Rating: 
Summary: Avant Garde Opera Film: The Power Of Drama
Review: The masterful conductor Richard Bonynge served as a creative force behind this unconventional opera-drama-film made in the late 80's. It features the voices of Joan Sutherland and Tourangeau, two worthy dramatic sopranos, dubbing for two German-speaking actresses. It uses many of the lines from the original Schiller play that Donizetti's opera was drawn from. This particular opera may not be suited to everyone's tastes. On the one hand, you get superb drama with actors and actresses in historically accurate Elizabethan costume and deliviring fiery drama in what seems to be England or some European location, complete with authentic castles. But on the downside, the jumping back and forth between spoken play and sung opera arias can be dissatisfying. If you want to get just the opera look for a rare 2000 performance from Italy starring obscure singers. If you want to get this, buy it merely for a specialized interest in this particular type of project. This is at heart an opera film. Bonynge's attempt to establish the same type of genre that Zefferelli did with his La Traviata or Rosi with Carmen. Joan Sutherland has sung Maria Stuarda several times in her career. She, along with Beverly Sills, have popularized the role when it was becoming neglected Donizetti repertoire. Tourangeau is a fellow Australian soprano with a heavy, dramatic voice that is befitting of the regial, imperious and jealous Queen Elizabeth so often stereotyped by romanticism and films such as Bette Davis' portrayal and Flora Robson. The story is inaccurate but sensational. Mary Queen of Scots, the Catholic queen and political rival to Queen Elizabeth. She is also a romantic rival, since in the opera Leicester, the Earl that Elizabeth adores, is clearly in love with the doomed Mary. After being charged with treason and after a dramatic confrontation in Fotheringay (in which base insults are exchanged) Queen Elizabeth orders the execution and beheading of Mary. She goes to her death but not before such moving scenes as her Confession and Prayer with rousing chorus. This is a terrific film, almost the opera equivalent to a little known early 70's film Mary Queen Of Scots. Enjoy dramatic opera and spoken drama and film at its most united harmony.
Rating:
Summary: another Weigl's wonderful film
Review: This DVD is of Maria Stuarda is in fact a film, which is a... of Donizetti's opera. Dramatic scenes and arias arechopped and changed around at will, with huge chunks of music missing,suddenly interspersed with German dialogue. This is bad enough; whatis worse is watching ... eastern european actors and actressestrying ... to lip synch to Joan Sutherland's magnificentvoice. The makers of the film didn't even specially record thesoundtrack, they just lifted directly from Sutherland's full recordingof the opera. I would recommend anyone to steer clear of this....
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing for Sutherland Fans
Review: This DVD is of Maria Stuarda is in fact a film, which is a... of Donizetti's opera. Dramatic scenes and arias arechopped and changed around at will, with huge chunks of music missing,suddenly interspersed with German dialogue. This is bad enough; whatis worse is watching ... eastern european actors and actressestrying ... to lip synch to Joan Sutherland's magnificentvoice. The makers of the film didn't even specially record thesoundtrack, they just lifted directly from Sutherland's full recordingof the opera. I would recommend anyone to steer clear of this....
Rating:
Summary: Incoherent mish-mash
Review: This is not a performance of Donizetti's opera. Scenes from the opera (sung in Italian) are interspersed with scenes from Schiller's play (spoken in German). The result is ... well, I don't know what name to give to the result. Petr Weigl has made some pretty good opera films, and some pretty awful ones, but this one takes the cake as the worst trashing of an opera ever committed to film. It doesn't do much for Schiller's play, either. The singing (what there is of it) by Joan Sutherland, Huguette Tourangeau, and Luciano Pavarotti is very good (Weigl obtained a pre-existing sound recording of the complete opera and sliced out the little bits that he needed for his film), but there's not enough of the opera or of the play for any music drama or any other sort of drama to happen. Avoid this DVD and buy the CD set of the opera instead. If you're interested in Schiller's play, just read it.
Rating:
Summary: Avant Garde Opera Film: The Power Of Drama
Review: This is not going to work, not even foor opera fans. This is a play done with real settings, yet with a lot of dialogues and suddenly the actor/actress sing an operatic aria and then cut short and then another scene... Sutherland and Pavorotti singing was not as good as one would expect-- we can't see their acting, and nd the sound is not so good in any event. The costume is, however, very good, so is the photography. Acting is not bad. But where is the drama,the climax or anti-climax...It's the form it takes that causes the audience most trouble. One would accept an opera with real setting like Onegin with music written by Tsaichovsky etc more readily.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm afraid it's not going to work.
Review: This is not going to work, not even foor opera fans. This is a play done with real settings, yet with a lot of dialogues and suddenly the actor/actress sing an operatic aria and then cut short and then another scene... Sutherland and Pavorotti singing was not as good as one would expect-- we can't see their acting, and nd the sound is not so good in any event. The costume is, however, very good, so is the photography. Acting is not bad. But where is the drama,the climax or anti-climax...It's the form it takes that causes the audience most trouble. One would accept an opera with real setting like Onegin with music written by Tsaichovsky etc more readily.
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