Bellini: I Puritani

There are many memorable scenes. Anna Netrebko is the indisputable star. Her enthusiasm is sufficiently contagious that it brings out the best of Eric Cutler, John Relyea, Franco Vassallo, and even conductor Patrick Summers. The performers have a field day with A Te O Cara, the mad scene, Credeasi Misera, and the Riccardo-Arturo duet. They all know they did a super performance. Whereas Elvira is a plum role, Arturo is exactly the opposite - a torturous and thankless role. No tenor in his right mind would want to sing Arturo. To his credit, gutsy Eric Cutler does more than a credible job. Eric's reward? Bellini lets him keep the girl.Anna Netrebko possesses a natural stage instinct. Performing in front of a large audience, she is also fully cognizant of the cameras. She performs not only with her voice, but also her face. Her eyes speak volumes. When Eric Cutler sings the beautiful A Te O Cara to her, her eyes are fixated toward the stratosphere, vividly displaying her passion toward Arturo. Her facial expression and body language is synchronized with her singing. This is the stuff that great sopranos are made of. Her performance brings back old memories of live performances by the great Anna Moffo and Maria Callas. The pleasure of watching Callas is 30% vocal and 70% magnetism. One remembers a Callas performance forever.Anna chooses to deliver a dynamic and powerful performance - reminiscent of Moffo & Callas. Elvira is a teenager. There is so much energy in Anna's Mad Scene. She explodes with teenage energy. She runs all over the stage while singing Qui La Voce, and even rolls over in front of Patrick Summers. She jumps up a bench in her long dress with total disregard for falling. How many Elviras can do that?. The audience love her. She is Elvira!!The background scenery is 30 year old. I love it. Leave it alone for another 30 years. The color balance is superb, unlike most opera DVDs. The sound is top notch.The interview with Renee Fleming brings cute and light moments. Anna has an excellent sense of humor. Renee admiringly asks how she manages to make everything appear so natural. She responds by distorting her face, like a teenager, to demonstrate how not to do it. What a treat !! The reigning prima donna of opera making faces in front of a camera to be seen all over the world. My admiration for her jumps another notch.I have four DVDs on Puritani. The four Elviras are Netrebko, Machaidze, Gruberova, and Cantarero. Netrebko's performance is the most memorable. Machaidze exhibits super-charged chemistry with Juan Diego Flores in the third act, but the color balance of the DVD stinks, due to poor lighting. Gruberova has a sweet and delicate voice, but lacks stage magnetism. Canterero never has a chance. That opera is poorly directed. The singing and acting appear to be more about Nazis than Puritans.This is one of the most outstanding opera DVDs in every respect. I would buy it at any cost.

I first saw this Met's production of I Puritani on HD screening at the movies. The video quality wasn't very good and rather dark, and there were a few technical glitches like the end of the last scene was cut off. I was amazed, in comparison, that this DVD is sharp with excellent video and audio quality. If your intent, watching this production, is to hear the 'Elvira' of this or that soprano, forget it and turn it off. If you want to see and hear Netrebko's Elvira, keep it going and you'll be in heaven. As with her other DVDs, Netrebko steals the show, theatrically and vocally. In her duet after the mad scene, she outsings Cutler, as she's been doing all along with all the other tenors. Netrebko's voice size is getting larger without affecting her lyricism, legato, flexibility and color. Netrebko's mad scene is a case in point what grand opera is all about: theater using music to convey drama. Without theater, historically, there would be no opera. Opera was conceptualized by the opera founding fathers as the means to serve the theater. Greeks invented the theater with its chorus, etc., and the Florentines added music for dramatic effect. That's why, thematically, the first operas, like Daphne and Orfeo and many others later, were based on Greek dramaturgy. All opera aficionados talk about the voice, the Goddess of opera, and that's true. On the other hand, if the voice is expressed with body language- theater, acting- the dramatic effect can be profound. That's where Netrebko comes in. Some said that lying on her back, with her hair flowing over the orchestra pit was a cheap trick. I'm sure she didn't ask for it, but stage directors use her unique physicallity and athleticism to enhance drama that we haven't seen in a long time. On the strength of Nerebko's merging theatricality and vocalism in the mad scene, this DVD deserves five stars and is highly recommended.Constantine A. PapasEl Paso, Texas

This performance which I saw in HD broadcast, is superb in all respects. Puritani, though quite beautiful, is quite a static opera. Musically, what creates momentum is the profligacy and haunting quality of its melodic content, and the underlying rhythmic diversity present throughout the work. Thus much depends on the conductor. He has to let the melodies soar but keep taut control of the rhythms, flexibility without slackness. How Bellini came to use so much polonaise in dealing with Scottish Puritans is a puzzlement, but it works very well. Mr. Summers, whom I had never heard of before, is very good and he succeeds admirably in not letting matters wilt while never rushing anything. Besides its admirable set pieces, Puritani is full of little musical moments, almost throwaway beautiful two- or three-bar melodic phrases that make one comprehend the great respect with which Bellini was regarded by both Chopin and Wagner. A conductor cannot underline all of these, otherwise the performance becomes one of fits and starts, but they need to be noticed, with subtlety. Mr. Summers understands this very well and executes accordingly. It is ironic how much this opera, considered pre-eminently a singers' work, depends, to be truly effective, on the person silently wielding the baton. Of course, there is the very dramatic "mad" scene Bellini provided for Elvira, pretty much out of nowhere, but even that is anchored by one of the most beautiful melodies ever written. Anna Netrebko is marvelous throughout, and excels in Qui La Voce and its aftermath. It's quite a haunting, dramatic performance that will long be remembered. You will gasp. The rest of the cast performs admirably, Mr. Cutler providing solid technique, poise and feeling in one of the highest tessitura tenor roles around.The production is handsome and simple. The direction is smart, and in the case of Netrebko, brilliant. This is a DVD I will get and I'm sure I'll return to several times.

Very good!

Helt fantastiskt.

Me ha encantado el canto, decorado ... vamos todo, obra genial.

This was theGreat performance i saw in the theater from the Met live in HD .beautifully sung and acted .Anna Netrebco is amazing and so beautiful .Great value it cost me less than the ticket to the theater

I Puritani, opera fragile dal punto di vista drammatico, viene impreziosita dal Bellini con melodie d'incomparabile bellezza ! La Netrebko ( Elvira ) ne da' un'interpretazione Fantastica' . DVD quindi consigliabilissimo agli amanti dell'opera e di Bellini !