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| Puccini - Il Tabarro / Leoncavallo - I Pagliacci / Stratas, Domingo, Pavarotti, Pons, Quivar, Croft, Levine, Metropolitan Opera | 
 enlarge | Actors: Puccini, Leoncavallo, Pavarotti, Mooc, Levine
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $18.58
You Save: $11.40 (38%)
New (33) Used (8) from $18.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 47062
Format: Ac-3, Classical, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: Italian (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 140
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 000476909
UPC: 044007340240
EAN: 0044007340240
ASIN: B0009K1ZHS
Theatrical Release Date: 1994
Release Date: October 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW Factory Sealed - Ready to be shipped within 24 hrs from California - Average 5 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 PAG without CAV October 12, 2007
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
l'idee etait originale : Pagliacci sans Cavalleria, mais avec Puccini. Paris et les quais de la Seine ne debouchent sur rien : hauts murs qui cachent le ciel et aucune issue en perspective, alors que Zeffirelli campe ses Paillasses dans une region minable de la campagne italienne. Ce sont les hommes qui triomphent, ils sont jaloux et se mefient des (de La) femme. Pauvre Teresa Stratas, elle avait eu son heure de gloire, avec la Lulu de Berg-Boulez (Opera de Paris 1979) et la Traviata de ce meme Zeffirelli. Mais ici, elle n'est plus qu'une voix sans issue, comme le paysage... Alors tenors et barytons s'en donnent a coeur joie, meme si, pour eux aussi, le coeur n'y est plus !
 Buy this one for Juan Pons performance September 13, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It looks like I can't get enough of Pagliacci; I own three of them now. It's the universal appeal, since most of us have had to deal with a love lost - and frankly, we were pretty angry, if we were honest. Thankfully, most of us didn't go completly nuts.
The music is wonderful - a sort of mad stagger between farce, exhultation, strange, then stumbling into eerie - then as suddenly, jerking back to opera buffo. James Levine conducts superbly, the orchestra is perfection. Art direction by Levine also luridly opulent and joyous -great color! -scenes interspersed with some extraordinary choral and vocal work - each performer deserving standing ovations. I was very impressed with Kenn Chester who played the affable Arlechin (harlequin ). superb- and I hope to see him in more, absolutely ! But you know who steals the show? Who eats the scenery, as it is called? Juan Pons ! This is his opera. At first, we buy an opera, because it may have the big name star - and certainly you want to own this one with the late, wonderful Pavarotti. In this one, however, Juan Pons is unmistakeably the master of ceremonies. Before I thought of him as best supporting actor. Now, as I hear more of him, more closely now, I have to admire his voice. Don't overlook his mastery of baritone bel canto. It's easy to find a collection of favorite arias by the big names...but it would be fabulous to listen to Mr. Pons do a CD/DVD in concert. I would buy that now in a minute. What a voice. In this show, Juan is the show.
A Met opening night with Domingo and Pavarotti July 12, 2007
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is one of several Metropolitan Opera opening night galas featuring both Domingo and Pavarotti. The Il Tabarro is best. Pagliacci has its good points, but Pavarotti is obviously beyond his peak.
This isn't rocket science, look at the cast, you want this! September 28, 2006
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
In what has to be considered an inspired pairing, the Met opened its 1994 season with this double bill, recorded here for posterity. Il Tabarro and Pagliacci, though by different composers, belong together, since both are relatively short verismo tragedies, both feature indigent and tawdry characters, and both deal with infidelity and murder.
The evening starts with Puccini's Il Tabarro, the more low key outing of the two. It's typical of Puccini to be less interested in telling a complex story and more interested in creating a convincing sense of atmosphere, of place, and of eliciting strong emotions, all through his wonderful music, and he succeeds brilliantly. From the serene opening to its violent climax, Il Tabarro is filled with the brooding tension of its unhappy characters. The Met's dark, yet lovely, production works wonders toward bringing this tension to life, as do the singers. A scowling Placido Domingo is Luigi, the strong itinerant workhorse willing to risk everything, even to kill for his one outlet of happiness, his love for his boss's wife, played by Teresa Stratas. Domingo still sounds great, even youthful, his ardor is always legitimate because that's the type of singer he is. Physically, he isn't nearly as handsome as he was in, say, Rigoletto from fifteen years earlier, he looks a little like a more smoldering Lon Chaney Jr. at this point, but this actually ends up being a plus, his age adds a craggy, wounded look to his features that works, even though he is clearly much older than the character he is portraying. Stratas' voice isn't quite as strong as it was ten years earlier, when she was capturing the powerhouse roles of Violetta and Lulu and Salome to perfection, even with the pristine sound quality of this production she has trouble maintaining a consistency in volume, but if she was intentionally trying to save herself for the big moments, well, the strategy worked, because Stratas always manages to deliver when it really counts. To her credit, her voice rarely sounds strained, the purity of sound is still there even if isn't always as full or as forceful as it used to be. Juan Pons, the betrayed husband Michele, is a gentle yet threatening bear of a man, his singing is tender and passionate but also simmering with rage which the audience just knows is destined to come to the surface before the story is over; he gives a dynamite performance, appropriately enough, he is the last to make his curtain call and gets the strongest ovation. Il Tabarro is far from Puccini's greatest opera, but it is a work to be treasured, with its emphasis on the life and feelings of poor folk living and working by the Seine over the story itself, it functions as a chilling mood piece, and proves that this often underrated composer could do whatever he wanted, he was creatively diverse, he had a brain in addition to a heart.
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci is one of the greatest masterworks of the verismo genre, more hultihued musically and dramatically than Il Tabarro, which the Met emphasizes with a colorful and crowded production(but not too colorful or too crowded, it is just right). Pavarotti is Canio the tormented clown and one of the most complex protagonists in all versimo, his voice is clear and piercing as ever and his performance really gets to the violent heart of the murderous cuckold, he manages to match Domingo in the acting department, rarely has the singer come across as so, well, vicious. Yet his Vesti la giubba shows the sadness of the character and lives up to what you would expect from a tenor of his stature performing one of opera's most popular numbers. He even takes a curtain call for that one aria(and nobody takes a curtain call like Pavarotti). Stratas returns as Nedda, another wayward wife(was she trying to tell us something?), and she is once again on for the big moments, especially her glorious aria which taxes her voice, nevertheless she manages to break through and topple the house. Juan Pons also returns as Tonio, his prelude("I am the prologue") is delivered with panache, and his portrayal of the deformed comprimario plays up the lechery and resentment over the heartbreak with disturbing results. His voice is, of course, smooth and clear and boiling with hate. Dwaye Croft has the ideal sort of romantic baritone voice for Silvio. The complexity of Leoncavallo's "true" story, with its play within a play(a commedia del arte piece, the narrative of which cleverly matches the surrounding events) and the confusion of fantasy and reality yield all sorts of brilliant action from the chorus and players, the stage is never less than thrillingly alive.
Special accolades should be given to the performances of James Levine and the mighty Met orchestra, who bring out the tragedy, the humor, most of all the passion of both scores while never failing to miss the equally important moments of pensiveness and quiet. Verismo has never sounded better.
Stratas and a great cast create great theater! February 23, 2006
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Stratas the musician, Stratas the actress is superlative here! No bars held! then we have Domingo and Pavarotti. You can't miss with this Luigi and Canio. Juan Pons rises to greatness as Tonio. With Quivar and the up-coming Croft- a complete cast that has no weak links at all. A great evening in the theater with Levine at the helm. Great singing, great drama through which we visit a day in the life of people caught in their own dead end tragedies. The lives of the marginal struggle and die before our very eyes here. An absolute winner of a dvd.
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