DVD : Puccini: La Boheme (Live from the Met)
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5099921741791
Format: Classical, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Label: EMI Classics
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: EMI Classics
Release Date: September 16, 2008
Running Time: 120 minutes
Sales Rank: 5368
Studio: EMI Classics
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The Metropolitan Opera's acclaimed Live in High-Definition series, which projects live performances into theaters across the globe, has met with unprecedented critical and commercial success and has made opera convenient and affordable to millions of viewers worldwide. Now, EMI Classics is proud to collaborate with The Met to release 6 new DVDs made from these broadcast performances.
Puccini's immortal classic of love and loss, with Franco Zeffirelli's sumptuous, iconic production and Nicola Luisotti's expressive conducting. Angela Gheorghiu, the leading Puccini soprano of our time, reprises the role of Mimì, while tenor Ramón Vargas gives a sensitive reading of Rodolfo. All these forces combine for a truly definitive performance of this beloved opera!
Amazon.com:
Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème is a perennial favorite at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and it retains its power in this 2008 performance. Its large-scale settings and especially an Act II set that looks as if half the 1890’s Paris Latin Quarter has been beamed direct to the MET. It’s been criticized as an over-the-top spectacle, but as well as bringing breath-taking realism to the stage, it’s bursting with energy and directorial flair. The individuals making up the large crowds milling in front of the Café Momus each have some little stage business to do, giving the audience the feeling of participating in the onstage street festival. Zeffirelli’s detailed directing even extends to the snow-filled Act III, where shadowy figures walk across the background hill in the distance while the principals are up front. While Zeffirelli’s conception tends to scant the opera’s intimate scenes in the theatre, on DVD those scenes make heightened impact. TV director Gary Halvorson’s establishing shots show a cutaway of the bohemians’ little garret precariously poised atop a sharply raked house, but he soon cuts to closeups of the playing space and the singers, creating a sense of warm interplay of personalities unavailable to the theatre audience.
The MET provides a luxurious cast to complement the sumptuous setting. Tenor Ramón Vargas is an excellent Rodolfo, singing with passion, imaginative phrasing, and coloring his beautiful lyric voice to fit the text. Mimi is Angela Gheorghiu, always a stellar singing actress. Here she sings with a sensitivity to match her Rodolfo, exquisitely coloring her voice, as in her Mi chiamano Mimi, where she thins her voice at the start and then opens it out to bloom when she sings of the approach of spring. As an actress, she’s best after the first Act, when she abandons the coy, girlish tics that seem out of place. In the last Act, she’s profoundly moving in the death scene, as is Vargas, who is touching in his portrayal of Rodolfo’s desperation and sense of loss. Baritone Ludovic Tézier’s Marcello is well sung, as is soprano Ainhoa Arteta’s Musetta, the latter delivering a sparkling Quando me’n vo’ in the Café Momus scene. Rodolfo’s pals, Oren Gradus as Colline and Quinn Kelsey as Schaunard, are excellent, and veteran bass Paul Plishka contributes some nice comic turns as Benoit and Alcindoro. --Dan Davis
La Bohème is an all-regions disc in 16:9 ratio. Sound options include PCM Stereo and DTS 5.1 Surround. Sung in Italian, subtitles include English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Extras include backstage interviews by Renée Fleming and a short tribute, "Zeffirelli at the Met."
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I had enthusiastically looked forward to this live HD transmission and attended the performance at a local movie theatre. While there is much to enjoy in this version, the shortcomings left me with an overall lukewarm impression.
