|
|
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780769720999
Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 0769720994
Label: Kultur Video
Manufacturer: Kultur Video
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Kultur Video
Release Date: March 30, 2000
Running Time: 208 minutes
Sales Rank: 42775
Studio: Kultur Video
Editorial Review:
Description:
For his 1996 Glyndebourne staging, radical American director Peter Sellars takes Handel's penultimate English oratorio - a tale of self-sacrificial love between a Christian virgin and a Roman imperial bodyguard (sung by David Daniels)in fourth-century, enemy occupied Antioch - and, by resetting it in modern-day America, transforms it into a timeless parable of spirtual resistance to tyranny and persecution. Cast:
Dawn Upshaw: Theodora
David Daniels: Dudymus
Frode Olsen: Valens
Richard Croft: Septimius
Lorraine Hunt: Irene
Amazon.com:
After an overture played on baroque period instruments, this opera about the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire opens with a televised press conference by the business-suited Roman governor of Antioch. This paradox epitomizes a bold and spectacularly successful interpretation that merges modern visuals with 18th-century music performed in period style.
The music (glorious, vintage Handel) is entrusted to William Christie, one of the most respected living conductors of early music. His phenomenal cast is musically and theatrically right on target. The staging, by Peter Sellars, has Roman legionaries garbed as a SWAT team with automatic weapons. The Roman governor is a totally political animal with a drinking problem. Dawn Upshaw and the amazing David Daniels, Christian victims, are executed not in a pit of lions but strapped to tables for lethal injections.
This treatment not only gives dramatic impact to music that began life as an oratorio; it universalizes the subject into an indictment of any government that persecutes minorities. --Joe McLellan
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Yes, but
I'm torn. I think the singing is absolutely riveting...everyone is terrific. I love the set with the huge cracked bottles. Handel's music is gorgeous, and it's gorgeously played. So a very strong yes.
But...but...it seems to me that the production has to serve the music. I don't see how it serves the music to put the men in flying suits (if that's what they are) and to pretend that this has something to do with the American president. Was Nixon, or whoever this was supposed to ... Read More
Rating:  - The Gospel According to St. Peter (Sellars)
Handel's Oratorio celebrates the steadfast faithfulness of the Christian Theodora in the face of Roman persecution. She won't worship Caesar's gods, by Jove. In Sellars' retelling, Caesar becomes the American president and the Roman centurions become
U. S. Navy personnel in orange flight suits with American flags on their sleeves. But this is clearly not a mere updating for audiences unfamiliar with any history prior to Britney Spear's latest commitment. Despite the DVD cover's claim that ... Read More
Rating:  - Buy It Quickly!
Browsing for something else, I noticed that this excellent DVD is available cheap in used copies! Buy it! Don't wait!
Theodora was not composed as an opera. Interestingly, Bill Christie's operatic staging of it is not only modern in costuming and sets, but remarkably more "modern" musically than the operas in Italian which Handel composed earlier in his career. I imagine that people who automatically hate "modern-dress" productions will hate this performance passionately. I suspect that ... Read More
Rating: - Exquisite Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
The oratorio Theodora would be interesting containing as it does some of the Handel's most fabulous arias. With Lorraine Hunt Lieberson playing Irene, the DVD is on another level. She is just perfection, the emotion and artistry of her performance is beyond words- a wonderful, wonderful artist.
I can only hope we get to see some of her other celebrated roles- Dido in the Met "Les Troyens" would be my top of my wishlist.
Rating: - In Honor of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
As somewhat of a purist - OK - elitist, I'm surprised to find I enjoyed almost every minute of this long performance, Sellars' stage gimmicks and all. Handel's glorious arias dominate, and the exceptional audio and video quality make the 207 minutes an experience to enjoy rather than endure for the sake of being able to watch.
But even if the audio and video were not as good as they are, this disk is a treasure to me because it remains a close encounter with both the stage presence and peerless ... Read More
|
|
