Mozart Week continues at my house! This arrived today:
I finally tracked down a copy of this 2006
recording. It's hard to believe I haven't tagged any posts with LCdT for almost
a full
year. A while back I featured Tito's three arias sung
by Charles
Castronovo, not realizing they were from this recording. A quick search
did not reveal any other clips from this CD over at the Toob. In the next week or so, I will see what I can
do to address this gap.
There are approximately a gazillion extras in this production of La Boheme: Shoppers, children, partiers, chefs, waiters, guards, street cleaners, private body guards, etc., etc. Zeffirelli would be envious. During the Momus scene, extras actually sit around the huge (main stage) table. In the crowd scenes there is always a big crowd, especially at Momus; but the principals are never obscured nor lost in the confusion. There are a few modern-ish dance moves and a marching band that looks suspiciously Sgt. Pepper-inspired. I will never get that “tattoo shimmy” line dance at the end of Act 2 out of my head. (For better or for worse.)
There are a few things we should note right up front about this DVD:
- An opera on the Seebühne at Bregenz is meant to be a spectacle. It’s a tourist attraction. The stage is in the lake. They have fireworks, there are tons of people on stage, they always have to work a boat into the production, and the set is usually something really strange and/or symbolic. (It also has to be sturdy enough to survive being in the lake for 2 full years.)
