[.ca] Ariodante (Widescreen)

Amazon.com Essential Video:
Ariodante makes extraordinary vocal and acting demands, which the English National Opera brilliantly fulfills in a curious combination of baroque music and postmodern production styles. Handel's intensely emotional arias and the surreal staging combine their energies with powerful impact, aided by some imaginative choreography and a remarkable English singing translation of the Italian text. The subject is the painfully complex love entanglements of five characters: pure idealism and raging jealousy, nefarious plots and deceptions, unscrupulous exploitation, and opportunism, hopelessness mounting to the brink of insanity. The plot, as often happens in baroque opera, is riddled with improbabilities, exaggerations, and coincidence, but they matter not at all. It is essentially no more than a framework on which Handel mounts music of tender passion, rage, delirious joy, hope, resignation--nearly three hours of unrestrained emotional intensity and vocal brilliance. Ann Murray and Joan Rodgers are appealing as the young lovers Ariodante and Ginevra, but the show is nearly stolen by countertenor Christopher Robson as the villainous Polinesso, who convinces Ariodante that Ginevra has been unfaithful. Lesley Garrett performs brilliantly as Polinesso's dupe and accomplice, Dalinda, and Ivor Bolton conducts with a fine sense of baroque style. --Joe McLellan

Time to join the 20th Century (then we'll talk about the 21s:
I read the other online reviews with much amusement (i.e. liberal homosexuals have destroyed opera?? Aren't we the ones who have kept opera alive?) and I decided to write my own reactions in hope someone with a little actual knowledge about art of the 20th Century might find it useful. Yes, the production is "post-modern". (If you don't know what that means, look it up. It might save you grief later.) The director has obviously tried to both produce the opera and comment on it at the same time. Some things work; some things don't. But it is not "boring" to me and it is not something to be despised or shunned. Most of the singing is very characterful, emotionally true, varied, and accomplished. If Ann Murray does look at her hands too much, she is still very alive to the words and the emotions. (She also has a tendency to harden on higher notes. Voice fanciers--you know who you are--should take note.) Most of the motivations of the characters are perfectly clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence who is willing to think about them. But you have to actively participate in the performance. That is the point of much 20th Century art: to get the audience to mentally participate. The director does not want you to sit back and let it all wash over you. He probably does not want you to forget you are at a performance and just immerse yourself in the story. It is not the only way to produce this opera but it is not invalid just because it flirts with being "degenerate." Whoever said that a good performance only brings a mindless emotional response? And no traditional stage performance is "realistic" either. Art is not realistic. Some art avoids all pretense of "realism." "Realism" is not the point of art to some people. Neither is "tradition". Their "radical" views are just as valid as anyone else's. (I would say more valuable than our homophobe reviewer from south of the US, but I digress.) If you can't stand anything that isn't "realistic" go buy a CD. For others, what you'll get if you take a chance on this DVD is some passionate accomplished singing of a very literate translation that makes the emotions of the music quite clear as a counterpoint to a production that tries to complicate your relationship to the story. The 20th Century happened. Sorry. You can't go backward. (Both the Russian communists and the Nazis tried really hard to do just that, of course. They couldn't stop "modernism" either. Their thinking is not something I, for one, want to emulate, ever!) I personally think only small minds and ignorant ears want to. Luckily, the MET is museuming most of the works for all you that only like it like they used to do it...I advise most of my fellow online reviewers to save your money for a plane ticket.

Turn off the television set and enjoy:
This film features marvelous music and gorgeous voices. Everything else about it is awful. The costumes, representing all sorts of periods, are a joke. The lighting is dark and terrible. The staging is designed to make you forget the music and the voices and wonder only if Leslie Garrett will have a climax and if she will avoid Christopher Robson's eager tongue and anxious hands. The dancing, if that's what you want to call it, is simply pointless and pretentious. So, to enjoy this opera, simply listen to it. Turn off the television. By the way, Ann Murray alone is worth the price. What a glory.

