4 reviews
Sales Rank: 26945

Format: Classical, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Ntsc, Subtitled
Languages: German (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 253
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6

MPN: 000916609
UPC: 044007343104
EAN: 0044007343104
ASIN: B000OONQ1M

Theatrical Release Date: 1983
Release Date: August 14, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars

Stunning singing, slightly odd production May 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I fell in love with the story of the Trojan War, even before I sold my soul to classical music. So naturally I was drawn to this production of "Les Troyens." And there are some astonishing moments here! Norman is wildly gripping in the part of Cassandra, totally dominating the stage and the first part of the opera. Domingo makes for a strong, masculine Aeneas, and although he had some doubts about singing the part, does a fine job with it. Troyanos is good, but not as blisteringly magnificent as Norman.

I do have some problems with the staging, however. Right from the beginning, which should burst at the seems with wild excitement, we get the Trojans walking out, lining up, and declaiming that they are generally pleased the war is over. Um, couldn't they scurry, dance, hug...? The costumes seem to be of the historical epic type, but the er, "sets" are modernist symbolic. Is that the Trojan Horse they drag within the walls...? But don't get me wrong -- a solid production with some incredible singing, acting, and orchestral playing in a rich, fascinating opera that is too vast to be produced regularly. Very rewarding.

4 out of 5 stars

Great Cast\Production-still prefer Gardiner September 15, 2007
6 out of 11 found this review helpful

If a cast boasting the names Placido Domingo, J. Norman, and Tatiana Troyanos isnt enough to entice you or merely catch your interest-you dont know a thing about opera. But to say that (despite this stellar cast) this is the best DVD version out there when the Gardiner production is still in the DVD catalog- you appreciate fine opera even less. For me, this served to prove how fine the Gardiner production, with names no one will recognize with the exception of Susan Graham, is. For one, Gardiner seems like he truly relishes in the score-which is, despite many naysayers-truly a sublime work of art that reaps huge rewards on repeated listening. The first aria alone, with Cassandre singing about how everyone in troy, including her lover Choreble, thinks she is mad reveals how stunning the Gardiner is compared to this production. Cassandre steals the show.
One point that the met has is the staging is, overall finer and more complex while the Gardiner is refined and quasi-minimalist but ingenious at the same time-again look to the opening aria and compare.
The met production may be more entertaining visually, but the Gardiner is better musically-so you decide based on that.
Of CD versions-go with either of Davis' two versions-the new one is much cheaper and in my opinion better

5 out of 5 stars

Order And Excess September 11, 2007
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

It is gratifying to see this, one of the most enticing Met DVDs to have been issued on the now-defunct Pioneer label, emerge from out-of-print limbo. DG's reissue has spread it over two discs and remastered it, and it looks and sounds splendid for the effort. Claims for greatly improved sound and picture often are dubious, but having seen and heard this, I am tempted to re-buy the label's similar spiffing-up of the rather good Pioneer DON CARLO (an artifact of the same era) after all.

TROYENS, Berlioz's ambitious and comprehensive setting of Virgil's AENEID, is a challenging opera for theaters and audiences alike. It had made its belated Met debut in 1974 under the baton of its great champion Maestro Rafael Kubelik, and was chosen to inaugurate the theater's centennial season in the fall of 1983. For more than one reason, we are fortunate that a television broadcast from the run preserved the undertaking for posterity. For starters, there will never be a great abundance of recordings of TROYENS (although there are at present two other DVD versions), and the lead roles on this one reflect luxury casting at the most extravagant level. Jessye Norman, Tatiana Troyanos, and Placido Domingo provide (literally) hours of ravishingly beautiful singing, and they are not simply empty-headed generators of pretty tone. They are all diligent and sophisticated musicians, and their work here has that rare frisson one encounters when singers of the first rank, at the peak of their capabilities, are seen and heard measuring themselves against roles in which they have not settled into a comfortable routine. There is the electricity of the special occasion, so rare in operatic videos.

