Three Legendary Tenors (Caruso, Gigli, Bjorling)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Enrico Caruso, Jussi BjorlingDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 55 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kultur Video
Movie Reviews of Three Legendary Tenors (Caruso, Gigli, Bjorling)
Movie Review: Three Legendary Tenors
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent DVD - actually a wonderful time capsule.
Record companies are most anxious to profit by releasing new and highly publicized renditions of classics operas. There is nothing wrong about that - but in doing that the companies go to extremes to publicize the new casts, and often portray them as being the best ever. This increases sales at the expense of the truth. The truth is that there were more talented performers - much more talented.
Here you find Caruso in his prime - and he was and is unmatched. Here you find Gigli with his mellow, sweet tenor that floated so easily in the great opera centers of the world.
And here your find Bjoerling - the best of the tenors from 1950 on - whose effortless singing made everything he did seem so easy.
Genius shows up rarely - and these men were possessed of a gift that can only be called genius with their art. We will not see their like again.
But they can be seen and heard on this DVD and that is cause for rejoicing. You can also see and hear Tetrazzini who as an aged woman still could summon beauty from her depths. And she sings while seated.
While few of us can say we saw any of them in person, those who did, have a priceless memory. It is much like having seen Man O'War, Secretariat, Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig in person. Few of us have been in the very presence of genius - and when we are so privileged we should never forget it.
The narration is outstanding. The photography is moving. The singers have had, and in all probability will have no peers, and the singing is - as the title says, "Legendary".
If you love opera, you have a real need for this DVD. Norris E. Gelman
Summary of Three Legendary Tenors (Caruso, Gigli, Bjorling)
A singer's voice is not simply a sound he or she happens to make, but a reflection of the singer's life. An understanding of who a singer is can only increase one's understanding of their art. That is the starting point for this biographical documentary in which the roots of the greatest tenors who have ever lived are discovered: Enrico Caruso, Benjamino Gigli, and Jussi Bj?rling. Filmed entirely on location in Italy, Sweden, and London, this program contains extensive archival footage of all three singers, taken from newsreels, feature films and concerts; extensive examples of their singing; and interviews with people who knew and worked with them, some of whom have never before spoken on camera. By the end of this absorbing documentary--hosted by internationally renowned tenor Nigel Douglas--one knows not only something of their lives, but why these three tenors are legendary singers.There is some extraordinary singing on this disc, made more attractive by digital reprocessing of pre-hi fi recordings, but that is not the primary attraction. The music is used mostly to illustrate points in the biographical details and critical observations of the documentary's narrator, English tenor and author Nigel Douglas. Besides still photos and film clips of "our original three tenors" (silent films for Enrico Caruso), the visual attractions include striking views of landscapes and architecture related to the tenors' lives.
Douglas's remarks are accurate, precisely observed, and carefully calculated to provide the information most fans will want. Discussing Caruso, he mentions the "chiaroscuro" (control of light and dark shading) in his voice, his talent as a cartoonist and fondness for practical jokes, and a music teacher's verdict that Caruso's voice "is too small and sounds like the wind whistling through the windows." Among many other acute observations, he discusses the emotional intensity of Benjamino Gigli's singing, and the contrast between Jussi Bjoerling, a moody, complex, "northern" singer whose voice was "heavy with unshed tears " and his sunnier, Mediterranean colleagues. --Joe McLellan
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