Rossini - La Gazzetta / Cinzia Forte, Bruno Pratico, Pietro Spagnoli, Charles Workman, Maurizio Barbacini, Liceu Opera
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Agata Bienkowska, Dario Fo, Marc Canturri, Marisa Martins, Simon OrfilaDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Italian (Original Language), DTS 5.1; English (Unknown); Dutch (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Italian (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Classical, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 155 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-07-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC / Opus Arte
Movie Reviews of Rossini - La Gazzetta / Cinzia Forte, Bruno Pratico, Pietro Spagnoli, Charles Workman, Maurizio Barbacini, Liceu Opera
Movie Review: Extremely disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
In the fifteen years since Dario Fo had perpetrated his tasteless version of `The Barber of Seville' for the Netherlands Opera, I had hoped that he would have learnt the meaning of the word `restraint'. On the basis that this was the only DVD version available, was a production from the Gran Teatra del Liceu in Barcelona and had received four very good reviews here on Amazon, I decided to take a chance. I am writing this review to help other fans that enjoy the light, tuneful operas of Rossini, Offenbach and Donizetti from making the same mistake I made.
I think the most positive thing I can say about this production is that it is extremely colorful, almost, but not quite, to the point of being gaudy. Having said that, almost everything else needs to be qualified. Perhaps I am being a little unfair, the singing actually was quite good considering this is one of Rossini's less familiar works and the absence of world-class artists meant one's attention was not concentrated on anyone in particular. However, at so many times during this production, the choreography/shenanigans/'stage-business' that Dario Fo is known for, is happening on stage and is a dreadful distraction. All of the designer/director's clich?s are presented here, people parading to and fro across the stage waving flags, people doing cartwheels, women shaking sheets, everyone finding the need to step up on a box or some other object to stand out from the crowd. There were also some new ones including dancing nuns in white habits, roller-skating men in their `tidy whities', a nude `dancing' life-sized marionette and someone in an ape-suit rolling around the stage. None, I repeat none, of these gimmicks should be necessary in a well-designed and directed performance of this work.
The stage-set for this production comprises a very decorative pedestrian bridge that spans from one side of the stage to the other and a `do-it-yourself' ramp and stairs that appears on the right of the stage in Act 1, and on the left in Act 2. Sometimes the bridge was lifted out of sight but there was very little else on stage during the entire performance. For variety, there were two scenes where the set was lit by single color stage lighting, firstly red and then later blue where everyone is cavorting around the stage wearing white clothes, but there did not seem any apparent reason for this.
This opera is quite similar to Rossini's 'Il Viaggio a Reims' presented in Paris by the Mariinsky Theatre in that a motley group of people arrive at a hotel and things start to go happen. Here the costumes are also colorfully extravagant but the characters are individually more interesting. There is also a similarity with the staging, minimal in the extreme; however, the end result is something completely different and hugely entertaining.
This was the first, of more than a hundred operas that I have on DVD, where I became bored and wondered how much longer until the final curtain came down. This same feeling must have been experienced by many in the audience during the recording of this work as applause throughout the opera was only polite rather than enthusiastic and many rushed out of the theater as soon as it was over without waiting to congratulate the artists.
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