Fly, Thought, on Golden Wings - Giuseppe Verdi's Life

Starring:Thomas Hampson, Nabucco Opera, Aida Opera
Studio: Euroarts
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

I DON'T THINK SO
Verdi's Life Rather as a Businessman, Told and SUNG by Hampton
Verdi Travelogue with Music

Fly, Thought, on Golden Wings - Giuseppe Verdi's Life
Starring: Thomas Hampson , Nabucco Opera , and Aida Opera
Manufacturer: Euroarts
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0007XHKSK
Release Date: 2005-04-19

Customer Reviews:

I DON'T THINK SO.......2007-05-29

I belive this production was great it shows Verdi the person the politician and the nusicean. since we are talking about 45 minutes of broadcast we can't expect more. Hamspon singing in there is just great.
and of couse it is artificial becouse they can't put the hole orchestra in there. Hampson talks abuout verdi in his most theatricle way talking about verdi.It is fair for what we expected about his. they mention some of his masterpieces.as mutch as I remember they talk about his style. but you can not expect to lecture about his style in 45 minutes.
Hampson give there his charisma.
it seems to me that he wasn't involve with the script, and it is a pity.
If you wach voices of our time when he and wolfram rieger talk about mahler you will know what I think. I missed there the special talk of Hampson

Verdi's Life Rather as a Businessman, Told and SUNG by Hampton.......2005-11-08

This portrayal is very sketchy indeed. The earlier reviewer used the word "superficial", and I can't agree more. There isn't a hint about Verdi's ideas on music or his values in life, nor his own musical development, nor his influence on Puccini...

Hampton is a gifted baritone, but he doesn't strike the audience as a well trained narrator. Note further that Hampton the narrator would suddenly switched his role to Hampton the singer/performer, and he is the only singer in this entire film in the entire Verdi repertoire. The result, it sounds like some of the musicals in the 60s when the characters would go straight into singing whilst in the middle of their dialogues and this time, we have Hampton switching right from his monologues to operatic singing rather out of the blue.

Verdi Travelogue with Music.......2005-04-15

Although it is not stated up front, this DVD, a rather superficial video-biography of Giuseppe Verdi originally aired on Austrian and Japanese TV in 2001, hosted charmingly by Thomas Hampson, is associated with a CD by Hampson issued in 2001, a CD in which Hampson, accompanied by The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Richard Armstrong, sings a number of Verdi arias. If you are interested in hearing Hampson sing Verdi, I'd suggest you buy that CD, because in this DVD we get Hampson lip-synching (while being filmed in appropriate Verdi-related sites) to four of the arias he sings on the CD. As for the biography itself, it is notable only for showing us in richly detailed videography various sites associated with Verdi's life: his birthplace in Roncole, the church in Busseto where he played the organ, La Scala and other sites in Milan, the Opéra in Paris, and finally Casa di Riposo, the home Verdi founded for retired musicians. Hampson recounts, not always entirely accurately or clearly, incidents from Verdi's life. And then, often with no clear indication as to why, he breaks into song. His singing, of course, is wonderful. One does wonder why, from Il trovatore, he sings the Count di Luna's 'Tutto à deserto ... Il balen' in French as 'Tout est désert ... Son regard.' Also included are 'O vecchio cor, che batti,' from I due Foscari; 'Pietà, rispetto, amore' from 'Macbeth; and 'Di Provenza il mar' from La Traviata.

If you are interested in a detailed filmed biography of Verdi, I'd suggest you look for the 1984 dramatized 'The Life of Verdi,' starring Ronald Pickup. The visual aspect of this original VHS production (now in DVD as well) is not as beautiful as that in the present release, but at least it is not superficial.

One must say, however, that if one is mildly interested in Verdi, and interested in something of a Verdi-related travelogue with music (nicely provided, one must add, by Hampson) this might be for you.

TT=60 minutes; in English, without subtitles; Sound PCM Stereo

Scott Morrison

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