Lo Frate Nnamorato (Sub)

Actor: Alessandro Corbelli , Nuccia Focile , Amelia Felle , Bernadette Manca di Nissa , Luciana D'Intino
Director: John Michael Phillips
ISBN: 6303201520
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Manufacturer: Homevision
Customer Rating:

, based on 2 reviews

Lowest Price: $15.03
By Supplier: lit-4-less

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Editorial Review:

If his life had not been so tragically short, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) might have become a friend of Mozart. Musically, he is a predecessor. He used the idioms of baroque comic opera (which were much more flexible than the rigid forms of opera seria) to convey emotional depths as well as hilarity. Sometimes he anticipates Mozart's style a half-century later. Most of the time, Lo Frate 'Nnamorato (using a Neapolitan dialect that makes the subtitles doubly welcome) is a delightfully melodious romp through standard opera buffa situations: servants are smarter than their masters, old men scheme to marry young women who find ingenious ways to resist patriarchal pressure, young lovers have silly quarrels. The music is splendid and beautifully performed. There is much virtuoso singing and Ricardo Muti stylishly conducts a small orchestra of period instruments. The visual elements--sets, costumes, and acting--are all excellent. Baroque comic opera has been underrepresented in video recordings, but this outstanding production does a lot to make amends. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews:

Buy this opera for the singing alone

This 3 hour opera purports to be 100% Pergolesi. I wouldn't want to have to swear to that, but certainly the music is quite nice and is baroque with a few classical touches. R. Muti conducts a portion of the La Scala orchestra along with arch lutes, theorbos, and harpsichord. The playing is very good, though the string sound is more what I expect of a more modern period. I won't list all the singers, none of whom I recognize except for the Marcaniello (Alessandro Corbelli). There are 6 almost equally important soprano roles and each is sung extremely well. Several of the sopranos are so good that you can only wish the opera were longer so that you could here more. The male roles are well sung and the Marcaniello is excellent for the comic old codger role. While the plot is inconsequential, the comedy is very well done.

2001-08-22

Italian baroque opera treat....lose a star for dvd transfer

The sound is excellent, the menu is good, the performance is delightful. I turned up the "sharpness" on my Sony 7000 player to compensate for softness. Fortunately, the lighting is great which helps. I think that the softness is the result of a less than premium conversion from the European video system. Nevertheless this kind of thing must be enormously expensive to produce. We should be thankfull to IMAGE for it. I love the disk. I look forward to some "DDD" (all digital) opera dvds of 1998 performances.

1998-12-02