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| Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia / Bonynge, Sutherland, Kraus, Royal Opera | 
 enlarge | Director: Brian Large
Actors: Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Anne Howells, Stafford Dean, Francis Egerton
Studio: Kultur Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $16.49
You Save: $13.50 (45%)
New (28) Used (7) from $10.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 22754
Format: Classical, Color, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: Italian (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 140
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 2070
ISBN: 076977508X
UPC: 032031207097
EAN: 9780769775081
ASIN: B0000640T8
Theatrical Release Date: 1977
Release Date: March 26, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW AND FACTORY SEALED
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| Similar Items:
| • | Delibes - Lakme / Joan Sutherland, Huguette Tourangeau, Henri Wilden, John Pringle, Richard Bonynge, Opera Australia | | • | Vincenzo Bellini - I Puritani | | • | Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Pablo Elvira, Paul Plishka, Richard Bonynge, Metropolitan Opera | | • | Donizetti - Anna Bolena / Bonynge, Sutherland, Morris, Canadian Opera Company | | • | Verdi - Luisa Miller |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
This 1980 Covent Garden production of Donizetti's opera based on the infamous dramatic heroine was undertaken so that one of the few sopranos who would dare tackle the fearsome range of Lucrezia Borgia--Dame Joan Sutherland--could do so in a setting amenable to her talent. And tackle it she does. This might not be the definite Lucrezia (a slight nod would go to Montserrat Caballe's 1965 RCA audio recording), but Sutherland shows she has the sheer chops to overcome Donizetti's piling on of difficulty after vocal difficulty. From the prologue's "Com e Bello," Sutherland never lets up through her gripping final scene of intense anguish and melodrama. Richard Bonynge conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House with aplomb, and the supporting cast--Alfredo Kraus, Anne Howells, and Stafford Dean--performs ably in Sutherland's wake. --Kevin Filipski
Description
Dame Joan Sutherland and tenor Alfredo Kraus star in Donizetti's tale of sixteenth century opulence and decadence. Joan Sutherland is unquestionably the unsurpassed Lucrezia of all-time, and this production at Covent Garden showcases her incomparable coloratura technique. Bel canto specialist Richard Bonynge conducts The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in this historic performance. Cast - Lucrezia Borgia - Joan Sutherland
Gennaro - Alfredo Kraus
Maffio Orsini - Anne Howells
Alfonso d'Este - Stafford Dean
The Royal Opera Chorus
Chorus Master - John Barker
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Wretched production August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Lucrezia Borgia, while not one of Donizetti's best operas with a rather dopey libretto, is well worth hearing but not in this poor production. The camera work is at best routine, and tends to reveal the weaknesses of the staging, the stolid nature of the acting, and the rather inappropriate casting from a visual point of view of the two female leads. The subtitles are farcically incomplete and there is no libretto or any other useful information. Yes, the singing is distinguished, and Anne Howells is a delight, but as a whole this is highly disappointing. Since this DVD is not worth watching, and Lucrezia Borgia is given a much better performance in the 1977 recording (still available on CD transfer) with Sutherland and Bonynge in better form than here and with Aragall, Horne and Wixell vocally at least as satisfying as Krause, Howells and Dean, only a very devoted Donizetti fan will want this DVD. I shall not be watching it again.
 NOT BAD, BUT GIVE ME CABALLE.... ANY TIME February 18, 2008
I enjoyed this somewhat wooden performance and I think it can be recommended with the qualifications that other reviewers have already stated. But of course if one wants to hear a truly sublime performance of the title role, one has to settle for audio only and hear Montserrat Caballe. Nobody should miss her breakthrough Carnegie Hall performance in 1965 (pirate recording with wonderful sound on several labels). That's a really magical and truly legendary performance. Her studio recording on RCA (with Kraus) is very complete and great as well. Unlike Sutherland, Caballe in this role exhibits a real legato, an incredible control of all dynamics, pianissimi that were a wonder, a commitment with the words (with her they do mean something), a splendid coloratura (Sutherland's could be more spectacular, but not more meaningful), and a beauty of tone that is the stuff legends are made. I'm sure, in one hundred years, when very few people will remember Sutherland, many people will still play Caballe's recordings. Her contribution to the grand tradition of opera is truly unique. Along with Callas and Ponselle, the three supreme sopranos of the past century
 glamorous Old School Donizetti November 24, 2007
This is a spectacular 1980 performance from Covent Garden starring Sutherland and Kraus. This is the glamorous way opera performances are supposed to be... with lavish costumes. The purple number that Sutherland wears in the Prologue gets us off to a great start. One hopes that the animal pelts in Act One are faux, but they certainly look sumptuous. Her red gown and train for the final scene looks exactly like she's wearing the entire Covent Garden curtain! The outfit Orsini (Anne Howells) sports in this final scene makes him look like he's trying to be Popeye's nemesis Bluto at a costume ball. The wigs are also fabulous. Kraus looks like he has a big ginger tabby curled up on his head. He looks old and ridiculous, but the moment he opens his mouth and starts pouring out that gorgeous aristocratic sound, you realize he is demonstrating one of opera's most bizarre truisms: the older the tenor, the more convincing he is as these Renaissance Italian teenboys in tights (Gennaro here, Romeo elsewhere). This is one of the great Kraus performances, luckily captured on tape. He gets to start the final act with an extra insert aria, and his acknowledgement of the audience ovation is so Old School that it should be shown in music academies as a lesson in subtlety and good taste when milking the audience for more applause. Sutherland is in superb form: the trills, the high notes, the brilliant coloratura. She was often criticized for not enunciating the text, but there are enough consonants for us to tell that she singing in Italian here. And she doesn't just stand there and make pretty bel canto sounds; she is fiery and emotional and involved with the text and her co-stars. The duet with Alfonso (Stafford Dean) is very dramatic, while the ensuing Poison Duet with Kraus is thrillingly fast and propulsive. Donizetti certainly knew how to structure his numbers and manipulate his audience. The cabaletta finale has the proper pathos, and the coda whips the audience up to a frenzy. The audience is quite demonstrative (there's a flower shower at the final curtain), yet we are denied the view of any solo bows. There are a few group bows and that's it. One longs to know what the audience hysteria was like when Kraus and then Sutherland bowed solo. The English subtitles are good, although one does wonder who allowed the possessive form "her's" to sneak through.
