Product Details

• Actors: Diego Matamoros, Barbara Frittoli, Lado Ataneli, Ketevan Kemoklidze, Alessandro Liberatore
• Format: AC-3, Classical, Color, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: French (DTS-HD 7.1), French (PCM Stereo)
• Subtitles: French, English, German, Spanish, Italian
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Arthaus Musik
• DVD Release Date: August 25, 2009
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002ED6UY6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,827 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Fanfare, Alan Swanson, Jan-Feb 2010

1894 was a good year for Massenet: he had three operas come onto the stage: Thaïs, Le portrait de Manon, his unsuccessful attempt to cash in on the massive popularity of his Manon of 10 years earlier and to compete with Puccini's new setting of the story the year before, and, in London, the one-act verismo show-piece, La navarraise, with none other than Emma Calvé as Anita. (This last opera would be worth reviving for pairing with Pagliacci as an alternative to the apparently undetachable Cavalleria rusticana.)

Thaïs was a hit from the start. Its combination of the profane, the sacred, and the exotic enveloped in a ravishing score needed only three great singers to make it work. And a ballet. And a well-trained chorus. And a refined orchestra. Like most French operas apart from Carmen, it didn't make it much past the Second World War. Its title, of course, has been ground into our ears by too many hearings of the Meditation from the second act, a piece that, perhaps surprisingly, actually fits in its intended context.

Apart from writing great music, Massenet's great compositional virtue was that he knew what happened on a stage. He understood how to shape a scene musically; he knew how to write the long line needed to hold scenes together; and, above all, he understood passion. Alas, Stefano Poda, the director, choreographer, scenographer, costumier, and lighting designer, does not. A photograph of any given moment will look impressive, but the temperature of this production is somewhere below absolute zero. The costumes are vast and heavy, except for those of the cenobites, who get only a modest G-string. (As they are also members of the ballet, this certainly frees them to move around easily, not that they get the chance.) We are not talking of acting here, much less of drama. No one touches anyone else, there are no props, there is no feast, and the big stage is empty save for several beige backdrops. And no one moves anything or anywhere--save at a pace which would embarrass a slug. Stripped of passion and the possibility of expressing passion, we are left with a concert in truly funny clothes. The principals glide slowly on and stand facing the audience, almost never addressing the one to whom they are singing. If, then, all we are left with is the music, we may reasonably ask how that comes off.

Barbara Frittoli takes a long time to warm up. Her low notes are stable and interesting, but as she goes up the scale and volume the wobble gets greater until she gets to the very top, which is suddenly clear as a bell. While her sound is still within the bounds of tolerability, we notice it because that's all we have to notice. That said, her singing in the final duet is superlative, almost unlike what we have heard to that point. Ataneli's Athanaël is more problematic, but it is a most difficult role to bring off. Pompous, self-righteous, puritans seldom make appealing characters and, as he almost never looks at her nor she at him, it's hard to see where the attraction lies, especially as he bellows a lot. He hectors rather than persuades, and it's hard to understand why a woman of the world would buy his wares. Liberatore's Nicias is rightly annoyed, and Lo Piccolo's Palémon has little to do but give bad advice and also move at a glacial pace, and Serdyuk (Albine) utters her frigid welcome to Thaïs. The delicate duets by the courtesans, on the other hand, are charmingly done.

As near as I can tell, we get all the music, including the second-act ballet, and the second Thébaïde scene (III:2). Noseda's conducting is supportive, but doesn't seem to move things very much, so it's all rather portentous, which, one must admit, fits the sense of the whole production. And there is the central problem. There is no passion in this performance. That leaves the television director, Tiziano Mancini, working very hard to keep us interested.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointing Production, Some Wonderful Singing, August 30, 2009

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Massenet: Thais (DVD)

Stefano Poda's production of Thaïs at the Teatro Regio of Turin is lushly staged, with rich costumes, impressive sets, interesting lighting. But the production itself falls flat, largely because this opera, whose story centers on the beguiling allure and fleshly attractions of its title character, does not emphasize that aspect of the story. Rather Poda seems to be going for something more philosophically profound than a story of sin overcome by religious conversion. We get the conversion without much evidence of the sin. (Where is Carol Neblett's scandalously unclad San Francisco Opera Thaïs when we need her?) First of all, Barbara Frittoli, quite a physically attractive soprano, is given little to do to make use of her innate beauty. Rather, she and the other prostitutes are clothed in black floor-length gowns which completely cover their bodies and lend little to the notion that she and they are physically irresistible. The whole production involves characters moving with marmoreal slowness and interacting little with each other, and there is some evidence to suggest that they don't understand the contents of the libretto. For instance, when Athanaël, the Cenobite monk, is, according to the text, being dressed more appropriately for the party at his friend Nicias's house, he doesn't change his attire or his appearance. The whole production comes across more as a staged oratorio. That plays up the religious aspects of the story but it makes Thaïs's ultimate religious conversion seem unsurprising rather than shocking.

Barbara Frittoli sings beautifully. Her spinto voice has many colors and she uses them skillfully. Indeed it is her musical participation that contributes most to whatever satisfaction one derives from the production. The Georgian bass-baritone, Lado Ataneli, certainly looks the part but his performance is rather colorless and uninflected; there is little passion in the last act. (One is struck that Ataneli's surname is so similar to that of his character, Athanäel. I wonder if that has anything to do with his having learned the part?) Tenor Alessandro Liberatore sings a fine Nicias. Choreography was also by Poda and it was both dull and intrusive; for instance, the score clearly indicates that the famous 'Meditation', marked 'religious', is to be played in front of the curtain. Instead the stage is filled with dancers doing nothing special nor specially religious. Gianandrea Noseda is in the pit and leads a slowish but nicely nuanced performance.