A big disappointment for me was the transposition of Rudolfo's famous aria, Che gelida manina, down a half step so that it peaks at a high B instead of a C. This is as good of a place as any to explain why I think transposition in a piece such as La Boheme just does not work. Puccini used an almost "through-composed" style in his operas (following the lead of Wagner), which means all of the musical moments are seamlessly attached. Key transitions, of course, are essential for the piece to come off as a unified whole. When one section is changed, as is the case here, the whole scene suffers. Even my brother, an avid Boheme fan but almost totally unschooled musically, remarked to me, "Something doesn't sound right." Of course it doesn't. It's not that I'm in love with high notes; it's the tonal flow that matters to me. What surprises me is that any conductor would go along with this common practice to accommodate the tenor. Also consider that this was a highly publicized live production seen all over the world and destined for immortality on DVD. Surely Ramon Vargas, a fine singer, could handle the higher tessitura for just one afternoon!
Another gripe is the casting of two cameo roles, Benoit and Alcindoro, with the ... Read More
Rating:  -
This is another filming of Zeffirelli's well-known La Boheme production, but it still looks fabulous. I loved what conductor Luisotti is doing with the orchestra, and it is good to have a recording of Gheorghiu singing Mimi, while her voice is still in good shape. Ramon Vargas is a good Rodolfo and baritone Ludovic Tezier is excellent as Marcello.
Highly recommended!
Rating: -
I saw this at the local cineplex in HD. These are wonderful events for those of us far from New York. We were thrilled by the performance. This is the same production (different singers) as the Pioneer DVD which has been available for a long time.
When THIS "event" is available in Blu-Ray...I'll buy it.
PS: And I already have the earlier DVD of the Zeffirelli production.
Rating: -
Britten - Peter Grimes (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series)
This DVD is a recording of the performance of La Boheme at the Met on April 5/2008 which was transmitted in HD worldwide. The first night was on 3/29th with the same cast, and the reviews in NY papers and the one here by Ivy Lin were based on the the opening night performance, not the one used on this disc. I attended the opening and agree with most of Ms. Lin's observations, i.e.: Vargas ' voice being "lyric,bright,ardent" hitting
the high C in Che Gelida Manina "delicately"; Gheorghiu's aggressiveness and sluttishness, and her being out of sync in her Act1 aria. I do not agree with her claim that Vargas was too chubby and phlegmatic to be a believable Rodolfo, but I tend to agree with her comments about the Mimi. I cannot blame Ms. Lin because I myself found Ms.Gheorghiu to be trying hard to appear too romantic and taken with her man. She practically mauled him at the Cafe Momus with her exuberance. I did not attend the April 5th performance but I listened to the PBS radio broadcast and saw the moviecast of the event,and was very happy with the positive changes and improvement over the opening night performance. The excessive touching, smooching and other distractions were toned down, and the musical matters went on smoothly.
This disc has outstanding video and audio worthy of the Met's 50-yr old classic Zeffirelli production with an ideal casting of ... Read More
Rating:  -
This is one of the better DVD releases of the Met's recent enormously popular live HD moviecasts. The cast sings well, the production is one of Franco Zefferelli's less tacky creations, and La Boheme remains one of the singer-proof operas. Puccini's music is so affecting that even rather average singers can make the experience moving.
Fortunately this La Boheme has assembled a cast that is far from average. I saw the production in its opening night with the same cast. I found both Vargas and Gheorghiu's voice to be a tad small for the large cavernous Met, but one cannot argue with the beauty of their voices. Gheorghiu's voice in particular has a dusky, husky, fragile sounding timbre that gives us the illusion of a consumptive. Her snow-white skin and dark black hair also adds to the appearance of someone who has been sick for quite awhile, although for my money no one was ever able to look as believably consumptive as Teresa Stratas in the earlier Met video with Jose Carreras. She has some unusual phrasing during "Si mi chiamano Mimi" -- she seems determined to take the aria at a slower pace than the conductor, and she also eschews the traditional portamenti. Vargas's voice is bright, ardent, and he's a sensitive musician. He hits the high C in "Che gelida manina" delicately and if his voice is a bit too small and lyric for the role he still always sounds beautiful. Ainhoa Arteta makes no particular impression as Musetta but she is much better than the screechy, over-the-hill ... Read More
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