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Rating: 
Summary: Blanched
Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is arguably the finest American play of the 20th Century. Williams has graced it with his genius. Previn and Fleming (this Blanche) spend several hours turning genius into recitative boredom. Not a single soaring melody issues from any throat, not a single great William's line is left unscathed by a roly-poly, screechy Blanche and the mundane rearranging of the play's magnificent lyric dialogue by Littel. One longs for musical greatness; what one gets is a miscast Blanche, mundane direction, poor costumes and music which plods along, relentlessly destroying great literature for Previn's own misguided dissonances.
Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding production
Review: A Streetcar Named Desire often seems more of a play set to music than it does a traditional opera. The cast look the part of the characters they play, the setting and props are realistic, and the performers act their parts realistically rather than with stylized poses and gestures. Many operas in English are still incomprehensible without subtitles, but that is not the case here. The music itself is secondary to the drama; it sets the mood without being harsh or distracting. Renee Fleming is fabulous as always, but no less impressive are the other singers. It's not your typical opera, but altogether highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A Dissenting View
Review: I bought this opera and I believe that the reviews below are accurate in most senses. The scenery, orchestral playing, singing, and acting are all excellent, without exception. My objection is that this opera IS close to the original play and the original play is ambiguous and unpleasant. The music created to support the play is mostly atonal and unpleasant to my ear creating an experience that many people will want to avoid. So while well done, I would recommend caution in considering buying this tape.
Rating:
Summary: A Dissenting View
Review: I bought this opera and I believe that the reviews below are accurate in most senses. The scenery, orchestral playing, singing, and acting are all excellent, without exception. My objection is that this opera IS close to the original play and the original play is ambiguous and unpleasant. The music created to support the play is mostly atonal and unpleasant to my ear creating an experience that many people will want to avoid. So while well done, I would recommend caution in considering buying this tape.
Rating:
Summary: Previn and San Fran. Opera out-Tennessee Tennessee Williams!
Review: I don't know. Maybe Tennessee Williams wrote operas and just forgot the music. Phillip Littell's libretto is faithful to Williams in great detail and he has added beautiful arias for the principals in complete harmony with their characters. Previn's music weaves it all together and evokes the atmosphere of New Orleans so naturally I can't remember how the play worked without it. I saw the telecast of the SFO's world premiere and recorded it, but the video is far superior to the telecast because the editors covered all the staging problems encountered by SFO. When I first heard that SFO had commissioned an opera of 'Streetcar' I said Blanche must be played by Renee Fleming, but had no other casting ideas. Fleming was perfect alright; when she sang I could smell Blanche's perfume. I know there were Stanley Kowalskis before Rodney Gilfrey, but who were they? Then there was Elizabeth Futral. Her singing, acting and LOOK made me smell a more natural aroma of juicy Stella. She was vocally, dramatically and visually so stunning that I think I'll shut up now. American operas and especially late 20th century operas rarely make my short list but this one is very near the top. Now, who's going to compose 'The Glass Menagerie'?
Rating:
Summary: One of the few new operas that really hit the mark.
Review: Many, many new operas written each year. Some of them get workshopped by an opera company, and even fewer get to the stage of actually being performed in front of a paying audience. Now, if the composer has a name like Andre Previn, and the work is based on one of the twentieth centuries best know plays from one of America's most respected writers you most definitely have a head start. However, actually making all of these elements work together as a cohesive and worthwhile whole is the true challenge, and this new opera has met and exceed the expectations of that challenge. Here is a work that enhances the effect of the original rather than defacing it or 'dumbing it down'. The music is beautifully evocative of the time and place in which the drama is set, and has the huge benefit of being composed by a man who is also a jazz musican, and therefore understands that less often creates more. The libretto has been skillfully 'arranged' from the original play so that well known lines are still as they appeared in the original, but has been augmented for moments when there is more time needed to expand the original thoughts musically. The direction of Colin Graham is masterly, naturalistic and truly based on the development of each of the characters. The set is extremely clever in its simplicity, and yet still creates exactly the right claustrophobic atmosphere. And finally, the performances will be very hard to better. Renee Fleming is a singing actress of considerable stature who creates a new Blanche DuBois that is full of complexity and 'guts'. Both Elizabeth Futral and Rodney Gilfry give of their considerable best as Stella and Stanley, and also both look exactly right for the roles they play. The supporting cast are all quite exceptional and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the baton of the composer run the full gambit styles, making huge lush sounds when needed, and even more surprisingly, sounding truly 'jazzy' at other times. A triumph for all concerned, and a joy to experience at home.
