moment, and yet the totality can become (dare I say it?) tedious. This is particularly a danger in the opera Capriccio, and Rene Fleming fails to avoid it. I felt myself hoping again and again that her arias might be reaching a final cadence. The four male singers were much more able to hold my attention, both by their acting and their singing. The other DVD, by the SF Opera, is far surperior; that would seem to be all I need to say.

I really tried with this one. And I wanted to like it. Because I like Strauss. A lot. But Capriccio is not his best work. Yes, it has some wonderful music, but not enough of it is wonderful. Mostly, the opera is just pretentiously self-conscious dialogue with a lot of self-depricating humor on the part of Strauss. And the premise is simply too slender to sustain interest for long.

Everyone in this production tried hard. Unfortunately, Rene Flemming, the Lana Turner of opera singers, somehow was not able to make her final scene, which should be ravishing, anything more than barely interesting. Of course, she looked gorgeous, but after all, that is not what opera is really about, is it?

Annie Sophie van Otter was way over the top as Clairon, and made the best impact of the rest of the bunch, although Finley and Trost were OK too.

The cutaway shots of everyone sitting around flashing knowing glances at each other in stage boxes while the performance of "their" opera was under way was a cute gimmick. But it was just that, a gimmick.

I was glad to see it, and did not mind it, but I am glad it was someone else who spent the money to buy the DVD.