Richard Strauss - Capriccio / Runnicles, Te Kanawa, Hagegard, Troyanos, San Francisco Opera
by Peter Maniura
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Kuebler, Håkan Hagegård, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos, Victor BraunDirector: Peter Maniura
Brand: Kultur
Editor: Nigel Cattle
Producer: Jane Seymour
Producer: Judy Flannery
Writer: Clemens Krauss
Writer: Richard Strauss
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 144 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-06-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kultur Video
Movie Reviews of Richard Strauss - Capriccio / Runnicles, Te Kanawa, Hagegard, Troyanos, San Francisco Opera
Movie Review: "Mystery" Solved!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you don't love opera, this one may bore you to tears. But, if you adore opera, as I do, your tears may become a refreshing bath! Strauss sucessfully addressed the issue of "which is most important?" between words and music. (Elements of Traditional Theater come in later as a third contestant.)
Dame Kiri te Kawana glows in this, what some say is her most defining role. Perfectly complemented by a strong cast, including Troyanos in her final stage appearance. Great costumes and set, that will transport you to the 1775 Paris suburb. Not categorized as a comedy, humor is often used as punctuation. And, there is never a dull moment in this "one act" opera that lasts nearly 2 1/2 hours.
The three artists, the poet, composer, and stage director, all make their cases for the supreme importance of their individual crafts. In the process, lovers of opera will get a chance to appreciate more completely this most elaborate of art forms. I certainly did. It, (Opera) combines a tremendous number of elements that allow the viewer/listener to be carried off by intense passions, for an extended period of time. This production uses all these elements masterfully in the process of "educating" the audience of that very fact. Amusingly, one of the minor characters, the Count, ends up being dissuaded from his own professed dislike of opera.
As for the 'MYSTERY' of who the Countess chose? Composer/Poet, or Music/Words? I would direct those who don't know to her soliloquy at the end, especially the last two lines: She states emphatically, that to make such a decision, which she had agreed to make without much forethought, would be "trivial". That is, to favor one apart from the other would make them both of little effect and importance. Thankfully, Strauss and Krauss do not force her character to make that choice. Wouldn't that have been as obscene as "Sophie's Choice"?
If you are ready to dive deeply into opera, this title is a MUST for your collection. It proves that an art form can truly comment on itself.
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Summary of Richard Strauss - Capriccio / Runnicles, Te Kanawa, Hagegard, Troyanos, San Francisco Opera
CAPRICCIO (STRAUSS) - DVD MovieThe last and most subtle of Richard Strauss's operas gets a finely nuanced interpretation in this San Francisco Opera production. A generally excellent cast is highlighted not only by the radiant presence of Kiri Te Kanawa but by the deceptively robust performance of Tatiana Troyanos in her last operatic appearance before her untimely death from cancer.
The composer described Capriccio as a "conversation piece for music in one act," and he put a lot of effort into it, not only the music but the words, on which he collaborated with conductor Clemens Krauss. His verbal input was particularly appropriate in this work, because the real subject (symbolized by a conventional love triangle) is the competition (and alliance) between words and music in opera, a subject naturally close to the composer-librettist's heart. The conversation runs through the whole opera in various forms. It begins immediately after the curtain goes up, with a quarrel between the poet Olivier (Simon Keenlyside) and the composer Flamand (David Kuebler) over the respective merits of their arts. They are rivals for the hand of the widowed Countess Madeleine (Te Kanawa); she is to choose between them (i.e., between poetry and music) but she is still undecided as the final curtain descends. The intervening two hours are rich in artistic shop talk and backstage situations that will enchant sophisticated opera-lovers, as well as the love interest for the rest of us.
David Runnicles conducts with a sure sense of Straussian style; and Mauro Pagano's 18th-century set creates the right atmosphere. Keenlyside and Kuebler are eloquent and believable, Te Kanawa sweet, regal and ambiguous. Håkan Hagegård and Victor Braun give particularly vivid performances in supporting roles. --Joe McLellan
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