June 11th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
A Simply Grand Opera
If you happen to think of Grand Opera as something for stuffy old people, scroll down to the bottom of this post at Limpid Lech’s finds and take a look at this video excerpt from Act IV of Jacques Offenbach‘s Les contes d’Hoffmann. Great Venus!
NOS-Offenbach-HoffmannsErzaehlungen-Olivier_Py by berendboerke
I think — though I am not 100% certain — that the video excerpts a recent Geneva production by Olivier Py, with Marc Laho in the role of Hoffmann and Maria Riccarda Wesseling as Giulietta. You can find a French-language libretto here.
It just goes to prove what Anna Russell told us so long ago, that the beauty of Grand Opera is that you can get away with anything as long as you sing it.
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Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=6994
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=6994
Er, I think this is the video Dr. Faustus mentions:
dailymotion.com/video/xcyk7t_nos-offenbach-hoffmannserzaehlungen_creation
You need to be logged into Facebook, & turn the Family Filter off to see the above.
You’re right that I had the wrong video embedded, which I have now fixed. Thanks!
But it plays just fine for me without a Facebook login, which I don’t have.
I had as much fun listening as looking. I have no idea what any of it meant, but it was very nice to listen to. I’ve heard some really bad, atonal opera, so this was a nice change.
Thanks for the link. The Daily Motion user who posted that Offenbach clip has put up some other nice naked-opera videos, which you can see if you click ‘berendboerke’ under the above video.