Rating: 
Summary: Great Singing, Poor Dancing, but Nevertheless a Good Buy
Review: While I immensely enjoyed this performance it gets only 4 stars from me because of poor ballet. Aida earned the appellation as the grandest of all grand operas from a synthesis of Verdi's brilliant music and arias, sumptuous sets, ornate costumes, and some elaborate and cherished ballet. All of the ingredients are present excepts the last in this La Scala production. The Nubian Slaves Dance in Act II Scene I was the lamest I've ever seen. A group of kids were given the choreographic directions to run onto the set, meander in random directions, and then scurry off like roaches running under a refrigerator when the kitchen lights are switched on. Perhaps they were distracted by the gratuitous nudity contained in this scene. The Grand March wasn't particularly grand nor much of a march. Mostly it consisted of shuffling impressive scenery in the background and raising obelisks which seemed more likely to induce motion sickness than awe. The ballet that occurred in this scene resembled pigeons waiting in a public square for bread crumbs. In most of the performances of Aida that I've seen Radames makes his entry in Act II on a chariot being drawn by real horses but Luciano Pavarotti was toted on by people power. And, of course, some legendary productions featured elephants and giraffes. Even though the livestock and dancers had the day off I would still highly recommend this DVD to anyone. First, the principles were magnificent. The promo states that the Milan audience gave Pavarotti a 2 minute ovation after "Celeste Aida". He certainly deserved it with a masterful performance that you would expect from the biggest name in opera. He alone is worth the purchase. Maria Chiara gave a solid performance as Aida but the performer that had me jumping out of my Lazy Boy and wildly applauding the TV set was Ghena Dimitrova as Amneris. She stole the whole show in the Judgment scene. Second, you can't beat this price. The DVD costs less than all but the bargain basement CDs. You get both audio and video on one disk. With CDs you've got at least 2 and as many as 4 disks to feed into the machine. In summary, all of the principles gave superb performances with masterful singing and acting and first rate orchestral accompaniment under the direction of Lorin Mazel. But if you want to see the Grand March and the dance sequences as they should be delivered get the Met production with Levine and Domingo: That's Grand Opera. If only it were available on DVD. I wish there were more operas on DVD. But there is such a heavy investment in Laser Disks that we'll have to wait. When I saw my first opera on DVD I gave up on hub caps.
Rating: 
Summary: Very clumsy in providing subtitles!
Review: With such great artists as Luciano Pavarotti and Juan Pons, the performance itself was wonderful to have more than 5 stars. However... (sigh) I couldn't appreciate this masterpiece properly and comfortably because the English subtitles were awkwardly provided to this Italian opera. There was "timing" or "synchronization" problem between singing and showing subtitles. It's often that the subtitles are showed late after singers already start to sing his part. Sometimes no subtitles provided while singing. You could easily imagine how it would be uncomfortable. The engineer never seemed to be skillful to find the right moment to put a subtitle in. An expert who understands Italian or the opera should have worked for the subtitles. I strongly urge the manufacturer(Image Entertainment) not to make this mistake again. Never again! All in all, this would be okay for those who understand Italian or the opera well, but it will probably make most watchers get annoying and even angry.
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