Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30824 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-06-13
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 6
• Formats: Box set, Classical, Closed-captioned, Colour, Compilation, Dolby, DVD-Video, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 572 minutes

Customer Reviews

The bad boy of opera meets the er bad boy of opera
A blast from the past: Peter Sellars' New York opera settings get a welcome reissue in this Mozart collection (three separate DVD sleeves). Sellars' direction involves lots of action- no aria goes unpunished!. Instead of the usual standing around and belting a number out - you get hand jives and flying props. When people are angry- they are damn angry- it adds so much to the ambience.

Cosi Fan Tutte remains my favourite of the three. Set in Despina's Diner in 50s America, our prop of the day is the squeezy sauce bottle. Very useful if you are a deceitful lover pretending to drink poison. It also hints at subtle past resentments when Despina squirts them ferociously at the walls while agreeing with Don Alfonso to fit her female customers up with some distracting new love interests.

The Marriage of Figaro, features many of the same cast as Cosi- so it's interesting to see how adaptable this crew were. Set in an apartment belonging to New York glitterati, the servants, Figaro and Suzanna, get to live in the dingy converted laundry room. Now in how many operas do you see eggs being thrown at a wall? Or Cherubino dressed as an American footballer?

Don Giovanni is a Boys 'n the hood version of the tale featuring brothers Eugene and Herbert Perry as the Don and sidekick Leporello. Set in the sleazy ghetto backstreets it does send shivers down your spine. And the most outrageous part is the banquet. Which is a McTakeaway to the accompaniment of tracks played on a ghetto blaster. I'm sorry, but I really do rate a director who gets Leporello to steal pheasant masquerading as Pheasant McNuggets. Then Don Giovanni comments on the fine qualities of the wine vintage while partaking of a thick shake.

I love heavy handed direction. So if you're a purist, beware. Actually if you're a purist, I'd run and hide behind the sofa as though an army of Daleks were after you. Myself I thoroughly enjoyed all three operas and their, let us say, contemporary subtitles.