I have not seen the DVD of Thaïs starring Eva Mei, a soprano whose acidulous voice I cannot endure; I gather that production has not been much admired by others. And as far as I know that one and this production are the only DVDs of Thaïs available. In the meantime stick with the audio recording of the opera with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, and hope that the Met's fine production of 2008 (with Fleming) makes it to DVD.

Total time: 139mins; Sound: PCM stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1; Subtitles: French, English, German, Italian, Spanish; Format: 16:9; Region code: 0 (worldwide)

Scott Morrison

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly original interpretation that requires rethinking about the nature of opera, June 7, 2010

By 

Bryan Leech "Bryan" (Melbourne, VIC, Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Thais [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Most of us come from a background where our main experience of opera is the sound, via CD. Going to live opera is expensive. Obviously the composer wrote the work as an opera because it was intended to be seen - the visual component, the acting and the total concept of the production sharing equal importance with the music. If you are assessing an opera, you must consider the production in its totality, and not consider a production to be superior because the lead singer has a slightly better voice. Is the production designed to be a vehicle for the famous lead singer, or is it designed and performed as an attempt to provide a valid, unified interpretation of the work as a whole, in all its aspects?

Massenet was a much more original composer than is usually realized. When it comes to "Thais", it is usually treated as just another opera. But it isn't. Put simply, it is a morality work concerning the fight between good and evil. And being more cerebral, it presents problems to a director who can only think in terms of conventional opera, as it is essentially very static and can be seen as far from the usual concept of an opera.

This production takes a very different approach to that given to most operas, with a result that is an essentially abstract presentation of its basic theme. The director has presented something that is not really opera in the usual sense, and created a work of art, with Thais, enslaved to the demands of the flesh, living in a depraved world, represented by a mass of near-naked, writhing bodies. The stage rises to reveal the hell toward which she is heading. We see the angels in the heaven toward which the male lead, Athaniel is trying to save her. In this interpretation of the work, the literal story is abandoned, the essential conflict between good and evil being the theme. I compare this aspect to Wagner's Ring cycle, where the "story" is a vehicle for a philosophical drama underneath, so lending it to a wide range of interpretations - in Wagner's case, the "top" story usually being given little if any attention.

This "Thais" is almost entirely choreographed with very slow, precisely controlled motion. To me, the result could be likened to a constantly moving tableau, presenting something new (to me at least) that really worked, once you realized the nature of what was being presented. A great deal of money was put into this production, with expensive sets and costumes; a very elaborate lighting design, and countless hours of rehearsal. The empty stage (primarily in one scene) symbolized the emptiness of Thais' life. Most of the time space is needed for all the slowly moving bodies - dancers, chorus and supers. This is one of the most creative and unified productions of a music drama (referred to in the French traditionally as a comic opera as no-one dies) I have ever seen. I suspect the more negative reviewers didn't understand what they were seeing. After this, I could never consider the work interpreted as just another opera.

Which leaves the performers. Barbara Fritolli presents a magnificent interpretation of the lead within the context of the production. There might be slightly better voices in the role, but her singing is still excellent. More importantly, like the rest of the cast, she portrays the role in perfect sympathy with the production. Despite slight vocal weaknesses in places (and absolute brilliance in others), I cannot see another performer give herself over so totally to this original production. All performers need to act in a convincing, but constrained way, as their performance is often choreographed with the entire cast.

Similar comments can be made about the rest of the cast. If heard on CD, the reaction might be, "yes, very good, but i have heard slightly better in places". But seen and heard in this performance, everyone fits into the total concept, and no-one lets it down.

Technically, sound (PCM stereo or DTS Master Audio 7.1) is excellent, Although you might have doubts near the beginning where some of the sound is distant and unfocussed. Then you realize you are hearing what I presume to be the angelic host. Camera work is excellent, obviously being choreographed also into the production. The 16:9 image is good, but not excellent and is 1080i, fitting on to a 25Gb disc, perhaps leading to an explanation for the ever so slightly soft image-definition. No region coding, which is common for Blu-ray releases and universal for arts material. Running time, 139 min.

Overall, if you are willing to accept this production on its terms, you will have a very rewarding and enjoyable purchase. It is one of the treasures of my collection.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Thais, August 31, 2009

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Joy Gilman "joygilman" (Chincoteague, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Massenet: Thais (DVD)

I rarely write reviews of operas on DVD because I most definitely lack the sophistication to analyze the various operas that I watch at home. However, on reading this review of Poda's Thais directly after watching it with great fascination and enjoyment, I really felt I owed it to future perspective buyers to see the opera from another perspective. I own and have found Mei's Thais totally unsatisfactory, so when Poda's DVD became available I immediately made the purchase. First I must say that nudity and "sexiness" don't go all that together in my mind - nor my husband's. The fact that Barbara Frittoli and her fellow "prostitutes" are completely clothed certainly doesn't make them less "sexy" or less looking like prostitutes, in my mind. Massenet's music is erotic enough to make the point! There's plenty of nudity in the beautiful dancers - and the dancing is both profound, (to my mind and heart), and moving. In fact the only problem I had with the opera is the wobbly voice of Frittoli.

We don't see Thais much any more, so it's a great pleasure to now have two of them on the DVD market. I'm sure that in my family we'll be watching Poda's production over and over again. If the Met produces a new production with Fleming, I'm sure it'll be a different interpretation than Poda's production. That will be wonderful - after all we do welcome different interpretations of our old favorite operas. I might or might not prefer it to Poda's interpretation, but that will not dull my enthusiasm for this production. I think I can highly recommend this production to anyone who enjoys new interpretations, beautiful dancing, great singing and would like to own a wonderful DVD of Thais.