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La Boheme: Puccini, Gardelli, Cotrubas, Shicoff, Royal Opera Covent Garden (With 55-page Booklet)
Actor(s): Ileana Cotrubas, Neil Shicoff, Marilyn Zschau, Thomas Allen, Gwynne Howell
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
Creator(s): Writer Giuseppe GiacosaWriter Henri MurgerWriter Luigi Illica
Director(s):
EAN: 9780769720951
Format(s): ClassicalColorHiFi SoundNTSCSubtitled
ISBN: 0769720951
Label: Kultur Video
Language(s): Italian Analog Original Language
List Price: $29.95
Manufacturer: Kultur Video
Number Of Items: 1
Package Dimensions:
Height: 1.12"
Width: 4.19"
Length: 1.12"
Weight: 0.38 lbs.
Product Group: Video
Publisher: Kultur Video
Release Date: 2000-03-30
Running Time: 116minutes
Studio: Kultur Video
UPC: 032031209534
Editorial Reviews
Description:
Puccini's great operatic masterpiece is a tragic love story and one of the best loved works of its kind throughout the world. It is set in the Latin Quarter of Paris among the Bohemian students whose hectic gaiety only partially masks the despair and pain that threaten their lives. With its stark contrasts of lively humour and poignant tragedy, La Boheme is one of Puccini's most immediate and compelling works. This spectacular Royal Opera House production stars Ileana Cotrubas and Neil Shicoff as Mimi and Rodolfo in Puccini's tragic love story.
Amazon.com:
This full-blooded 1982 performance of Puccini's most-loved opera demonstrates just how much drive and powerful emotion can make up for a certain lack of subtlety. Ileana Cotrubas's Mimi is entirely moving in both joy and death, while never quite feeling as thoroughly frail as some of her quieter rivals; stronger tenor voices than Neil Shicoff's have recorded the role, and yet he has a romantic passion and a dignity that many of his rivals lack. Underrated singer Gwynne Howell is especially moving in Colline's farewell to his cloak--one of those perfect little showcase sections Puccini sometimes gives to minor parts. Marilyn Zschau's Musetta is broad and comic and yet somehow includes the audience in the glorious joke that her sexuality is for her; when Thomas Allen sings, to her famous waltz theme, of youth that is not yet dead, his ardor transcends realism. Conductor Lamberto Gardelli knew this score in his bones--the production bounces along from comedy to tears to eroticism to tragedy, and neither cast nor orchestra misses a single one of Puccini's wonderful touches of emotional exploitation. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
Customer Reviews Average rating - 4.5
Rating - 5 Date: 2004-10-24
Content: Superlatives tumble forth from one's thoughts when attempting to describe this magnificent production of the Puccini masterwork, filmed at Covent Garden before an enthusiastic audience, distinguished as it is by remarkable direction and singing with splendid staging and costume design made even more vital by effective and oft amusing business. Stage director John Copley's celebrated production for LA
BOHEME remains in the repertoire after 30 years and more, due in large part to the emotional interplay among all of the cast that forms a moving ensemble piece, featuring both singing and acting, with designing and costumes of Julia Trevelyan Oman establishing an appropriate mise en scène of waning refinement along the left bank of 19th century Paris. Ileana Cotrubas was accorded worldwide fame after she replaced an indisposed Mirella Freni as Mimi in 1975 at LaScala a mere 15 minutes before curtain, garnering the hearts of the Milanese in attendance, and her transfixing performance enacted here, in a rôle that admittedly does not offer an extensive range of emotional engagement, displays her unique style of vocal finesse as well as that dramatic excitement for which the Romanian diva is admired, while the supreme imaginative temperament of baritone Thomas Allen as Marcello along with spirited Marilyn Zschau as Musetta highlight a cast that is impressive in its entirety. Lamberto Gardelli offers an affectionate reading for what is arguably the composer's best and certainly most structurally balanced score, extending in feeling from the comedic to the melancholic with but one clinker (amidst the horns), the conductor's unrivalled treatment of the open fifths during the first section of Act III being especially worthy of note. Gardelli's control of dynamics for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House matches the abilities of the soloists, most evidential in the case of lirico tenor Neil Shicoff as Rodolfo, a fervent performance in the van among the many in this film that additionally benefits from splendid sound quality, quite essential for complex but well-worked scenes such as occur during Acts II and III; altogether, then, the strongest operatic fare, not to be missed by devotees of acting and musical performance.
Summary: OF THE HIGHEST ARTISTIC ORDER
Rating - 4 Date: 2001-07-16
Content: This video is so enjoyable and excellent to watch and to listen, while giving credit to the beautiful music of Puccini. The colors and the sound are very good, and the singers are so brilliant, it emphasized the tragic story of the poor but happy Bohemians. I have seen Neil Shicoff in other operas, but in this video he is singing in his top condition, acting the character Rodolfo so beautifully and naturally,with such perfection and brilliance, that we can feel the sad and tragic situation of Rodolfo's fate as Poet. Also Illeana Cotrubas, who acts as the little poor seamstress Mimi sings with such excellence,which move our hearts by the tragic situation of Mimi who was suffering from a deathly illness. The other singers gave also their excellent contribution, including Marilyn Zschau, acting as the character of Musetta. In short this video give us such pleasant enjoyment. Only one minor imperfection, as it has no English subtitles, which makes the video difficult to be understandable. There is an English explanation in the booklet that comes in the package, but it is bothering to read it while what we want is only to watch and listen to the beautiful music, not bothered by reading the verses in English.
Summary: Excellent performance and beautiful singing.
Rating - 5 Date: 2001-02-24
Content: This is an extremely well-sung and beautifully (and believably) acted Boheme. While the singers are not household names (this is a London Covent Garden Royal Opera House production), they give dazzling performances, and what's more, their youthful attractiveness and exhuberance permeate the opera, considered by most experts to be Puccini's finest and most melodic. I will grant that certain more famous singers may be able to sing a particular role better, but for overall quality, this is hard to beat. The first thing you'll want to do after watching this production is rewind it and watch it again -- and that's what I did!
Summary: Marvelous!
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