This brings me to a second major reason to be grateful this exists: our supertenor did not keep Enee in his vast repertoire for long. This was the one and only production in which he sang it; no studio recording exists; and the high tessitura of the role was such a source of anxiety and second thoughts for him that he asked a few months before opening night to be released from his contract. Ever the professional, he stipulated that if no suitable replacement could be found, he would give the role his all, not least out of loyalty to Maestro Levine. Presumably no such replacement could be found in time. I would not be able to blame the Met administration if it only conducted a halfhearted search. TROYENS was not an easy sell in 1983 (and is little easier today); its conspicuous scheduling on opening night must have loomed large on the calendar; and I imagine the Met staff was collectively ulcerating at the thought of losing Domingo's marquee value for such a prestigious event. Whatever the case, he did end up singing the prima and the broadcast before withdrawing. His reviews were mostly very good, but he has admitted (in his book MY OPERATIC ROLES) to having some divo's wounded feelings about the carping of a vocal minority that he had transposed down a small portion of the tenor's music (what amounted to about eight pages in a score as long as TRISTAN, as one defender put it), after all the hard work and worry he had put into his Enee. He vowed never to touch the role again. With benefit of hindsight, he now thinks of the performance as a great career triumph, in large part because of his and Troyanos's performance of the love duet in Act IV. And he is right -- they are mesmerizing in what is without doubt the high point of a lengthy and varied score.

Troyanos, with stiff competition, all but runs away with the evening; her regal yet sympathetic Didon, with pride and pathos in exquisite balance, gains easy admission to the short list of the finest performances in my audio-plus-video library. Her performance is as impressive qua acting as it is qua vocalism. Jessye Norman is more of a temperamental match for Didon than for the role she sings, Cassandre, and she has given more subtle performances, but there is no gainsaying her intensity. With the full weight of that blockbuster voice behind Cassandre's volcanic, wild-eyed agitations in the first two acts, you wonder how this character's prophecies ever could be ignored.

With such a commanding trio at the top of the order, it is only a mild disappointment that the bench proves not so deep. Assorted "major-minor" roles are no more than adequately filled. Allan Monk's Chorebe is the best of them -- my initial impression was that he was simply not up to Norman's scale in their duet early on (a tall order, admittedly; in her 1983 form, she would have knocked flat most baritones); but on closer inspection, one can divine shadings to what he does, and the instrument itself is of good quality. Later, however, we encounter a yelpy, pinched Iopas (his lovely solo goes for little), a slightly woolly Narbal, and an Anna who poses no risk of steering one's attention away from the Didon.

Both the production and the musical leadership are marked by good sense, lucidity, and a faith and trust in Berlioz's score. Fabrizio Melano makes use of a simple revolving stage in a series of stark, methodical tableaux that constantly direct the viewer to the humanizing efforts of the singing actors, rather than to lavish appointments. The effect is pleasingly...well, spartan. Conductor Levine, who often seems to be passing off lethargy as profundity in Wagner, and tends toward an empty, featureless efficiency in much Italian standard rep (especially early-to-middle Verdi), puts his formidable smarts to good use here. Berlioz's overgrown problem child emerges as more unified than it has elsewhere in my experience -- the two Trojan acts are unusually convincing; the three musically stronger Carthaginian ones that follow seem to join them as part of an organic whole. Levine does particularly well by "big" passages (of which there are many); the orchestral climaxes and massed choral business have weight and power but also a fine sense of order to them. The music never sounds like spectacle and noise for its own sake; it has inevitability, grandeur. The avoidance of autopilot extends even to the conducting of the ballet sequences (of which, again, there are many; this will please or annoy, to taste, and you know who you are). It nearly goes without saying that Levine's orchestra and chorus are spectacular, surely far advanced from what Kubelik had had nine years earlier.

It would be a shame if this got lost in the shuffle of highly professional/competent modern Met runthroughs on DVD, for it is a TROYENS that deserves to be seen and considered by listeners at all levels of familiarity: those already under the work's spell, those who know it and remain skeptical, and those coming new to it. For the last-named group, I can imagine no better introduction.

5 out of 5 stars

Brought New Standards to Opera Telecasts. August 1, 2007
8 out of 14 found this review helpful

Saw this live at the Met. Watched the TV simulcast. Bought the Laserdisc version. Bought the DVD version. Enough said? Les Troyens has never been a very popular opera, but with this cast, it definitely should be considered. Okay, it really is not a great opera - here I go again - this cast makes up for any of the opera's short comings. I mean the music and story really don't pull you in emotionally.

James Levine's wonderful shaping of the music and generous support for the singers does bring the level of Les Troyens into a must/should see opera. That is if you really like, and would like to experience, opera beyond the current (and sometimes over worked) operas being staged by most opera companies today. I understand the economics of the opera companies' decisions to perform the warhorses that bring in the most audiences; most frequently. But it is refreshing to discover or be exposed to some of the lesser known works.

So buy this DVD! You might just discover something new.