Rating:
Summary: One of the few new operas that really hit the mark.
Review: Many, many new operas written each year. Some of them get workshopped by an opera company, and even fewer get to the stage of actually being performed in front of a paying audience. Now, if the composer has a name like Andre Previn, and the work is based on one of the twentieth centuries best know plays from one of America's most respected writers you most definitely have a head start. However, actually making all of these elements work together as a cohesive and worthwhile whole is the true challenge, and this new opera has met and exceed the expectations of that challenge. Here is a work that enhances the effect of the original rather than defacing it or 'dumbing it down'. The music is beautifully evocative of the time and place in which the drama is set, and has the huge benefit of being composed by a man who is also a jazz musican, and therefore understands that less often creates more. The libretto has been skillfully 'arranged' from the original play so that well known lines are still as they appeared in the original, but has been augmented for moments when there is more time needed to expand the original thoughts musically. The direction of Colin Graham is masterly, naturalistic and truly based on the development of each of the characters. The set is extremely clever in its simplicity, and yet still creates exactly the right claustrophobic atmosphere. And finally, the performances will be very hard to better. Renee Fleming is a singing actress of considerable stature who creates a new Blanche DuBois that is full of complexity and 'guts'. Both Elizabeth Futral and Rodney Gilfry give of their considerable best as Stella and Stanley, and also both look exactly right for the roles they play. The supporting cast are all quite exceptional and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the baton of the composer run the full gambit styles, making huge lush sounds when needed, and even more surprisingly, sounding truly 'jazzy' at other times. A triumph for all concerned, and a joy to experience at home.
Rating:
Summary: MODERN OPERA AT ITS FINEST
Review: Superb modern opera.Please see my review of the CD version of this performance if you are interested in my full opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Flamingo? Canari? Tarantula? For sure a tragedy
Review: The libretto-writer and the composer have mainly kept the text of the play, thus going back to its social meaning, after the film that move away from it, though, maybe, with a less heavy hand due to the cutting of the last sentence of the play. The game is thus less social, more individual, and yet the main cause of the tragedy is the social bigotry of southern culture, of southern society, maybe of human society as a whole. But it is an opera and the play gets a completely new dimension. André Previn's music is very modern and it refuses all the singing variations that are so common in classical operas, particularly in the Italian tradition. That gives to the text a clarity and a force that it deserves. Yet the sensual music and the very expressive singing amplify the power of the text. This appears very claerly in Blanche's confession of her « crime » concerning her first husband. She enters a long aria that is poignant and dramatic. This is emphasized by her getting down from the apartment through the invisible wall facing the audience, down two steps to the front of the stage, as if she was moving from one place and one time to another place and another time. The equivalent of a flashback in this medium. This scene becomes central in the opera and unerasable from our memory and consciousness. Especially since Mitch remains in the apartment, behind Renée Fleming. Another outstanding scene is the finale. There, the apartment turns away to the left and opens a vast perspective, lighted in blue and misty, into which a blue-dressed Blanche walks as if she were going onto/into the vast blue sea she has just dreamed of. A metaphor of her escape, of her sacrifice, of her ordeal in this society that cannot accept misfits to the point of educating people into absurd bigotry that causes the worst dramas imaginable. A great moment of pleasure with great music, great singing, great acting. I will only criticize, moderately, the choice of the voices. The three women have voices that are too close and their contrast is thus too little powerful. The men can also be seen as being too close with the same result. In a way we were expecting Mitch to have a very low voice, that of a bass, and Stanley to be a more powerful tenor able to dominate the stage, to crush any rebellion with his sole voice. But a marvellous moment of music nevertheless. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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