Branagh's Magic Flute

[DoctorT]

I've just been watching this on DVD. What do other MBers think of it? I enjoyed watching the youthful singers, and could make out every word, but the whole idea of setting it in WW1 is a bit...weird?
As a side issue, what other film adaptations of operas would posters recommend (as opposed to films of stage productions)?

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I haven't seen the Branagh film, but it seemed to ruffle a few feathers (and not just Papageno's).

The film of La bohème with Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko is extremely well done. It is a lip-synched film (not that you'd notice) following a studio recording and the Marcello on film is not the singer we hear - odd given that everyone else is 'playing themselves'.

I remember being thrilled by some of the images, particularly the storm scenes, in Zeffirelli's Otello, but too much of the music if chopped about for it to be completely satisfying.

[DoctorT]

Thanks IGI. The La Boheme you mention is very good. I also like the Domingo Tosca, shot in 'real time'.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I also like the Domingo Tosca, shot in 'real time'.

How could I have forgotten that one?! I reviewed it on its reissue: http://www.opera-britannia.com/index...d=12&Itemid=17

Am off to Malfitano's Tosca this very evening. That's Malfitano as director, of course...

[french frank]

I enjoyed watching the youthful singers, and could make out every word, but the whole idea of setting it in WW1 is a bit...weird?

I'm unlikely to see it, but I really liked Branagh's Love's Labours Lost which the critics hated. In that too there was the looming presence of contemporary war, but I thought he justified it really well.

[Chris Newman]

The 1984 film of Carmen was a great success and has not dated. Directed by Francesco Rosi. It features Julia Migenes as a get up and go Carmen, Plácido Domingo is the psychotic Don José, Faith Esham as his loving Micaela and Ruggero Raimondi as Escamillo exudes sex and cynicism. Lorin Maazel fires on all cylinders (he can disappoint in opera) and the Orchestre National de France want burst your speakers. Not only is it musically good it is very well filmed on location in Spain. Rosi claims he liked Gustave Dore's engravings of Spain and has revisited places that he illustrated and Rosi thought might have appealed to Bizet who was not so well travelled. It is far better than HvK's studio bound film.