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
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located