Halevy - La Juive
by Günter Krämer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Boaz Daniel, Krassimira Stoyanova, Neil Shicoff, Vjetsoslav Sutej, Walter FinkDirector: Günter Krämer
Producer: Wiener Staatsoper
Writer: Jacques Fromental Halévy
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Mandarin Chinese (Subtitled); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 244 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Movie Reviews of Halevy - La Juive
Movie Review: A PRECIOUS JEWEL, A FORGOTTEN OPERA AND A STUNNING PERFORMANCE
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not exactly an expert in opera. I do not presume to understand the subtleties of the bel canto or this or that off-key note sang by the soprano, and so on. Only recently I have begun to study seriously opera (musical appreciation, of course, because I have no musical training!). Being so, I have seen and heard DVDs and CDs, read commentaries and critics to learn about the art of opera. But now, after almost a year and more than 50 DVDs seen and heard meticulously, I consider myself not a critic, but a person that loves music and can FEEL the arias and the orquestrations of various composers. I have bought this DVD out of curiosity, because I have never heard about the composer or the opera, but the idea of an opera about the love between a Jewish girl and a Christian prince in the 1400 seemed interesting. When I watched the spetacle I was stunned by the delicate melody of the orquestration, the force of the choir music, the astounding representation of the bass that plays the Cardinal (I do not remember his name, but he is an impressive actor and sings with feeling and conviction). The beauty of the voice of the soprano that sings Rachel and her dramatic quality as an actress makes the commentary that she did not looked young enough to be the daughter of Eleazar irrelevant. Opera singers are AGELESS! Joan Sutherland sang Lucia di Lamemoor and we saw the wrinkles in her face, as well as in the face of her partner Alfred Kraus, and NOBODY said that she was too old to sing a aria about a young bride...But the nucleus, the center and the heart of the opera is the Jew Eleazar, superbly sang by Schicoff, a tenor I did not know before this opera. It is not the fact that he looks the part physically, he plays the part EMOTIONALLY and is so intense that it seems he is filling the theater with his energy, his pain and suffering, his hate and scorn. To do this, the tenor must be a extremely good actor. The others singers complement the production with composure and their voices and perfomances blend well with the three main characters. The clothes are intentionally minimalist and I did not perceive this good guy in black, bad guy in white, because, honestly, good guy-bad guy, this is not the old West! The drama is too complex to label the characters like that! For some, Eleazar would seem to be a bad guy, by denying his daughter, who was really the long-lost daughter of the Cardinal, the right to know the truth about her birth BEFORE asking her to choose between dying with him or become a Christian! The personality of Rachel, well delineated by the libretto makes us believe that even knowing the truth she would choose to die a Jewess instead of being saved by her real father, the Cardinal, but...that should have been HER choice, not Eleazar's. And we understand that he did it of spite, taunting the Cardinal about his long lost daughter and refusing to say who she was, in a veritable spirit of hateful vengeance.Righteous, but also hateful. Even with this shortcomings Eleazar IS the truly unforgettable character of the opera, the one that from now on every tenor will dream to sing, as they dream to sing Cavaradossio, Manrico , Des Grieux or Samson. I loved the minimalist decor of the stage; I only think that the glasses of the first act were not quite the thing. Concluding: This forgotten opera, very much aprecciated before the decade of 1930 is a Jewel among the international repertoire and merits many and many performances from now on.
Deniza Futuro-Brazil
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