Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88629 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-09-11
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Classical, Colour, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, PAL, Subtitled
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 239 minutes

Customer Reviews

making sense of baroque opera
This is the performance that got me hooked on opera, shown on the BBC many years ago. The singing is fairly average (though includes a couple of then eminent counter-tenors and the incomparable Lorraine Hunt in her soprano days) but what makes it an unforgettable operatic experience is Peter Sellars' direction. The opera is given in full (even with a couple of extra arias, presumably from later editions) and runs to 4 hours, yet every bar of the music is given meaning. The singers are all absolutely committed and bring out the extraordinary emotional range of the opera, starting with almost farcical comedy but seamlessly handling the gear changes to heartbreaking tragedy. The 'updating' (American President conquers the Middle East) is kind of silly (though perhaps less so these days) but is generally incidental to the exploration of the human relationships depicted. There's a lot of hand moving and choreography which might not be to everyone's taste, but for me it helps make sense of the Baroque opera form, which can otherwise drag and get very tedious.
The orchestra is with modern instruments but the pace is never allowed to drop, and the singers show considerable 'period' style, with some great ornamentation in the da capo repeats. I can't imagine a more dramtic interpretation of what is surely one of the best baroque operas.

100% pure Eurotrash
Despite some good singing this production is ridiculously silly and verging on the embarrassing. If you fancy a good laugh then this DVD certainly provides excellent comedy value when watched with a couple of glasses of wine on a Saturday night - but otherwise I would tell any Handel fan to avoid it like the plague and go for the excellent Glyndebourne DVD (Sarah Connolly/Danielle de Niese) instead.

Eurotrash...
Esecuzione integrale dell'opera, è vero, ma n ogni caso, cantanti non all'altezza,nè vocalmente nè fisicamente ( Cornelia, Cleopatra) anche se Drew Minter si colloca tra i migliori Tolomeo .La pronuncia della lingua italiana è alquanto bizzarra. La regia è assurda