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DVD : Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth / Nucci, Verrett, Riccardo Chailly, Teatro Comunale di Bologna (1987 film)In association with Amazon.comstarring: Leo Nucci, Shirley Verrett, Samuel Ramey, Johan Leysen, Veriano Luchetti directed by: Riccardo Chailly, Claude d'Anna  List Price: $39.98 Amazon.com's Price: $27.97 You Save: $12.01 (30%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD EAN: 0044007343807 Format: NTSC, Subtitled, DTS Surround Sound Label: Deutsche Grammophon Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon Number Of Items: 2 Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon Release Date: January 08, 2008 Running Time: 177 minutes Studio: Deutsche Grammophon Theatrical Release Date: 1987 Sales Rank: 33073 MPN: 001040309 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Amazon.com: Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà , rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting. Samuel Ramey's sonorous bass is the soundtrack Banquo, who's acted by Johan Leysen. Philip Volter is the actor playing Macduff to the brilliant tenor of Veriano Luchetti. So there's little to fault in this performance of a middle-period Verdi opera that's all too rarely done these days despite its Shakespearean pedigree and tuneful but dramatic score. This film version was hailed in Europe when it was released, but some viewers may find it excessively gloomy while others will feel it suits the dark tale of ambition, crime, and madness. D'Anna's witches are primordial creatures first seen crawling out of the slime of a corpse-filled battlefield. Most of the film takes place in Macbeth's castle, shot in an actual 10th-century Belgian castle's subterranean series of rooms, armories, dungeons, and tunnels. Lady Macbeth's Letter Scene is filmed with Verrett wandering down staircases and through tunnels, all in long shots. Duncan's arrival is like a traveling circus troupe, preceded by a fire eater and a juggler, the king carried in a covered litter, only his hand emerging to be kissed by Macbeth and to stroke the head of the man about to murder him. Banquo's ghost is made visible, seated on Macbeth's throne during the debaucheries of the Banquet Scene. These and other directorial choices are driven by D'Anna's personal vision of the play and the music, often taking his cue from the latter, as in Duncan's arrival which Verdi set to jaunty orchestral music. Others reflect his linkage of crime with the Macbeth couple's sexual dependence. But his vision of the narrative and of specific scenes doesn't violate Shakespeare's story or Verdi's opera, though there will be moments when sensitive viewers may prefer to glance away from the sheer ugliness of the witches or wonder why the singers occasionally turn their backs to the cameras in mid-aria. Much is explained though, in the 45-minute film on the second DVD on the making of the film in which the sheer physical obstacles of the project are explicated and the director's choices clarified. --Dan Davis Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Great recording, poorly filmedExcellent casting, beautiful recording, very nicely chosen environments, and being a great admirer of madame verrett, this film version of my favorite verdi opera with her performance as lady macbeth seemed at first destined to be a great production. But the visual direction is terribly detached from the music. not even a trace of musical inspiration can be found in it. For instance, during lady macbeth's whole grand aria in the first act, Madame Verrett comes up and down pointlessly from some dark ... Read More Rating:  - Macbeth a la Conan the BarbarianIf you like barbarian type movies (I've never been able to sit through one), I think you will love this opera set in the gloomy underbelly of a 10th Century Belgian castle. Apparently, also set in the days before the invention of personal hygiene, most of the villagers and castle personnel are streaked with grime and appear unkept and squalid. The many soldiers are concealed beneath medieval armor. The worst (or best) of all this creepiness are the black-haired, blue-skinned witches who ... Read More Rating:  - Pretty goodThis is a pretty good version of Verdi's Macbeth. I tend to favour movie versions -- perhaps because the vast majority of operas on DVD are filmed performances in opera houses, and I just like to see something different. This 1987 version (only now released on DVD) has many of the qualities one looks for in a good film version of an opera: it is superbly filmed and the setting is ideal(the indoor scenes are filmed in an ancient Belgian crusader's castle, including some great shots in the catacombs). It ... Read More Rating: - GOOD DARK VERSION IN A TERRIBLE TRANSFERI basically agree with previous reviewers about the excellence of the singing (though Nucci doesn't erase memories of greater interpreters of the title role, Verret is terrific) and the movie director has good ideas (even if he considers some obscene (?) in the interesting hour long documentary on the making of the film). So why only two stars? Because the transfer of this 1987 movie is just dreadful. Colours are faded, the picture suffers from scratches and dirt and at times even looks out of focus. I ... Read More Rating:  - Verdi's youthful, bloody ShakespeareVerdi's love for Shakespeare is well known. He kept a copy of his complete works, translated into Italian, at his bedside, reading them ... studying them throughout his long life. I suspect that Verdi learned what constituted a great stage production by absorbing those pages over many years. But it was only in his later years, with his final two operas, that Verdi managed to somehow 'channel' Shakespeare, and the composer's art and the playwright's art were finally united into two works of towering perfection, ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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