More more opera!
Apr. 8th, 2020 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lovingbothVenice's opera house has uploaded the very good production of Don Giovanni that ludy and I saw there in 2017 to their YouTube channel today.*
It's sung in the original Italian, obviously, and unfortunately the only subtitles available are the hard-coded French ones - it was originally recorded for a French TV channel - but it's not hard to find English translations of varying quality online.
Having seen Quite A Few productions, I know what they're singing, but it's interesting that even with my 'so bad a fail, it didn't appear as a fail on the O-Level certificate' French, I can still understand most of these subtitles.
That leaves the main problem as being because the TV director loves close ups of the singers, you usually can't see just how well the stage direction and the rotating set design work! The lighting worked much better live than with the photography too - either fiddle with your monitor's settings or, if you download it and use vlc to watch the resulting file, turn the contrast up a bit.
There are also two Don Giovannis on operavision.eu. The Finnish one is almost very good, and much sleazier than the others, but loses lots of Ian points because they cut the final sextet, argh! The Rome one has the video direction that the Venice one should have had, but on a very minimal set and with nowhere near as good stage direction. It has silliest descent into Hell I've seen in a while, for example - after a good use of the set, he just walks off the stage! Both have English subtitles: the Finnish ones are hard-coded (and too large), while the Rome ones are downloadable separately, if you know how.
Looking at what else Teatro Fenice Venezia have uploaded.. the Carmen is the production that ENO has been using recently. It's ok - you can always shut your eyes and just listen; and the Magic Flute is really rather good... up to the point where it puts one of the villains in drag to show how hideous they are, anyway.**
I'm still waiting for the Met to have a Don in its 'free for 22ish hours only' series from its very extensive back catalogue. They haven't had any of their Philip Glass ones either, grrr...
* I noticed it was on its way on the 5th, and partly because they said it'd be available on Wednesday 4th April, I've been going 'Argh, did I miss it?!?' before realising it must have been a typo for the 8th April...
** It's an improvement over using blackface for them, I suppose, which is what the 'one live, two on DVD' German productions I've seen still do. Fortunately, the DVDs had warned me it was likely to happen when I saw it in Berlin, or I'd still have been going WTF? during the best singing I've ever heard a few minutes later.
ludy and I saw there in 2017 to their YouTube channel today.* It's sung in the original Italian, obviously, and unfortunately the only subtitles available are the hard-coded French ones - it was originally recorded for a French TV channel - but it's not hard to find English translations of varying quality online.
Having seen Quite A Few productions, I know what they're singing, but it's interesting that even with my 'so bad a fail, it didn't appear as a fail on the O-Level certificate' French, I can still understand most of these subtitles.
That leaves the main problem as being because the TV director loves close ups of the singers, you usually can't see just how well the stage direction and the rotating set design work! The lighting worked much better live than with the photography too - either fiddle with your monitor's settings or, if you download it and use vlc to watch the resulting file, turn the contrast up a bit.
There are also two Don Giovannis on operavision.eu. The Finnish one is almost very good, and much sleazier than the others, but loses lots of Ian points because they cut the final sextet, argh! The Rome one has the video direction that the Venice one should have had, but on a very minimal set and with nowhere near as good stage direction. It has silliest descent into Hell I've seen in a while, for example - after a good use of the set, he just walks off the stage! Both have English subtitles: the Finnish ones are hard-coded (and too large), while the Rome ones are downloadable separately, if you know how.
Looking at what else Teatro Fenice Venezia have uploaded.. the Carmen is the production that ENO has been using recently. It's ok - you can always shut your eyes and just listen; and the Magic Flute is really rather good... up to the point where it puts one of the villains in drag to show how hideous they are, anyway.**
I'm still waiting for the Met to have a Don in its 'free for 22ish hours only' series from its very extensive back catalogue. They haven't had any of their Philip Glass ones either, grrr...
* I noticed it was on its way on the 5th, and partly because they said it'd be available on Wednesday 4th April, I've been going 'Argh, did I miss it?!?' before realising it must have been a typo for the 8th April...
** It's an improvement over using blackface for them, I suppose, which is what the 'one live, two on DVD' German productions I've seen still do. Fortunately, the DVDs had warned me it was likely to happen when I saw it in Berlin, or I'd still have been going WTF? during the best singing I've ever heard a few minutes later.