As far as the opera, which was new to me, goes, I loved the music, as I typically do with Verdi, as it's very much in his distinctive alternately bouncy and dark style, but it's the epitome of bad libretti (Temistocle Solfera) to the extent that Giacomo D'Arco does the play-by-play of his daughter's battles, which we never see (which doesn't work for exactly the same reason Violetta telling us about Alfredo and Douphol's duel does), and rather than being burned (which one especially expects, since she wears the underwear-looking garb that Brunnhilde wears after the armor comes off to the finale of the Ring cycle where she burns) she is killed in action, but of course, she wakes up long enough to sing a final aria. It's pretty static, but it gets better as it goes along. The story is not what we would really expect it to be, although we have Giovanna and her voices, and we have her father Giacomo who is convinced that he voices are evil, much of what appears on stage is Charles V trying to romance Giovanna, and when that fails, still singing her praises as a warrior and the greatest hero of France.
It kind of surprises me that the quote on the box credits Werner Herzog for the "success" of this production. It's only a couple of steps above Jonathan Miller's Clemenza di Tito for being static and uneventful, and for all Werner Herzog's criticisms about "inadequate images" in our society (of which an Egg McMuffin advertisement seems to be his favorite example), strong images are few and far between, though the very last one is indeed amazing. Herzog comes out for the curtain call, but evidently he didn't really want people to see him, since it cuts away to a long shot as soon as he emerges, but I know well what he looks like and recognized him instantly.
I think it's actually Susan Dunn as Giovanna who carries the production,--she always seems to be in her situation, while Vincenzo de Scola as Charles V is all about his glorious voice and isn't much of an actor.
The costuming has the chorus in tall and colorful masks full of pageantry but looking rather druidic, except for a whole mass of choristers in yellow masks and green who look like homages to Iron Fist, a lesser-known Marvel superhero. Although the removal of armor is an important image in the opera, we never see Giovanna put on or take off any armor, and she wears the nightgown-like costume and socks throughout, and the armor involves other characters.
Herzog first involved opera in his films with _Fitzcarraldo_ (which is about a guy who goes into the rubber business to build an opera house in the Amazon and try to attract Caruso to it), and there he hired a supposed expert to stage the opera at the beginning, and it is more over the top than any opera I've ever seen either live or on video (maybe because that's how they performed them in 1906, but he cast a man in drag as Sarah Bernhardt and has characters complaining that she is an actor not a singer cast in the opera for commercial reasons, even though according to the credits, we're hearing actual recordings of her singing, which sounds fine to me). I've been told that the Met wrote a speaking part for Bea Arthur in _Daughter of the Regiment_ for commercial reasons, by the way. I wouldn't think she would be that big a draw, but whatever. Perhaps this paragraph is too much of a digression, but Herzog fans may well be disappointed. While it doesn't look ridiculous the way the operas at the beginning and end of _Fitzcarraldo_ look, aside from a few frissons, particularly at the end, and the stage littered with corpses even in romantic moments (one blinks, while some look sculptural), there is little here that Herzog fans will find particularly interesting. Indeed, _Invincible_ is more characteristically Herzog than this.
The worst part of all is that I was constantly taken out of it by the LPCM stereo, which is not in sync with the visuals--a Hollywood musical with a canned soundtrack has better lip sync than this stage production (and I watched Brigadoon last week, so I have a recent comparison--I also saw the TV version of Gypsy 2 weeks ago and it looked and sounded like the singing was done live on set). This is also a problem on the Met's Ring Cycle DVD (particularly ludicrous at the beginning of Siegfried when Mime hits the anvil and the sound is completely dissociated), but that gives you a Dolby alternative that is in sync with the visuals. With this one, you're stuck with it. I'm going to post on my film lists to see if that's an equipment issue.
Despite the interest of Herzog as director, I think I'm going to go with an audio-only recording next time I want to experience this opera. While it seems to have potential for exciting staging (though given Giacomo's big aria in Act III it might be somewhat redundant based on the text), Herzog was probably just too new to opera (indeed, he co-directed both the stage production and the video) to really contribute as much to it as he may have liked, or at least as much as his fans would have liked.
It kind of surprises me that the quote on the box credits Werner Herzog for the "success" of this production. It's only a couple of steps above Jonathan Miller's Clemenza di Tito for being static and uneventful, and for all Werner Herzog's criticisms about "inadequate images" in our society (of which an Egg McMuffin advertisement seems to be his favorite example), strong images are few and far between, though the very last one is indeed amazing. Herzog comes out for the curtain call, but evidently he didn't really want people to see him, since it cuts away to a long shot as soon as he emerges, but I know well what he looks like and recognized him instantly.
I think it's actually Susan Dunn as Giovanna who carries the production,--she always seems to be in her situation, while Vincenzo de Scola as Charles V is all about his glorious voice and isn't much of an actor.
The costuming has the chorus in tall and colorful masks full of pageantry but looking rather druidic, except for a whole mass of choristers in yellow masks and green who look like homages to Iron Fist, a lesser-known Marvel superhero. Although the removal of armor is an important image in the opera, we never see Giovanna put on or take off any armor, and she wears the nightgown-like costume and socks throughout, and the armor involves other characters.
Herzog first involved opera in his films with _Fitzcarraldo_ (which is about a guy who goes into the rubber business to build an opera house in the Amazon and try to attract Caruso to it), and there he hired a supposed expert to stage the opera at the beginning, and it is more over the top than any opera I've ever seen either live or on video (maybe because that's how they performed them in 1906, but he cast a man in drag as Sarah Bernhardt and has characters complaining that she is an actor not a singer cast in the opera for commercial reasons, even though according to the credits, we're hearing actual recordings of her singing, which sounds fine to me). I've been told that the Met wrote a speaking part for Bea Arthur in _Daughter of the Regiment_ for commercial reasons, by the way. I wouldn't think she would be that big a draw, but whatever. Perhaps this paragraph is too much of a digression, but Herzog fans may well be disappointed. While it doesn't look ridiculous the way the operas at the beginning and end of _Fitzcarraldo_ look, aside from a few frissons, particularly at the end, and the stage littered with corpses even in romantic moments (one blinks, while some look sculptural), there is little here that Herzog fans will find particularly interesting. Indeed, _Invincible_ is more characteristically Herzog than this.
The worst part of all is that I was constantly taken out of it by the LPCM stereo, which is not in sync with the visuals--a Hollywood musical with a canned soundtrack has better lip sync than this stage production (and I watched Brigadoon last week, so I have a recent comparison--I also saw the TV version of Gypsy 2 weeks ago and it looked and sounded like the singing was done live on set). This is also a problem on the Met's Ring Cycle DVD (particularly ludicrous at the beginning of Siegfried when Mime hits the anvil and the sound is completely dissociated), but that gives you a Dolby alternative that is in sync with the visuals. With this one, you're stuck with it. I'm going to post on my film lists to see if that's an equipment issue.
Despite the interest of Herzog as director, I think I'm going to go with an audio-only recording next time I want to experience this opera. While it seems to have potential for exciting staging (though given Giacomo's big aria in Act III it might be somewhat redundant based on the text), Herzog was probably just too new to opera (indeed, he co-directed both the stage production and the video) to really contribute as much to it as he may have liked, or at least as much as his fans would have liked.
