Albeniz - Merlin / Wilson-Johnson, Marton, Vaness, Skelton, De Eusebio, Madrid Opera

Rating:
Summary: Good looking......but................
Review: A beautifully costumed production with wonderful music. Although sung in English you need the subtitles to understand some fo the words. The casting of Eva Marton as Morgana was really inappropriate. Her vibrato is excessive to the point of distraction. As a leading character, She really should not have been cast in this production

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, atmospheric epic
Review: A discovery that will likely become broadly popular, especially in English-speaking countries. Merlin captures the mood of Camelot in a melodic and artistic presentation. Marton seems screechy (maybe due to the nature of her character?) but overall the singing is delightful. The choreography and staging add to the overall enjoyment. Even with the English subtitles I had trouble understanding some of the dialogue, which didn't detract from the entertainment of this recently uncovered masterwork. Is it "Wagneresque? Perhaps slightly, but also more popular, easier to grasp than the ponderous "Ring". I wish Albeniz was able to complete the other 2 operas, then go on to Tolkien!

Rating:
Summary: After a Hundred Years' Wait
Review: Alb?niz' opera MERLIN was never staged until 28 May 2003, a full century after he wrote it. I attended the ninth and last performance of the premiere run at the Teatro Real in Madrid, on the 12th of June 2003. The libretto is in English (which the cast pronounce correctly), the music is somewhat Wagnerian but incorporates fragments of Gregorian chant in a very interesting way, and the staging is quite impressive. See the review by Roberto Herrscher in the Opera News of August 2003, page 59.

-- Since I sat up in the gallery, I didn't have a very good view of the stage. The up-close camera work on the DVD is giving me a better picture of the production than I had live in the theater!

Rating:
Summary: After a Hundred Years' Wait
Review: Albéniz' opera MERLIN was never staged until 28 May 2003, a full century after he wrote it. I attended the ninth and last performance of the premiere run at the Teatro Real in Madrid, on the 12th of June 2003. The libretto is in English (which the cast pronounce correctly), the music is somewhat Wagnerian but incorporates fragments of Gregorian chant in a very interesting way, and the staging is quite impressive. See the review by Roberto Herrscher in the Opera News of August 2003, page 59.

-- Since I sat up in the gallery, I didn't have a very good view of the stage. The up-close camera work on the DVD is giving me a better picture of the production than I had live in the theater!

Rating:
Summary: A good looking production but you will need the subtitles
Review: Back in the last decade of the 1800s, a rich man's son named Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (Coutts is mentioned in "The Gondoliers" as bankers) decided to write the librettos to a trilogy that would do for England what Wagner's Ring cycle had done for Germany. He chose the story of King Arthur and wrote the librettos for "Merlin," "Lancelot" and "Guenevere." The composer who accepted the challenge was Isaac Albeniz, known mostly today for his piano music and only recently given respectful attention by Spanish musicologists.

Well, the music for the latter two is still lost, but conductor Jose de Eusebio made it the task of many years to restore "Merlin" and at long last we have a DVD recording on the BBC Opus Arte label (OA 0888 D) of a complete performance given at the Teatro Real de Madrid.

First of all, the text is in English, but you will understand very little of it without using the subtitle feature (in English, German, Spanish, or French). Sopranos are notoriously difficult to understand in any language (so much do they love vowels at the often total expense of consonants), and casting Eva Marton as Morgan le Fey makes even her vowels fairly incomprehensible. The Nivian of Carol Vaness is a touch better.

As often happens, the men fare better on the enunciation side. David Wilson-Johnson (Merlin) and Stuart Skelton (Arthur) are not exactly exemplary, but at least half the words come across.

Several of the choruses are off-stage, so understanding the words is out of the question; those choruses sung onstage are little better. Still the singing is of a high quality, so back to the subtitles!

On the acting side, there is little to recommend. Nowhere do I see any depth of characterization; but these are standard mythological and legendary (yes, there is a difference) creatures. Angel Odena plays the evil Mordred looking too much like *** of the Monty Python group in the Spanish Inquisition sketch to elicit anything but a smile; but Vaness nearly makes a believable character as the Ariel-like slave of Merlin who turns to Morgan for her freedom. Marton's acting is of silent-film vintage.

Interestingly, the characters of Lancelot and Guenevere show up only as dancers in this opera.

The sets and costumes are minimal and symbolic, the costumes fetching. Much of the opera is given over to ballet and the opening to Act III is stunning. Most of the solo singing is of the post-Wagner declamation genre but without the wonderful use of leitmotif that Wagner used as the basis of his scores. Only in a chorus or two will you find any melody. But all in all, with the video aspect, the music takes on a timeless quality that seems right for the action on stage.

For once, some of the bonus material is very informative, namely the interview with the conductor concerning the work, Albeniz, and the problems of reconstructing the music. What Marton and Wilson-Johnson have to say is of less interest.

Two serious complaints. How many "live" performance DVDs must be issued before some engineer copes with the problem of acoustically dead spots on stage? And when will so many editors of the program notes stop using white print against grey textured backgrounds? I found the Merlin booklet practically unreadable and sent yet another e-mail to BBC about this. They never do answer.

On two DVD discs, the opera runs about 155 minutes. The picture is wide screen (16:9 ratio)

Rating:
Summary: Good and gets better.
Review: I didn't like it the first time I listened to it, but after I listened to it several times, the music took over. The libretto is not in ideomatic English;it's downright odd. It's a grand opera, with fine choral scenes and the plot is sensible compared to most operas. The opera is a major work from an unexpected composer.