Puccini, Callas etc on video

Posted by John C. - Aussie (A) on April 24, 2007 at 18:05:29

Music loving friends around the other night and we concentrated on Puccini this time.

First up the excellent BBC bio which gave us new iunsight into this man and his music, particularly the symphonic approach he adopted. His personal philanderings and excessive consumerism were also fascinating.

We followed this up with an excellent documentary done by Film Australia showing the trials and tribulations (and there were many) putting together an Opera Australia production of "Tosca" (Joan Carden as the star) with far too little rehearsal time. But they pulled it off!

Last video was the only operatic one ever made (in the 1960's) of Callas, singing Act 2 of "Tosca" with Tito Gobbi. Black and white with initially excrutiating mono sound, but the artistry was so hair raising we soon became spellbound by the brilliant performances.

The evening finished by listening to a couple of tracks from the excellent EMI classics recording (7243 5 57159 2 0) of his Op 1 Preludo sinfonio for orchestra and then the final Agnus Dei from the Mass.

It is far too easy to dismiss Puccini as relatively lightweight operatically when judging on "La Boheme" and "Butterfly" but we came away from the evening with much greater respect for his compositions. And, as for Callas, what a brilliant yet tragic life the woman had. The press loved having a field day painting her as temperamental etc but the biggest tragedy was Onassis persuading her to abandon her singing for him but then ditching her unceremoniously for Jackie. At least we have a wealth of audio recortdings. If only there were more operatic videos produced we could appreciate even more here superb acting skills which accompanied her singing. OK, not a perfect presentation every time, but her passion is unmatched and is just so infectious it is difficult not to be moved.

John

Do not criticise the idiots in this world - we need them as they make the rest of us look so much better :-)

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Topic - Puccini, Callas etc on video - John C. - Aussie 18:05:29 04/24/07 (1)

There is an excellent 10minute video clip of Callas and Gobbi - BarneyT 13:10:59 04/25/07 (0)

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