Description
Filmed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, John Copley’s production of Rossini’s last, longest and most elaborate work for the Italian stage brings together what many consider the definitive contemporary cast, led by Marilyn Horne and June Anderson. Semiramide, a strong and melodious work, is one of Rossini’s greatest dramatic operas, offering a fine challenge to the superb contralto and soprano bel canto singing of Ms. Horne and Ms. Anderson. Sanford Olsen, Samuel Ramey, Mar… More >>
Rossini – Semiramide / Conlon, Anderson, Horne, Metropolitan Opera
Ideas Product
#1 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 1:36 am
My first shock was when I found there was no English…. if the review said anything about that, I’d'a chosen something else. But that’s not the worst of it — I can’t (so far) find the libretto for the darn thing. But that’s still not the worst of it. I went directly to Bel raggio — and guess what? Jane Anderson’s singing is still bloody awful. I had thought, well, MAYBE she used to be somebody. Nope. She never way. Bel canto? You’ve GOT to be kidding. Okay, so I listened to the familiar overture, then found no English, then zipped to No. 19 to see if Anderson was better than I remembered.
Hah!
And THAT was after listening with great satisfaction to Bryn and Cecilia from Glyndboune. So Bartoli is a (light) mezzo (coloratura) and not a lyric (coloratura), but the difference in timbre, to say nothing of everything else was astounding to painful.
I hope I can return the dratted recording.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 2:59 am
I bought this opera and felt that I got burnt. So this is intended as a warning. Rossini’s ‘Serious” operas are pretty hard for me to take and unless the singing is truly superb, I find them intolerable. They tend to be a long series of routine arias with little action or possibility for action. The men sang well enough, though their parts were relatively minor. Azema (Young-Ok Shin) was so good that I wanted to hear more. But while the title role was sung adequately though in a mannered and occasionally annoying style, the real problem in my ear was the major role of Arsace (Marilyn Horne). The vocal quality was very nasty to my ear and the wobble and inaccuracies in pitch were completely intolerable. Since this a major role, it is impossible to avoid listening to this role. I have trashed my copy and, unless you are a real fan of the principle singers, I don’t believe it is worth buying. If Arsace and Semiramide are singing in the Bel Canto style, then this is a style to avoid at all costs.
Rating: 3 / 5
#3 by Joseph Hart on June 29, 2010 - 3:48 am
Whew! I watched it standing up, sitting down, piecemeal, while making decaf and just glancing at the subtitles (which were sparse anyway). This thing was interminable! But it was also absolutely beautiful. I’ve never heard anything like it. I’ve got Sutherland on CD, so already knew I liked it. But this was beyond all expectations. When the 3 principles got together for trios (or duets or solos), they blew me away. I liked the plot which even the idiotic Amazon staff reviewer was glad to tell you all about in case you hadn’t seen it before and don’t like surprises. What a dunderhead! This is in my opinion the jewel of Rossini’s career (and the only opera by him that I’ve heard that I like, I greatly dislike the little artificial vibrato he invented and used incessantly), just as Una voce… is the jewel of Barber. This opera was pure bel canto, a coloratura’s dream, and Horne and Anderson milked it for all it was worth. Incidentally, only once, at the end of a choral piece, did Anderson end up, with a Sutherland up to the balcony leap. It was a great disappointment to me, with that music and that voice that she didn’t do it more often. I might as well have been listening to Caballe. If you’ve got the stamina for a 3 and 1/2 hour opera however glorious, I overwhelmingly recommend this opera and this production of it. Also, for what it’s worth, the costumes and colors were beautiful too. The scenery was as spare as the subtitles. I wish people would stop giving away plots, fortunately I watched the show before I read the reviews. It’s such a jerky thing to do.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by D. Layman on June 29, 2010 - 5:18 am
The sets and backdrops are up to Met standards, i.e., gorgeous and sumptuous. I have no reason to complain about the music and singing. Horne’s deep voice is stunning in its power–more on the other aspects later. I haven’t heard Anderson before, but her singing here gives me no reason to doubt promo claims that she IS Semiramide.
Alas, as drama this performance left me unmoved. Two huge problems: there is no way costumes and headdresses can tart up Horne to be a young pubescent warrior about to take over the throne of the greatest world power of its day. I realize this is partly Rossini’s fault requiring a female voice, but Horne is too short, too fat, too old–in a word, too matronly.
Second big problem: Anderson can’t act. In the ghost scene at the end of Act one, she is supposed to be acting horrified. Instead, her gestures and expressions are standard operatic, “oh poor pitiful me.” The opera is full of opportunities for subtle psychological games by Semiramide: cunning, betrayal, lust, greed, revived maternal love. She only gives us pointing, heart grasping, throat clutching gestures. Yuk. I’ve watched enough opera on video to know that there are plenty of great singers who are also great actors. The only exception is at the beginning of Act 2, with Ramey as Asshur. It is as if Ramey’s maleness brings out her female wiles–for about five minutes.
Apparently, this opera is meant to be heard rather than seen.
Singing: 5
Visuals: 4
Acting: 2
Overall: 3
Rating: 3 / 5
#5 by Stanley H. Nemeth on June 29, 2010 - 6:26 am
Most listeners would agree, I think, that “Semiramide” is an opera whose success in performance rests almost exclusively on the singers of its two leading roles. So difficult are these roles that the opera is almost never done. In the 60’s, though, first in Los Angeles in a concert version, and then in the 70’s at the Chicago Lyric in a fully staged production, the opera was unforgettably brought back into the repertoire by the spectacular Joan Sutherland and the incomparable Marilyn Horne. With typical slowness of response during that time, the Met ignored their triumphs. By the time the Met did get around to staging the work, Sutherland had already stopped performing the title role, and Horne, who was cast, nevertheless was nearing the end of her own Rossini singing.
Nonetheless, this Met version preserved on DVD still has merits. Horne, for instance, is disappointing in spots only by comparison with her own earlier freer-voiced and more astonishingly ornamented performances. June Anderson, singing the title role, is fully competent, but her performance is more competent than memorable. Nothing in her coloratura fireworks or legato singing could be called truly ravishing here.
Samuel Ramey, as expected, gives a fine performance, but the opera does not rise or fall based on his role.
In conclusion, it is disappointing that no videotaped or DVD performance of this rarely done opera exists with Sutherland and Horne in their glorious primes. What we have instead is this good performance (4 stars), but one which must fall short of the mark for those in Los Angeles or Chicago who experienced great ones.
Rating: 4 / 5