The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Opera on Video

Rating:
Summary: There's no alternative within one cover
Review: An indispenable guide for the serious collector -- the most-used reference book on my shelf. Especially helpful for identifying the best production among multiple ones of the same work. One caveat: some of the reviewers are unduly harsh and pan productions that I found completely satisfactory in every respect. Arranged alphabetically by composer, then chronologically (not alphabetically) within each composer's section. Includes indices, e.g. by performer. All the more valuable as VHS releases dwindle and go out of print, and DVD titles are scant and of questionable interest.

Rating:
Summary: There's no alternative within one cover
Review: An indispenable guide for the serious collector -- the most-used reference book on my shelf. Especially helpful for identifying the best production among multiple ones of the same work. One caveat: some of the reviewers are unduly harsh and pan productions that I found completely satisfactory in every respect. Arranged alphabetically by composer, then chronologically (not alphabetically) within each composer's section. Includes indices, e.g. by performer. All the more valuable as VHS releases dwindle and go out of print, and DVD titles are scant and of questionable interest.

Rating:
Summary: A "difficult" book...
Review: There is really no alternative to this Metropolitan Opera guide to opera on video and it's hard to be fussy about a volume that can be easily recommended as the only reference source of this kind. I rarely buy opera videos and this book may not be as important for me as it will be for true opera video collectors, but I suspect that it would be difficult to me to get acquainted with most of the titles featuring in the guide if I had to make choices based on the guide's reviews. But I am lucky to live not too far from the famous "Best Video" in Hamden, CT, which has a marvellous collection of classical music/opera tapes and I can afford renting tapes with "bad reviews" to confront my impressions with the MET's critics'. And there are simply too many "bad reviews" in this book to make it credible! After just a short acquaintance with the guide you may ask yourself a question: so what is there to watch? Here "Barbara Bonney looks a bit old for Sophie (Rosenkavalier, p. 315), there "Te Kanawa, a handsome Marshallin on stage, suffers under the camera's close scrutiny, her eyes and blonde wig evoke memories of Carol Channing..." (p. 314) etc, etc. The MET's critics are often fussy about quite trivial details, what sometimes distorts the more general impression and leaves the reader with just one conclusion: don't even touch this tape, let alone buy it! An exerpt from the review of the admirable English National Opera production of Handel's "Xerxe" can be a good example of the reviewing "technique" used too often in the MET's guide: "Lesley Garrett's spoiled brat Atalanta and Valerie Masterson's cool cucumber Romilda succeed along vocally deconstructive lines. Between them they barely possess one whole soprano voice. Garrett's peeps and squeaks are damnably annoying in themselves, apart from her character's innate obnoxiousness. The puny piping of Masterson proffers instead of bravura singing indispensable to the great "constancy" aria that closes Act II (Handel's "Come scoglio" equivalent) turns a potential audience rouser into an anticlimactic fizzle" (p. 103) I don't want to argue with the review itself, but with the style used here and in many other places. This style reminds more of an informal conversation or a review in a daily newspaper (or Amazon.com!), where a high degree of subjectivism is very welcome, but not of a "guide kind" of criticism known to all music lovers from such publications as the Penguin or Gramophone guides to classical recordings. What is striking in these reviews is their very "impersonal" tone - I haven't notice a single first person pronoun; a "personalization" of the reviews' language would make them much more likable and credible, because THEY ARE highly subjective and the distanced, impersonal language doesn't conseal that. This book, after all, is not a "collective effort" - every review or group of reviews is signed by one of the 14 contributors. As I said, many of the reviews here are simply sour, what - in some ways - makes the fun of confronting them with the tapes they refer to much greater. The operas by Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti or Wagner got the most extensive coverage, and not surprisingly so, but these are the composers that I don't particularly care for so I cannot offer any comments. A few words about the structure of the guide. The composers are listed alphabetically, and so are their operas - this is a very user friendly arrangement, preferable to the chronological one seen in some opera guides. Chronological order is adopted when more than one production of a particular title is available, in these cases also a brief ending note summarizes the reviewer's preferences. Quite understandably, there is no room in such a publication for even brief synopses of the operas, but each work is given a general introduction with some details on first performances etc. The MET's guide is a valuable and helpful book and, if given in a more likable, "personal" form, could be treated as a wonderful collection of essays on opera theatre. Collecting operas on video can be quite expensive and if you follow most of the reviews, you'll simply save a lot of money (and room on you video racks). But that's not what an opera lover, given an opportunity of building a collection of videos preserving some of the exquisite productions from the past, really wants. Use with caution!