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DVD : Igor Stravinsky - Le Rossignol (The Nightingale)/ Dessay, McLaughlin, Urmana, Grivnov, Schagidullin, Naouri, Mikhailov, ConlonIn association with Amazon.comRating:  - Extraordinary and Beautiful Re-imaginingThis amazing film blends 3-D computer graphics with live action and it is simply brimming with creativity and ideas. The tips of hundreds of violin bows appear out of the mist-covered ground. We inhabit a weird yet wonderful world run by an all-powerful "man behind the curtain" who happens to be personified by two black gloves manipulating an enormous control console. "He" has hundreds of assistents sitting in front of computer screens, typing away in rhythm with the music. There are Gigantic Chinese Urns inhabited with dancing girls instead of Genii. There are courtiers who appear as heads inside of Chinese lanterns. There are crowds of black-gloves applauding wildly and pointing at the scenery to get some bit of stagecraft done. There is a cigarette-smoking death (Violeta Urmana), in league with a mad flying, clicking bar-code applier, and there is the Nightingale (Natalie Dessay) who sings most beautifully, and makes a present of a cellphone to the Great Emperor. Does all of this sound weird? Well, I suppose it is... a bit. But it is also stunning, moving, and, yes, even awe inspiring. Rating: - magical performanceChristian Chaudet's film of Le Rossignol is mesmerizing; the graphics that create the magical kingdom are equivalent to anyone's finest dream. Natalie Dessay's wordless vocals, throughout, mingling with the rest of the magic in the kingdom makes for an undescribably satisfying evening of watching and listening. Rating: - Classical AnimationI tuned into this midway through late one night on PBS and had to find out what it was. The mix of live action and CG is totally captivating, no small achievement in this age of big-budget special effects. I especially appreciate how the imagery, which cleverly integrates a campy Orientalism with the paraphernalia of the digital age, has a brash, disturbing edge to it that matches Stravinsky's music. This isn't your grandma's Hans Christian Andersen, and I don't think Stravinsky wanted it to be. Christian Chaudet deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to re-enchant these classics while staying true to their spirit. Well worth watching. Rating:  - A Spectacular FollyStravinsky's Le Rossignol [the Nightingale]is a remarkably beautiful piece. Natalie Dessay, James Conlon, and all the musical forces engaged in the work perform with remarkable warmth and charm. And, one must admit, Christian Chaudet's computerized animation is truly spectacular. Why then, is this DVD such a failure as an operatic film? A written opera merges two forms of artistic creativity: that of the dramaticist -- the libretto with the music of the composer. Le Rossignol is based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen: The nightingale is a bird of unassuming appearance but with the most beautiful voice. Its song enchants a lowly Chinese fisherman, and then word of it reaches the Emperor and his court. All are captivated by its song until the Emperor of Japan sends a spectacular, artificial nightingale as a present to the Emperor of China. Then the Court forgets the natural bird until the Chinese Emperor lies dying. There is a moral here: The beauty of nature, often forgotten, is ultimately more lovely and enduring than those of artifice. Chaudet has forgotten this moral. In Chaudet's film, when the nightingale sings in the forest, spectacular Chinese parisols spring up and twirl, but the "forest" is all but without plants. While Stravinsky contrasts the tender lyricism of the nightingale with striking artifice of Japan's, Chaudet is all artifice and special effects. The Disney in him corrupts and defeats the delicate beauty of this tale. Rating: - Stunning objet d'art finds its way to the publicAs I watched this DVD with giddy anticipation, already a lover of Stravinsky and even his much-maligned opera "Le Rossignol" - one he started and then abandoned in order to start and complete his triptych of ballets, L'oiseau de feu, Petrouchka, Le Sacre du printemps, only to return to Rossignol as a man with a very different harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary, thus creating something of a stylistic collision between Act 1 and Acts 2 and 3 - I kept shaking my head in sweet disbelief that this production was green-lighted for director Christian Chaudet, so dazzlingly creative is his vision, his colorfully whimsical and yet artful application of CGI-based environments and chinoiserie; a visual feast beyond compare that will forever change the way you look at porcelain china :), and yet all very much in the service of Stravinsky's score. In the liner notes, Chaudet admits that the music is in no way the soundtrack to his film, but commendably, the images are the soundtrack to Stravinsky's music. And yet, the film transcends the opera genre, being in no way a literal depiction of the libretto, and for that matter could find a happy home in any families' collection of adventurous Miyazaki films (perhaps even alongside an animated Disney title like Alice in Wonderland). And all of this is to say nothing of Natalie Dessay's ethereally beautiful Nightingale, with fine contributions from all of the cast, including a well-paced and perfectly colorful rendering of the score by James Conlon and the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Paris. Bravo! |
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