By: ERNESTO G. OPPICELLI

ERNESTO G. OPPICELLI — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 16:59:45 +0000

After all it’s a good producton, but not at all excellent, just for the reasons Mr. Clarke says. . One may not get furious about the usual ‘adaptation’ from a ‘strange’ stage director, but one wonders why, and why Fabio Luisi agrees to combine his musical direction with the often silly useless changes from the stage directors (the comic duets are especially unfortunate). The music is so beautiful that Luisi seems to know it is but treats it without coherence. Those curtains that open and close and close and open are really wonderful ideas? Ouff, let’s respect the original work giving it force with a genuine cast, a symphonic orchestra that play Lehar as it may play …. you put a name! Operettas are often better works than operas. DAS LAND DES LAECHELNS is one … but operettas are also amusing works as the wonderful italian one L’ACQUA CHETA by Pietri, or LE SIRE DE GERVY by a great French composer Claude Terrasse, and why not almost all the Victor Herbert works … these works (and hundred of other titles) must be realoly ‘sung’, naturally forgetting Wagner & Co. … I do not know if I will watch this LAND DES LAECHELNS again, but to tell the truth I have not been so much discontented with it … should I have been? Do you say yes?

By: David Smith

David Smith — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 19:31:39 +0000

The problem is that even weak operetta DVDs should be bought by those interested in the genre. I suspect sales numbers of these items are fairly low so the only way to get publishers to do more is to buy what they do produce; otherwise there will be nothing. Not all of us can attend European performances and I have not been impressed with streaming with its frequent breaks for buffering.

Comments on: Andreas Homoki’s “Land des Lächelns” From Zurich: Starring Piotr Beczala

By: ERNESTO G. OPPICELLI

By: David Smith