Tuesday, 9 September 2008

DVD: Fille du Regiment with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez

La fille du regiment. Royal Opera, London 2007. Director: Laurent Pelly. Cast: Natalie Dessay, Juan Diego Florez, Felicity Palmer, Alessandro Corbelli. Conductor: Bruno Campanella. Further information here.

This is a DVD of the same La fille du regiment production shown earlier this year on the HD telecast from the Metropolitan Opera. I´ve written in details on the HD transmitted performance here, all of which (with a few exceptions) also applies to the DVD, and need no repetition.
The most notable exceptions: As the Duchess of Krakenthorp the vastly irritating Marian Seldes of the MET was replaced (or rather it was the other way around) by the much superior Dawn French. But most importantly Bruno Campanella brought much more life to the score than Armiliato did at the MET.
Furthermore, Natalie Dessay seemed in better voice, though I still have the impression she is tearing rather heavily on on her vocal reserves. Juan Diego Florez was the same. At least to a non-Florez, non-belcanto afficionado as myself..

In brief, I found this production both funny and inventive. Most, if not all of this DVD may be seen for free on YouTube.

Natalie Dessay, Chacun le sait:
The bottom line (scale of 1-5, 3=average):

Natalie Dessay: 4-5 5 (see comments)
Juan Diego Florez: 4-5 5 (see comments)
Felicity Palmer: 5
Alessandro Corbello: 5
Bruce Campanila: 4-5

Laurent Pelly´s production: 5

Overall impression: 5
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10 September 2008 at 09:03

    Bruce Campanila is Bruno Campanella?

    ReplyDelete
  2. mostly opera...10 September 2008 at 15:39

    Seems like it...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Extatic10 September 2008 at 23:24

    Oh come on, JDF deserves a 5 - I would even be inclined to rate him as a 10 on your scale from 1 to 5.

    Seriously.

    I mean, in the face of history, the so-called legendary 1972 NY performances with Pavarotti pale in comparison with both JDF's performances of La Fille in London, Vienna and NY.

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  4. mostly opera...11 September 2008 at 00:23

    OK, I almost do not dare write this, but the reason for the 4-5 is that I think JDF is rather boring on stage: He looks like a well-behaved school-boy and I don´t find him very interesting at all.

    However, he should of course be judged within his own repertoire and voice type (and not compared to vastly superior Wagnerian bass-barytones...) and in that regard I´ll probably have to agree with you that he deserves the 5. I´ll change it.

    But then I´ll also change Natalie Dessay to a 5, as I don´t think it fair to rate him higher than her, though she vocally was rather stretched out. But I like her.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Extatic11 September 2008 at 09:22

    "and not compared to vastly superior Wagnerian bass-barytones..."

    Ouch...

    ReplyDelete