I guess I'll make some enemies, but... September 22, 2007
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
...I don't much admire Joan Sutherland. I never heard her sing on stage; most of my impressions come from DVD performances recorded when everyone had begun to excuse her for being past her prime. Reflecting just on the current performance of Lucrezia Borgia, I find her acclaim inexplicable.
First, she can't act. Will even her most ardent fans defend her stage presence? In this production, she moves about like an oversized high-school girl trying to remember her blocking... with all the awkward stateliness of the Queen Mary coming to dock. As other reviewers have remarked, this production was clearly underrehearsed, and many of the cast had to peer anxiously at the prompter's box. Perhaps that's Dame Joan's excuse, also. But her facial expressions are so wooden and inappropriate at times that one might wish the camera-folk had eschewed close-ups.
And now her singing. Bluntly, I don't enjoy it. Her tone seems throttled and fleshy most of the time, struggling to burst out of her oddly grotto-like mouth. Her pronunciation of Italian is atrocious, all shwas, scarcely a pure vowel to be heard, contributing to the throttled sound I mentioned before. Her bel canto ornaments and rapid passages seem much like her postures and gestures, broad rather than agile, stately rather than passionate. Her vibrato is not ornamental, as it should be, but merely an acoustical safeguard for tuning. Her celebrated high notes are harsh and sometimes not quite high enough.
About the rest of the production, it's barely worth writing. It's ragged and stodgy, more a costume parade than a drama. To those who enjoyed it, I apologize for my vehemence. I hope my Australian friends in particular will forgive me. Someone might ask, given my dislike for the principal singer, why I purchased this DVD. Well, I was so surprised by my enjoyment of Netrebko and Villazon in L'Elizir D'Amore that I decided to reevaluate Donizetti as a composer. Right now, I have to say that I can understand why his operas fell out of fashion in the last decades.
Dreadful, though no fault of Joan Sutherland April 3, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I recently purchased this DVD, with high hopes. A few years ago, I saw Sutherland's Lucrezia Borgia from Opera Australia, on VHS. I assumed that the currently available DVD from the Covent Garden production would be an even better treat. Boy, was I wrong- and disappointed!
It is painfully evident that there was scant rehearsal time for this particular staging of Lucrezia Borgia. The chorus is wooden, stiff, and expressionless. Even worse is the heavy reliance on the prompter for just about all of the singers. Even the great Alfredo Kraus makes no attempt to disguise it. At one point, he is singing onstage with the Maffio Orsini of this production, Anne Howells. Both just stand there, staring intently, singing by rote. It is an embarrassing, amateur moment made only worse by the close-up view that filmed productions afford.
In just about all respects, the Opera Australia version I remember outclasses Covent Garden's. The one advantage the Royal Opera House has is a bigger budget. Joan Sutherland is given better costumes (though I admit that her costume-and-mask ensemble is weird to look at). Also, she is given an A-list tenor to sing with, Alfredo Kraus. Unfortunately, by this point in Kraus' career, his voice had a somewhat dry quality to it. There are moments of glory, but too often his waning vocal estate betrays him. Still, he is an bel canto legend, and it's nice to see him paired with Sutherland.
Every other singer in the production deserves to be thrown to the lions. Stafford Denan, as Alfonso d'Este, is howlingly awful. His muffled, patchy, woolly singing isn't even worthy of a minor opera house, much less Covent Garden. His extended duet with Joan makes you feel bad for the diva, who had to share the stage with such a dullard.
Anne Howells, as Maffio Orsini, is only a shade better. Her voice has a covered quality, and her pitch is wayward. I couldn't help but think of Margreta Elkins, who sang Maffio Orsini in the Opera Austalia prodction. Elkins is in another class altogether. She sang a wonderful drinking aria (Il Segreto Per Esser Felici). In fact, she even interpolated a particularly florid cadenza, which brought the house down. Howells, on the other hand, sings "come scritto", and barely eeks it out at that.
The complamari roles are badly sung, too.
So, is this DVD worth it? Yes, if only for La Stupenda. Thankfully, videotaped opera performances became standard by the time Joanie hit her late prime. If you want to enjoy Sutherland on purely vocal terms, there are her studio recordings from the sixites and seventies. However, though her voice (somewhat) changed by the early eighties, her acting became much improved. My favorite moment in the whole DVD is when Joan sneers at Alfonso d'Este. Acting ability aside, it is Joan's consummate professionalism and rock-solid bel canto technique that matter the most. It's too bad that the polite British audience doesn't give the diva any extended applause. Then again, had this been an Italian audience, the hissing and booing for the other singers, Kraus aside, would have been unbearable.
As a final point, I think that what weighs the production down even further is Richard Bonynge's conducting. Perhaps due to lack of rehearsal time, the orchestra sounds downright pedestrian, with no vigor or excitement.
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