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The Bargain Nexus - Tan Dun - The First Emperor (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series)
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List Price: $37.98
Our Price: $17.40
Your Save: $ 20.58 ( 54% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
Starring: Placido Domingo, Elizabeth Futral, Michelle DeYoung, Paul Groves, Hao Jiang Tian
Directed By: Zhang Yimou, Brian Large
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5099921512995
Format: Classical
Label: EMI Classics
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
Number Of Discs: 2
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: EMI Classics
Region Code: 0
Release Date: 2008-09-16
Running Time: 176
Studio: EMI Classics
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting visual spectacle but musically bizarre...
Comment: This is an amazing stage and costume spectacle with highly unusual music that is sometimes pleasing and other times jarring. It is certainly different. Tan Dun even gave the orchestra vocal parts!
The overly simplistic story line and lyrics of the opera, however, were no match for the luscious spectacle enveloping the music and singing. Elizabeth Futral, for example, did a wonderful acting job as the princess with Eastern mannerisms but the English vocal lines she expressed were often just plain bizarre. Paul Groves' part as the protagonist Fianli was just as strange. At times I wondered how he could keep a straight face. It was all just too simple...for the setting...or even to be an opera! (This is another example of the disappointment of hearing the Latin mass sung in English!)
So, it seems kind of unfair to criticize anyone's part in it. A great singer like Placido Domingo cannot give more than the composer writes. It's hardly his fault if it doesn't fly! Same for the rest of the cast.
I'm glad I saw this production, but I have no desire to ever watch it again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nothing much to be proud of...
Comment: At the start of the show, actress ZHANG Ziyi, attired in a curious 'aerodrome look', said that she is 'proud of this production of The First Emperor'.
I regret to say that I cannot quite agree with her.
Despite the decade of hard work spent on the musical script by TAN Dun, I regret to say that Mr. Tan has chosen the wrong libretto for the opera: the story plot based on an earlier lakclustre Chinese film 'Qin Song' starring the sublime JIANG Wen as the First Emperor and XU Qing as Princess Yueyang. The story isn't original, nor historical. Much more drama could be gained into the plot if TAN had resorted to the historical 'assassin' Jingke, reputedly the 'father of the Kamikazes' of Japan. Historically GAO Jianli composed the famous 'air' called 'The River Yi Shudders' for the great assassin Jingke before he embarked on his heroic act in attempting to kill the First Emperor (unsuccessfully, with Jingke himself dying as a result). What beauty and dramatic impact could there be if this was staged in operatic format?
TAN embarked instead on the colourless film story for his libretto. Worse still, the lyrics were to every singer's and listener's horror. If opera is an art embodying music, singing, poetry and drama, at least there is scarcity in the last two. The lyrics are horrific in that they are prosaic and verbose. There simply is no connection between the words and the musical line. What more could be more lacklustre than a phrase like 'your horses tramppled my mother...to death'? What rhythm, what nuance is this?
I would not say more of this glaring adversity, which permeates the entire work.
What I would also like to mention is that the staging is at times not following the libretto - when the First Emperor says 'bring him (GAO) hither', the staging instead resorts to a scene in the prison where GAO is being detained. Furthermore, the 'brand' made on the forehead of Paul Groves as GAO says 'convict', not 'slave', as Domingo as the Emperor claimed him to be.
It is sad to see TAN Dun's music being wholly wasted in such titers and taters, adding up to a big torrent of fiasco.
Sad, sad, sad.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the critics
Comment: Critics have been very harsh on this new opera. This has happened before; composers have been misunderstood or not-understood at all by critics, while the public loved them. Seems too early to dismiss "The First Emperor". I have seen it many times and every time I discover something new. The DVD is much better than the live broadcast I saw in the theater, the image is much brighter.
The opera is full of symbols. I am sure I don't even understand them all yet. Although the obvious theme is about the anthem, seems that the suffering of the builders of the Great Wall is a much more profound one. The wall is built to protect against the barbarians, while behaving in a barbaric way. Is this opera a critic to Mao (and/or others)?
The music is different, interesting and enjoyable. The singers are first quality and the Chinese performers very interesting. This production is the first one. May be it is not perfect, or it could have been done differently. I will leave that judgment for the future, when new performances are produced. Seems to me that a film production could be interesting, (like Chaudet's film of Stravinsky's "Le Rossignol").
I strongly recommend this DVD to those interested in the new world, not only of Opera, but the global village and China's cultural integration with the world in particular.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!
