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List Price: $39.99Amazon.com's Price: $35.99 You Save: $4.00 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0809478009559
Format: Classical, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: BBC / Opus Arte
Manufacturer: BBC / Opus Arte
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: BBC / Opus Arte
Release Date: September 12, 2006
Running Time: 138 minutes
Sales Rank: 21465
Studio: BBC / Opus Arte
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
The 1953 Coronation Week galas included Covent Garden's world premiere of Benjamin Britten's Gloriana . But instead of a feel-good Olde England spectacle glorifying the first Queen Elizabeth they got an opera about a royal court riven by intrigues, a treasonous lover, and an aging, lonely monarch who must rule her passions in order to rule her kingdom. The opera's full of brilliant, inventive music and moving emotions. It requires a Queen equal to a role that demands great acting and great singing and Josephine Barstow is just such a Queen. She embodies the part with such overwhelming intensity it's hard to imagine anyone else in it. Her voice may have lost some of its lustre, but the toll time has taken only makes her performance more riveting. This DVD is a must-have for Barstow alone. The others in the cast are quite good; tenor Tom Randle is a fiery Essex and Clive Bayley's oily Sir Walter Raleigh is excellent, among many others deserving of mention. Conductor Paul Daniel leads an exciting performance, despite a few questionable tempos.
But director Phyllida Lloyd's transformation of a staged opera to film will be controversial, as will the brutal cuts she makes to more single-mindedly focus on the Queen and her interior conflicts. Thus, what we see is not what Britten intended, but instead a valid interpretation of the opera by a skilled director. Still, the music is compromised by her approach, which blends onstage performance film and studio scenes in which singers match their parts to piped-in orchestral accompaniments with backstage, handheld camera shots showing performers changing costume and bantering among themselves as Britten's music plays. It's exciting video, but more valuable as a supplement to the complete staged opera than as your sole Gloriana. --Dan Davis
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Stunning cinematic interpretation of a sometimes difficult opera
Gloriana has never at any time been considered to be one of Britten's finest acheivements in opera but in Phillida Lloyd's and Jospehine Barstow's hands one is forced to reconsider this works place among the Britten legacy.
Enough has been written by other reviewers about the cuts in the music and the quality of Barstow's amazing performance. I would wholeheartedly echo most of what has been written. While disappointed by the cuts I feel that the searing dramatic pace of the film quite justifies ... Read More
Rating:  - Glorious filming/production
Excellent film of Britten's opera Gloriana. J. Barstow as Gloriana is superb. Beautiful and audacious directing. It's well worth it.
Rating: - A Missed Opera-tunity
The performances are nothing short of astonishing and I was moved - powerfully so. Still, in the end, I have to admit to being somewhat let down. I loved this Opera North production - the casting, the direction, everything about it. I even - to a lesser degree - enjoyed the backstage moments, costume changes, pranks, etc. But the ending, which Britten ensures to pack a huge emotional wallop (and isn't that what we most love about opera?) is diffused by having the heroine taking off her wig, makeup before ... Read More
Rating: - Almost Fantastic
What a stupendous performance! Jospehine Barstow is absolutely magnificent as Queen Elizabeth: what a tour de force! And Tom Randle is a convincing and melodious Essex. So what is wrong with this performance? It's not what's there: everything that is there is very good indeed. Unfortunately, this was a slightly shortened version of the Opera North production for TV, which left some scenes out. The beginning of the opera is missing, for example; and I particularly missed the delighful scene of the ballad ... Read More
Rating: - Region 2 warning is wrong
Amazon's warning on this listing that it is Region 2 (i.e. won't play on most US players) is wrong! Like most opera DVDs, this one is Region 0, which means it plays in all regions, and NTSC - the North American video system.
This is a wonderful disc, and I hate to think Amazon is inadvertantly scaring of buuyers with this bogus warning. Opera discs need all the sales thay can get!
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