Search - Eugene Onegin: The Classic Motion Picture With The Bolshoi Opera on DVD

Mesmerizing!

Timothy R. Carpenter | Philadelphia, PA | 10/16/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of the few opera DVDs which I am eager to watch again. Filmed in the Russian countryside and St. Petersburg the staging and acting make this gorgeous production mesmerizing and emotionally affecting. The attractive actors look and act their parts and lip-synch convincingly. Every one of the singers is superb and the Bolshoi company has this music in their blood.

The downside is that this film has considerable cuts - all of them internal (cuts within scenes or arias). It's not disastrous and I guess it's better to want more than wishing the singers would just get on with it and stop dawdling (Fleming/Horovsky and Chilcott/Hampson). The sound is not modern state-of-the-art, but my ears adjusted quickly to the good quality 50's production. The color changes slightly from time to time and there are a few extremely small hiccups during the transitions from one roll of film to the next. For me, however, these flaws don't affect my enjoyment of this excellent film one bit.

So, 5 stars for the singing, acting, sets and staging and 3 stars for the (re)production values for an average of 4 stars. Wish Amazon would provide for rating those two different values separately.

Highly recommended - plus it costs about half that of the opera house productions."