Comment: The last time I heard Placido Domingo, it was live in Handel's 'Tamerlano' in Washington DC, just a few months ago. Domingo was singing a baroque role well outside his comfort zone of technique, but his voice and his stage presence were so commanding that I loved him anyway. The last time I saw Domingo in a Chinese robe, it was in the DVD of the Met's 'Turandot.' He was superb, both vocally and dramatically. In this performance, alas, his voice is harsh and strained, and he stumbles about like a sick old man, not at all the persona of the great Qin Emperor. Even at his greatest, however, Domingo couldn't have made sense of this role. The character is implausibly foolish and the music assigned to the role has no gamut of expressiveness.
I expected good things from Placido and also from composer Tan Dun, whose less grandiose opera "Tea" impressed me a lot. That older work synthesized Chinese traditions of 'natural' noise as musical material with European concepts of horizontal structure in time -- impression with memory, you might say. This First Emperor is just a mish-mash of symphonic bombast with orientalizing sound effects. Tan Dun could write better movie music! in fact he has -- the music for Hero, among other things, also portraying the Qin Emperor. If you ever have a choice between this opera and that film, take the film!
As one is accustomed to expect, the Met production is lavish. The costumes are stunning, though the robes of the two leading male singers are far from flattering to their physiques. The singer borrowed from real Chinese opera - Wu Hsing-Kuo, the Yin-Yang Master - is easily the most energizing presence on stage. Elizabeth Futral sings the role assigned her, as Princess Yueyang, with consummate art, but the music she's singing is just pointless meandering up and down her vocal range. The whole score ranges from trite to embarrassing.
Hard to believe, but the libretto is even more embarrassing, full of earnest declamations like "Do you hear the snow fluttering" and "green leaves are breaking the crusted ice." I've lived in some snowy places - Minnesota, Sweden, Massachusetts - but I've never heard snow "flutter." The story line is silly and the drama is static. Yes, hard to believe.
This opera will inevitably be compared to another brand new opera with a Chinese theme, The Bonesetter's Daughter, based on the novel by Amy Tan, premiered in September '08 in San Francisco. Tan's libretto also limps through some turgid and sententious linguistic imagery, but the drama as such is far more moving and amusing, and the music by Stewart Wallace has real substance, enough to be worth recording on a CD just for listening. If you ever have a choice between hearing Bonesetter's Daughter and watching Hero, this time go with the opera.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a Mess!
Comment: This project sounded promising when it was first announced. I had high hopes. I was looking forward to an interesting collaboration between Placido Domingo, Tan Dun and the Metroplitan Opera but the result is a disaster! The music is a strange combo of east and west that just doesn't work. The story is too broad and all over the place. It would have been better to focus on the relationships and forget the nonsense about the anthem.
What's up with this guy that he is so obsessed with a song. Why? With all the intrigue and crushing of enemies, he focuses on music? This is the guy who united China? A ruthless leader? Give me a break. In this opera he is a wreak! I understand wanting an anthem for a united China but it doesn't work with everything else going on. Focus on either the people in the palace or the uniting of China but not both.
I gave this dvd 3 stars because of the performers; especially those from Beijing. Given the disasterous music and story I think the performers mostly are ok. The main singers are adequate, not outstanding. They rise to the occasion and make the best of what they are given to work with. My biggest criticism of the leads is saved for my great hero Placido Domingo. I am a huge admirer of his amazing talent but this effort was less than stellar. He looks and sounds as uncomfortable as anyone. There are also times his voice sounds really strained. He makes it work but like the others his performance is only adequate. A real disappointment. He also has the unenviable task of trying to sing convoluted music in English which we know is not his first language. It has to be difficult. His Spanish accent, which I find charming when he speaks, makes it almost impossible to understand what he is singing. It is another problem in this already troubled production. In all fairness I have occasional trouble understanding some of the others as well. Subtitles are definitely needed.
The best things about this performance are the costumes which are beautiful and the performers from China. They are amazing and wonderful to hear and see. This dvd is worth it for their performance alone. They deserve all the credit for making this bearable. I only wish the entire production could have been from Beijing. It may have been better.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Metropolitan Opera's acclaimed Live in High-Definition series, which projects live performances into theaters across the globe, has met with unprecedented critical and commercial success and has made opera convenient and affordable to millions of viewers worldwide. Now, EMI Classics is proud to collaborate with The Met to release 6 new DVDs made from these broadcast performances.
Legendary tenor Plácido Domingo leads an all-star cast in this visually stunning opera by Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). Commissioned by The Met in the mid-1990s, this spectacular new production was one of the most highly-anticipated cultural events of the 2006-07 Metropolitan Opera season, combining the expressive power of traditional ancient Chinese singing with the long musical lines of Italian Opera. Conducted by Tan Dun himself, with revered Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou (Hero, Raise the Red Lantern) directing and Oscar-winner Emi Wada designing the costumes. A remarkable performance!
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