Dvd Haendel The Coronation of King George II

The Order of Myths (2008)
DVDRip | 716x480 | .MKV/AVC @ 2249 Kbps | 1h 18mn | Audio: English AC3 448 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: None | 1.60 GiB
Genre: Documentary

Mobile, Alabama, 2007: the oldest Mardi Gras in the United States is a study in Black and White. Groups prepare coronations, parades, balls, and revelry. White and Black communities have separate royal courts and separate events. People comment on these vestiges of segregation, some critical and some okay with it. The Black king and queen come to the coronation of the White royal couple, and the White king and queen join the celebration at the Comrades party, a primarily Black event. City patriarchs agree to do more together, and the city's youth seem to want more interaction as well. The film explores possible contradictions between preserving traditions and putting the old Mobile behind them.

A surprising fact from the musicological realm is that Haydn wrote about the same number of operas as Mozart–though it's true that some of them were written for the marionette theater at Esterhaza, rather than the opera house. In other words, old "Gius[eppe] Haydn"–as the title page of this opera refers to him–was a master. Better known to some by its alternate title, L'anima del filosofo, Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice was written in 1791 for the King's Theater, Haymarket, during the composer's first English sojourn, but went unperformed there or anywhere else until 1950. The libretto, by Carlo Francesco Badini, is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, with its decidedly unhappy ending to the story (Euridice dies a second time, Orpheus is poisoned, and the Bacchantes perish in a storm).

The major debut on Decca DVD of Danielle de Niese. Returning to the opera house where she sang her sensational Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, Danielle performs the title role in Monteverdi's great opera of lust and power, in Robert Carsen's new, modern-dress staging. De Niese is perfectly cast as the beautiful and seductive Poppea who ruthlessly grabs power as Nero's lover but, in this production, is doomed from the moment of her coronation. De Niese's performance is vocally and dramatically powerful, perfectly complemented by Alice Coote as Nero. The two are supported by an outstanding cast, together with period-performance stars Emmanuelle Haïm conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Carsen creates an intelligent and visually-strong production, focusing on the personal side of the story. At times the action is violent and shocking, but this is juxtaposed with episodes of lightness and humour.