Taiwan's Jingo has achieved a hit with a stupendous version of Offenbach's opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann). Recorded at the Opera National de Paris-Bastille in 2002, it now appears complete with Chinese subtitles. With Neil Shicoff as Hoffmann and Bryn Terfel as a sequence of evil schemers, this is one of the most colorful and engrossing opera DVDs I've come across for a long time. It looks sumptuous, but is at the same time lively, funny, and true to the spirit of the music - part serious and part farcical.
Robert Carsen's production places the action in different parts of a theater. He concocts his most notable effect for the famous "barcarolle" where he offers a mirror-image of the auditorium, only with alternate rows of seats swinging from side to side - appropriate as a barcarolle was originally a rocking melody supposedly sung by Venetian gondoliers. The extravagantly-dressed "audience," however, is engaged in a minor orgy, licking their drinks off each others' chests and more. It's a pity the music is too short to support an idea so rich in possibilities for longer.
There are many other pleasures. Shicoff proves both lively and sympathetic in the title role, and Terfel is eye-grabbing as the evil geniuses (even though they're visually indistinguishable). Susanne Mentzer is excellent as Nicklausse, though her costumes are unflattering. As for the women Hoffmann pursues, Desiree Rancatore is brilliant as a singing Barbie doll, Ruth Ann Swensen appropriately loving as Antonia, and Beatrice Uria-Monzon charmingly deceptive as Giulietta.
The reason this version is so pleasurable is that it's strong both musically and theatrically. Terfel can be relied on in both areas, and the rest of the cast effortlessly follows suit. Les Contes d'Hoffmann is never quite the white elephant it sometimes seems on the verge of becoming, and this production converted me to it as never before. If you don't know it, this fine pair of DVDs would be an ideal place to remedy the omission.
Japan's Bunraku puppet theater, in which figures three-quarters life-size are manipulated by fully visible handlers, is one of the world's most astonishing performing art forms. The accompanying music, crucial to the curious effect, is provided by a player on the three-stringed shamisen, though there's some discrete drumming as well. Both dialogue and narration are spoken by a senior actor who squeaks, sings, growls and sobs his way through the text. Three shamisen-players and three actors traditionally take turns at this exhausting work.
Video Artists International has issued a film of one complete Bunraku performance, The Lovers' Exile, written by the 17th century master dramatist Monzaemon Chikamatsu. At 90 minutes it's shorter than most examples of the form but utterly absorbing nonetheless. Chubei, a penniless clerk, is in love with Umegawa, a girl from the city's pleasure quarter. The fugitive lovers, braving snow and a barking dog, go to Chubei's ancestral village. There his tart comments - "that's the acupuncturist, treated my mother, killed her actually" - lead up to the crucial scene in which Umegawa confronts Chubei's father even as their pursuers are closing in.
The film was made in 1979 and the participants, both on set and in the accompanying booklet, show just how widespread admiration for Bunraku was among Western intellectuals at the time. Luminaries such as Susan Sontag, Jean-Louis Barrault, Ian Buruma, Northrop Frye and Donald Richie all contribute in one way or another to this product.
Video Artists International's catalogue is at www.vaimusic.com. There you can find many historic performances preserved for posterity by this admirable company.
Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko is unknown to most opera-lovers. Philips, however, now offers conductor Valery Gergiev proudly unearthing yet another Russian masterpiece to a possibly skeptical international public. The DVD is of a video dating from 1994. The massively solid production looks old-fashioned when compared with Paris-Bastille's hi-tech sophistication, but there's much to enjoy nonetheless.
Sadko (Vladimir Galusin) is a Sinbad-like figure, a humble musician who leaves home to make his fortune. He meets the Tzar of the Sea and other mythological figures and returns to his native Novgorod a hero. It's a slow-moving, undemanding story, but the whole project, besides constituting an important collector's item, has a genuine charm that will appeal to many. The sound quality is excellent, incidentally.
It's extraordinary what four years can do. In 2003 I reviewed Bryn Terfel: Live in Concert in somewhat unfriendly fashion [Taipei Times Nov. 7, 2003]. Now that the same Amsterdam concert has been re-issued in extended form as Bryn: Songs and Arias it feels like a historic occasion. To hear the great Welsh bass-baritone sing Wagner, for instance, is to be reminded of his recent triumph as Wotan at Covent Garden. A feature called XIF (eXtended Interactive Feature) allows you to switch from performance to interview where the two are related.
Newly added duets with Renee Fleming and Andrea Bocelli are taken from over-blown celebrity occasions. What is really wonderful is the bonus track dedicated to the filming of Verdi's' Falstaff with Terfel and the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado. The footage of the recording of the final fugue is stupendous, and the best thing on the whole DVD.- BRADLEY WINTERTON
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built