Customer Reviews
Exquisite! - By: D Major, 18 Oct 2008 
La Calisto is the first opera I ever heard, a long time ago at the house of a teacher. I bought the record - Glynbourne, Raymond Leopard version on Decca many years ago. It is among the most exquisite & sublime music on the planet. I've heard four versions now, including this DVD which arrived yesterday (a couple of days through Amazon). And I saw my first production of it at the ROH Covent Garden last week. Each version I've heard is very different musically &in tone/feel. This DVD is very satisfying indeed - I played the third act three times last night. The Glyndebourne version is very lofty & ethereal, & it dwells on Calisto's plight, & the music is given the large production. The production on this DVD highlights the comedy & farce above all. You have the sense all the time of beingin a small theatre, small but beautiful orchestration, outstanding singing (especially for me Calisto herself). The earth/heaven tension is constantly present & the farcical elements are underpinned by the relentlessly beautiful music. This combination is constantly fascinatingin this production. My quibble would be that Endymion the shepherdin love with Diana becomes overly comic. The recent ROH production got this absolutely rightin my view - Endymion's sense of impossible love should be a bit tragic & soulful & run against the comedy driven by the Gods. In this Rene Jacobs production Endymion is rather pulled into the comedy & the sense of longing disappears from the singing. But what a fine production & to be able to have this on DVD is a truly major treat: it is sublime & magical, Calisto will tug your heart strings even if Endymion is a little compromised here. I envy anyone who saw this live. And, by the way, I note a reviewer below who said their DVD did not show the heavenly elevation of the bear - well, mine does!
Seamless music, vibrant acting, Venetian carnival and Comedia dell'arte - By: Marcolorenzo, 14 Nov 2007 The music is seamless, the declamatory & the sung parts flow fluidly one into the other. This is no small feat considering that there is much improvised music & music added from other composers to fillin spaces. etc.
The overall concept scenically is one of a child's toy box or a pop-up book, or Christmas advent card. It is more graphic (i.e. 2 dimensional) than architectural. This has the advantage of giving space to the music & the acting but also limits the potential artistic vision inherentin the work. Although the set designerin his interviewin the special film at the end of the DVD says there were only 2 approaches to this work, an historical one & a more contemporary one, (which he chose), this of course is not true; there are many other possibilities. Considering that this is the only DVD of this work ever made, & that it is a very fine musical & theatrical production it is to be savoured. It won a Choc award from the French magazine Monde de la Musique.
Many of the characters' costumes are from the Venetian Comedia dell'arte stock of characters. Pulcinella, Arlechino, etc. play the roles of others: i.e. sheperds, Pan etc. This decision on the designer's part to use Comedia dell'arte characters for other characters of Cavalli's creation does create an atmosphere of Venetian Carnival & the popular Venetian theatre, but it also does confuse things, & is a bit intrusive. The work is full of eroticism, more carnal than artistic & breathes more the air of popular theatre, highly sexually charged, than that of the theatre of the nobility. The balance is definatelyin the direction of popular vulgarity (in a good sense) thanin the direction of virtuous nobility. Cavalli has bothin an equal dose however. There is something of the decadence of our time here, with phallic graffiti on the stage trap doors etc., which seems out of place however, & is different from the eroticism of the time of the Venetian theatre & Venetian carnival of the 17th century.
The singing is very fine indeed, & the acting & dancing superb. (There's even a dancing bear, an actress dressed as a bear who substitutes at the last minute for a real dancing bear who couldn't learn its role !)
One of the best features of the video is the 58 minute film at the end on the making of this production, where Jacobs, musicians, set & costume designer speak their mind.
Overall a quite brilliant production of a work of a great opera composer after Monteverdi. You will feel the Venetian carnival, the popular Venetian theatre & breathein a world of opera after Monteverdi & before Scarlatti & Handel.
Glorious - By: User from Vienna, 16 Apr 2007 I was fortunate enough to see this production twice when it playedin Vienna a couple of years ago & was enthralled. I always thought that the Director Herbert Wernicke was as funny & interesting as unbuttered toast, but here he came up with a staging that is both simple & utterly enthralling, with dancing bears, gods descending from the heavens & enough charming ideas to give Broadway a run for its money. The singers are delightful (especially Maria Bayo as Calisto & Domique Visse whose performance has to be seen to be believed - a whirlwind of movement, singing, bawdiness, charm & general mayhem).
René Jacobs conducts the Concerto Vocalein a version of the opera that camein for some flak from purists - tosh, I say. Cavalli is no Monteverdi & Calisto no Orfeo or Ulysse - Jacobs may have added instruments (and music by other composers - the bear, for example, dances to Tarquinio Merula's Chaconne & the opera ends with another Chaconne by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer), but by doing so, Jacobs has helped bring an opera back to life which otherwise would have remained on a shelf gathering dust.
One thing, though, which I despise about this DVD is the ending. During the final Chaconne, Wernicke had the beautiful idea of the picture of a bear being lifted into the heavens - one of the simplest & at the same time most beautiful theatrical moments I have ever witnessed. Guess what happens on the DVD - yes, they cut it! Whoever was responsible for this at Harmonia Mundi should hang their headin shame.
Otherwise, hours of pure bliss await you! So, what are you waiting for?
