Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33571 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-09
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Box set, Classical, Colour, DVD-Video, PAL, Subtitled
• Original language: French, English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese
• Subtitled in: Chinese, English, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 121 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment aims to please and it succeeds, with its catchy tunes, wildly difficult showpieces for the principles, and a simple, if also simplistic, narrative line. This 2005 live performance at Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice features virtuoso singing by tenor Juan Diego Flórez as Tonio and soprano Patrizia Ciofi, as Marie, the "daughter" of the soldiers who have adopted her. Tonio's big Act I scene and aria, "Ah! mes amis," was a famous showpiece for Pavarotti and Flórez is in that league, nailing the aria's nine high Cs with an ease mere mortals reserve just for breathing. This is knock-'em-dead singing and the audience demands (and gets) an encore. Ciofi's Marie is well acted and sung with lyric beauty and coloratura fireworks. The chief supporting roles are done to a turn. Bass Nicola Ulivieri is a firm-voiced Sulpice, the sergeant who helps the lovers, while Francesca Franci is a wonderful Marquise, displaying subtle comic acting and a rich mezzo as Marie's "aunt" who has grand plans for her future. Conductor Riccardo Frizza leads the Genoa forces with stylish zest.

Stage director Emilio Sagi, has moved the action from Napoleonic times to a French village in the closing days of World War II, replacing the French regiment with victorious Yanks, which makes for some textual anomalies but none that impede enjoyment. This video version offers functional direction but it's often unflattering to the singers (especially Marie who's sometimes shot from above in lighting that shadows part of her face), and uses excessive close-ups and cuts to reaction shots that distract from the main events. Still, a don't-miss buffo opera brilliantly sung. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews

Don't overlook this version
I didn't file this a year ago when I bought the dvd because I assumed Amazon would be flooded with reviews, given the magnificence of the performance and popularity of the opera. But I see nobody else has yet offered their opinion so I thought I'd better get a word in, because it now faces very stiff competition from the new Dessay/Florez version.

All-round, it is one of my favourite opera dvds. Yes, the plot is scatty but it's also great fun, the singing on this version is out of this world, acting is good to excellent, and I love Frizza's conducting. Above all, it has that indefinable quality, the feel of a great occasion captured on the wing. The Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova audience goes appropriately nuts at the right moments, forcing an encore out of Florez after "Mes amis". He duly pings off the nine high Cs a second time without breaking sweat. As if not to be outdone, Ciofi responds with a beautifully moving "Il faut partir", giving the audience another reason to voice its amazement. And so it goes on, through the entire opera. Singing just doesn't get any better than this. Nicola Ulivieri as Sulpice and a sexy Francesca Franci as La Marquise de Berkenfield provide strong support and something of a subplot, though Ulivieri's French is rather unique. The action is updated to WW2, which works without being obtrusive. There is a whole disc of very worthwhile extras.

Reviews of the new Dessay version from Covent Garden get to hair-splitting differences between it and this one. General consensus seems to be that singing is marginally better in Genova, acting has the edge at Covent Garden. Even without seeing it I can believe that Dessay is in a class of her own. She is surely the best actress in opera today. But Ciofi has plenty to say about this role and anybody who saw her performance opposite Alagna in Lucie/Lucia knows that she puts her heart and soul into her acting as well as singing. I'll probably end up buying the Dessay version too. But I urge people not to overlook this dvd both as a performance and as a record of a memorable occasion.