(Roberto Alagna, left, and Violetta Urmana at curtain call on the big screen. Their lower bodies look transparent here, hehe, I guess because they were moving quickly when the photo was taken.)
DEC 5 - Going to La Scala's movie theater screening series is basically like watching a DVD on the big screen. It's is a significant difference from the Metropolitan Opera's movie theater series, which La Scala is no doubt emulating by sending out this batch of screenings. All of the La Scala performances, including the Aida that was shown last Wednesday, were filmed specifically for release on DVD, and it appears they simply sent the video "package" to local screening houses and threw it up on the big screen.
With the Met screenings, the movie theater experience is unique to the cinema: not only is the performance broadcast live in real time (there's something special about knowing that the people you see on screen are performing for real, in that moment, three thousand miles away), but the package includes backstage features, special camera work designed to use the big screen to advantage (ie more long shots) and shots that really makes you feel like you're at an event. And the uniqueness of the performance stays in the theater: subsequent PBS showings and DVD releases of these performances are re-edited and don't include any of this stuff.
With La Scala, the $20 you drop is for an experience that can be replicated at home, over and over, for just a little bit more money if you buy the DVD. It doesn't feel as special, and the camera work features far too many tight zooms and detail shots designed for the small television screen. There is one advantage to watching this DVD at the movies, however: gorgeous sound reproduction blasted on huge surround-sound speakers, plus the opportunity to sit and watch an entire opera DVD without letting yourself wander away with other distractions like computers and other tv channels. And the big screen HD definition is crisp and stunning, even if it is a bit disconcerting to see Violetta Urmana's face five stories tall.
Seeing Aida on Wednesday was fine: Franco Zeferelli's production is large and lumbering, with staging that is more pageant like than fully dramatic. The chorus enters with spears or other beautiful objects, stands around the sides of the stage and sings straight out to the audience. The principals wrap themselves around each other center stage and croon. The sets are large and grand in the typical Zeferelli style, but I wish the staging of the singers had been more imaginative.
The camera work for on this filming was simply infuriating. Instead of focusing on the action, the cameras kept cutting away to shots of rippling fabric on the costumes, or a random ornamental detail on the set - this during key dramatic and musical moments! A duet would be approaching its climax when all of the sudden the picture dissolved to Amneris' finely woven skirt. Beautiful though the elaborate skirt may have be, the picture should have been focusing on the singers, not on some random scenic element, and especially at a moment of high musical drama. It was as though the film director didn't trust us to maintain our attention spans for longer than 10 seconds, and instead made the idiotic decision to show us irrelevant details of Zefferelli's extravagant production. The frequent cutaways on a 5-story movie screen were dizzying, and later I just shut my eyes and simply listened to the music.
The redeeming factor here was that the recording is bursting with wonderful vocal performances, particularly Violetta Urmana in the title role. For her, the drama was completely in the voice, spinning the notes and phrases to stirring emotional effect. Ildiko Komlosi was also pretty great as Amneris, nearly stealing the show with her 11 o'clock aria in Act IV, lamenting Radames imminent execution.
As Radames, Roberto Alagna was the ticket-selling draw of this production, and he was in fine enough voice. But his acting tended towards stand-and-mug, turning the character Radames into a rather pompous, silly caricature. (There's also notoreity with Alagna's performance: recorded at La Scala's prestigious season-opening night, it captures the only full performance he completed during the run - he infamously walked out of the second performance after the balcony crowd booed him at the second performance. Watch the clip here.)
In the brief Triumphal March scene, at the beginning of act 2, we got to see La Scala Ballet's principal male star Roberto Bolle do a brief ballet interlude with Myrna Kamara. Bolle is becoming a major international star, guesting with The Royal Ballet (where I saw him live in Swan Lake and on record in Ashton's Sylvia), American Ballet Theatre and numerous other major companies. He's a gorgeous dancer, both in his shear physical handsomeness and in his movement. As a near-naked slave in this production of Aida, he showed off some huge, goregous jumps and then finished with a long series of applause inducing fouettes. Go Roberto! The brief snippet of his dancing made me pull out all the Bolle recordings at home to re-experience his dancing.
Of the upcoming screenings, I'm most looking forward to La Traviata, with Angela Georghiu, which will be screened sometime in February. While this experience didn't quite create the same euphoria as the Met broadcasts, it was nice enough to take a break from my world and watch an opera DVD in one sitting. And of course, surround sound didn't hurt.
No comments:
Post a Comment