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 Operavox :: 0618486054
Description
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| An ambitious experiment by the BBC that ultimately fails, Operavox attempts to condense six famous operas into animated half-hours. The limited time forces the filmmakers to present the stories in clunky English translations, while reducing the celebrated scores to musical mincemeat. The stop-motion animators come the closest to succeeding. Barry J.C. Purves captures the malevolent pleasures and crushing sorrows of the court of Mantua in his atmospheric rendition of Verdi's Rigoletto. Natalia Dabizha's softer, more traditional puppets give Rossini's The Barber of Seville the feeling of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, but she manages to preserve a suitably comic tone. Valeri Oganov treats Mozart's sublime Magic Flute as if it were an episode from Yellow Submarine, while Graham Ralph tries to turn Wagner's Das Rheingold into Heavy Metal, with Freya in a Frazetta-esque bikini. Mario Cavalli paints over live-action footage for his singularly ugly--and barely animated--version of Bizet's Carmen, while Gary Hurst's retelling of Puccini's Turandot boasts chinoiserie backgrounds that are more interesting than the animation in front of them. The performances by the Welsh National Opera under various conductors are adequate at best, with the singers painfully overtaxed in what should be the most beautiful moments. Unrated; suitable for ages 13 and older for nudity, violence, drinking, and adult themes. --Charles Solomon Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
Reviews
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Author: Guest
Simple put, I have seen most of these Operas in one iteration or another. I actually bought it for my daughters (3 and 5) after seeing an excerpt of "Barber of Seville" on a cable station. My wife and I love the ballet and Opera and want our children to do the same.The stop action puppeteering on "BoS" is amazing and suitable for little ones, who might appreciate the arts. That being said, the rest of the Operas are questionable (for little eyes). Since the girls have seen "Carmen", and love it, it seemed digestible; with "The Magic Flute" a close third (very "Yellow Submarine-ish" and a little scary, like most good opera). The other 3 are confusing and dark and I will not show them until they are older (say 10 or so). Opera's need more exposure to younger viewers and this is a fair start. I wouldn't recommend for anyone who's looking to enrich little minds...they might have nightmares. If anyone knows of an Opera compilation for little ones, pass it on!
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Author: Guest
Operavox is a series of six animated operas- Verdi's "Rigoletto", Bizet's "Carmen", Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", Wagner's "Rhinegold", Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and Puccini's "Turandot". Each of the operas has been adapted into half-hour animations- each one in a different style and translated into English, to make the story easier to follow.
Even as a teenager with a keen interest in music, I find that Operas are too long and too involved to take much interest in; however, Operavox was fantastic. It wasn't too long, it contained all the main points in the story, and it was interesting to the eye.
I would describe Operavox as "Opera for beginners". It's perfect for anybody studying Opera in music, anybody who cannot sit through hours of Music, or even just for the mildly curious. The only thing that comes a disappointment is that there were only six of them made.
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Author: Guest
I know that lots of people where disappointed with these 30 minute cartoon versions of 3 hour operas, but I guess I just loved 'em. I'm 13 and for years I have been shoved into an image of opera as uptight garbage for people with a strange taste for boredom, but while searching thru the DVD section at my library, I found OperaVox and my mind just opened up to opera. I discovered operas to have exciting storylines, beautiful characters, and music that is much more than a bunch of Italian gobbledygook. Okay, so they where in English and didn't fully express the grandeur of opera, but for young people and those who find opera to be a foreign mess not to be touched upon by the average person, it can inspire further exploration and appreciation of opera. I have tickets to see Turandot (with real people, nice seats, supertitles...) and I hope to see more in the future. It's all thanks to OperaVox. I recommend OperaVox to anyone who thinks opera is boring. They are about to be proven wrong. I must warn you that you should not show Rigoletto to too young of people. Naked puppets can be a little scary.
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Author: Guest
I had eagerly anticipated this disc, but was greatly disappointed in the quality of the sound and the animation. Each of the segments was animated in a different style, and some of them worked OK but some did not work well at all. The Rigoletto, for example, was entertaining and imaginative, but the Magic Flute was disorganized and the story line was almost missing. The Carmen was probably the best of the bunch and the Turandot was probably overall the worst--bad, in fact.The sound was disappointing because the balance was off-the orchestra sometimes overpowered the singers. The singers were generally quite good. The singers were sometimes hard to understand, and the disc would have been better with subtitles, even though all the singing was in English. I love good animation and opera but this just wasn't it.
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Author: Guest
A mixture of animation styles: drawn, rotoscope, and stop-action puppets. Some adaptations are more successful than others: "Das Rheingold" looks like a Stan Lee/Saturday morning kids' cartoon, but the stop-action puppetry of "The Barber of Seville" works well for this comic opera. "Carmen" is rotoscoped, rather like the animated "Lord of the Ring". Taken for what it is ( 3-hour long operas reduced to 30 minute cartoons ), I recommend it to fans of animation, and opera goers with a taste for the unconventional.
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