Is this a good release?:
Potential buyers reading the reviews below may feel understandably confused - after all, how good is this release? The problem may be at least partially addressed by carefully reading the reviews below, all of which contain some element of truth. Reviewers such as the one from Switzerland seem to have concentrated on the opera itself as well as the singing. And they were correct in their ratings: the singing is generally good and the opera ranks high among other Baroque operas. In fact I think Handel was a very gifted opera composer and his operas are far superior to any operas of later composers, except Mozart, of course, who stands head and shoulders above everybody else. The reviewer from California, on the other hand, seems to have paid more attention to the production and in that respect he is right on target! This is indeed a terrible production which in many ways reminds me of another dreadful post-modern ENO production: Henry Purcell's 'The Fairy Queen', also recently released on DVD. The problem is a complex one: England (and to a large extent Western culture in general) has been thoroughly penetrated by liberal-socialist values and world-view and the ENO is no exception. Producers are often more interested in pushing their agenda, which often includes the promotion of feminism, homosexuality, free sex and the like, therefore eroding traditional values than in producing something beautiful, inspiring and faithful to the spirit of the piece. This production of Ariodante is often ridiculous and generally unpleasant to watch . There is also a brief scene of nudity, which is something parents should be aware of. These are sad times indeed when even operas of Handel have to be X-rated. If you want to understand what lies behind productions such as these, read Marxist guru Antonio Gramsci and understand his concept of 'hegemony'. Sadly, Gramsci's ideas came true beyond his wildest expectations.

A dissaster:
I saw this performance on tv a few weeks ago, and since I never saw it before (eventhough I own the Minkowski CD and is one of my favorites) I looked forward to the broadcast. I can't stress enough my dissapointment, after years of having in mind a fantasy of how this divine music should come to life on stage, when I saw the horrible Ann Murray shatter this fantasy to pieces. She has the most dreadful voice I have ever heard and her acting skills are resemble those of a wooden log, as she keeps talking to her hands while singing every damn aria in this magnificant opera. The other singers are also not the best you can find on the market but have certain qualities - Christopher Robson (Polinesso) acts as a true villain with his snake-like behavoir, and Lesley Garrett as Dalinda which is pretty AND has a nice voice. But the most important thing - what's the deal with the translation from Italian to English?! I hate it when they do that! Opera should be sung in it's original language, and what language would be more suited for this lovely music than the most beautiful language in the world - Italian - the language of music. I still keep this performance on tape just to show everybody who visits me how a perfect piece could be crashed under the harsh hands and voices of untalented performers. This recording should be bought only to serve as a testament of how NOT to perform music!

A Baroque Nightmare:
"Ariodante" can easily be regarded as Handel's most romantic opera - "Flavio" is a close second. It does not deal with the fate of nations/kingdoms but rather focusses on the individual and his/her romantic desires. Many scenes are set in the outdoors: the countryside, the royal gardens, or a forest; and a lot of the drama takes place at night. These different locations afford Handel the opportunity to 'indulge' his fertile imagination to compose the most sensual and programmatic music of his or any other time - like the rising of the moon at the beginning of Act 2. To go into the musical and dramatic 'architecture' of "Ariodante" and Handel's breaking with the Baroque tradition would take too much time here. (Please see Winton Dean's "Handel and the Opera Seria" for more information on this and Handel's other operas.) The director clearly had a (weird) personal agenda. And to expect the performers to be at their best in a production like this is not realistic: Ginevra and Ariodante (respectively the future Queen and King of Scotland) look like they receive EST treatment very regularly; the King of Scotland looks like a dirty old man who has not bathed for months. And Dalinda (the Lady-in-waiting to Ginevra, the future Queen of Scotland) looks off like an Italian widow. The scheming Polinesso, Duke of Albany, who is an elegant courtier (who can insinuate himself into the crown princess's private chambers!) ... just does not look like he could/should be allowed into polite society. One should always try to be objective when reviewing a product and this is one of the few DVD's I would not recommend you to buy. It is a dark, ugly, unintelligent and sexually explicit production. The characters are not believably portrayed as indicated in the libretto as Handel set it. Finally, if I can be abstract, Ariodante should remind one of a Renaissance garden (at night) saturated with the scent of jasmine and other summer flowers. Instead here we get stuck in a stinking bog. A great pity as the ENO's 'Serse' was a beautiful, imaginative yet truthful reading as this one is unattractive and uninspired.