Bellini’s I Puritani (The Puritans) is probably most widely known from the final scene of Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo in which a traveling opera company performs the Act One love duet on a boat steaming up the Amazon. A te, o cara, amor talora (To you, my dear, love led me) sings the tenor, while Klaus Kinsky expresses his delight and pride in the spectacle, and Claudia Cardinale and her entourage of charmingly ingenuous call-girls applaud wildly from the shore.
It was Bellini’s last opera. It’s set near Plymouth, England, and is about a girl, Elvira, from a Roundhead family who’s in love with a Cavalier officer. It’s no coincidence that Bellini had earlier written an operatic version of Romeo and Juliet, called I Capuleti e I Montecchi, also featuring love in the face of family hostility. Now, in his final re-telling of an old story, the heroine goes mad when she comes to believe, wrongly, that her man has gone off with someone else; but this time the couple is re-united in an unexpectedly happy ending. The plot also involves the figure of the executed King Charles I’s fugitive widow, Henrietta Maria (Enrichetta), in disguise.
Anna Netrebko is currently the opera world’s favorite and sexiest soprano, and I hope to review her new film of La Boheme with Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon shortly. But she also stars in a DVD of I Puritani from New York’s Metropolitan Opera that’s issued in both HD and Blu-ray as part of the Met’s ongoing series of live opera recordings.
The essence of the problem when assessing this live recording lies in the need to decide what you want most from an opera performance, and from the main singer in particular. Is it the unamplified voice, and that only, or is it also good looks, and acting ability? It’s an old dilemma, of course, but most enthusiasts over the years have opted for the voice, whatever the singer happens to look like, with looks an added plus if you happen to be lucky enough to get them.
Anna Netrebko has looks in spades, an acting ability following not far behind, and a soprano voice that’s exceptionally pure in all registers, high and low. But she lacks just that edge of manic vocal attack and fury that so many of the greatest opera roles require.
OK, you can argue, but that’s perfect for the bel canto [beautiful singing] style that Bellini specialized in. However, with their dramatic plots, and the frenzied states of the lovelorn heroines, these operas are in essence no different from any others. Elvira needs to bring the house down with her mad hysterics and crazed absorption with her wedding dress, just as much as Puccini’s Tosca does when she sobs in anguish at her impossible situation or Strauss’ Elektra screams in her manic earth-scratching desperation. This is opera, after all, an over-the-top entertainment or it’s nothing.
But Netrebko just fails to catch fire. Her supporting male singers don’t help, either. All are to some degree adequate to their roles, but none of them stops the heart. Eric Cutler sometimes appears tested as Elvira’s beloved Arturo, while Franco Vassallo as Riccardo, the man her family wants her to marry, is just about strong enough. John Relyea displays sterling qualities as Giorgio, Elvira’s sympathetic uncle, however.
All in all, though, this I Puritani stops far short of being in the first rank.
You have only to compare it with the 2001 version from Barcelona with Edita Gruberova (issued by Jingo and reviewed in Taipei Times on Nov. 15, 2007). There Gruberova sees off all comers, and the audience’s near-hysteria after the great mad scene is entirely justified. This is bel canto singing as it should be, and as far as DVDs are concerned — and there are several fine CDs of this opera — that version remains the one to beat.
An unusual feature of this New York pair of DVDs is that parts of some scenes are filmed from the side of the stage, showing both singers and, beyond them, the conductor and orchestra. Also unusual, and this time in poor taste, is the use of a clip of Netrebko being interviewed backstage, inserted on the DVD between the second and third acts. The reason for this may be that the performance was relayed live to cinemas around the US, so something was needed to fill in intermission times. But there was no need for it to be placed there in the DVD edition.
For the rest, the sets (by no means new) and costumes are adequate, if conventional. Patrick Summers conducts in a way that’s both firm and neat. And the sound quality is outstanding — even during the big ensembles, details of the orchestral playing can be very clearly heard. But then the sound on the Barcelona set was excellent as well.
This New York version, then, is not a classic performance. I can watch the Gruberova version over and over again, and indeed it’s hard not to. This newer one, by contrast, is svelte but not joyous, suave but not passionate. So I’ll end by giving the product details of the incomparably finer older version: the catalogue number is JDV311072 on Taiwan’s Jingo label.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS