Pergolesi - Lo Frate 'Nnamorato

Rating:
Summary: Italian baroque opera treat....lose a star for dvd transfer
Review: The sound is excellent, the menu is good, the performance is delightful. I turned up the "sharpness" on my Sony 7000 player to compensate for softness. Fortunately, the lighting is great which helps. I think that the softness is the result of a less than premium conversion from the European video system. Nevertheless this kind of thing must be enormously expensive to produce. We should be thankfull to IMAGE for it. I love the disk. I look forward to some "DDD" (all digital) opera dvds of 1998 performances.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this opera for the singing alone
Review: This 3 hour opera purports to be 100% Pergolesi. I wouldn't want to have to swear to that, but certainly the music is quite nice and is baroque with a few classical touches. R. Muti conducts a portion of the La Scala orchestra along with arch lutes, theorbos, and harpsichord. The playing is very good, though the string sound is more what I expect of a more modern period. I won't list all the singers, none of whom I recognize except for the Marcaniello (Alessandro Corbelli). There are 6 almost equally important soprano roles and each is sung extremely well. Several of the sopranos are so good that you can only wish the opera were longer so that you could here more. The male roles are well sung and the Marcaniello is excellent for the comic old codger role. While the plot is inconsequential, the comedy is very well done.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this opera for the singing alone
Review: This 3 hour opera purports to be 100% Pergolesi. I wouldn't want to have to swear to that, but certainly the music is quite nice and is baroque with a few classical touches. R. Muti conducts a portion of the La Scala orchestra along with arch lutes, theorbos, and harpsichord. The playing is very good, though the string sound is more what I expect of a more modern period. I won't list all the singers, none of whom I recognize except for the Marcaniello (Alessandro Corbelli). There are 6 almost equally important soprano roles and each is sung extremely well. Several of the sopranos are so good that you can only wish the opera were longer so that you could here more. The male roles are well sung and the Marcaniello is excellent for the comic old codger role. While the plot is inconsequential, the comedy is very well done.