Boito - Mefistofele / Ramey, Beneckova

1 DVD - Label: Kultur - D0024 - Mefistofele - Boito, Arrigo - Orchestra: San Francisco Opera Orchestra - Choir: San Francisco Opera Chorus - Conductor: Maurizio Arena

Samuel Ramey won overwhelming critical acclaim for his performance in the San Francisco Opera's production of Boito's adaptation of Goethe's classic conflict of good versus evil, under the baton of Maurizio Arena. Samuel Ramey: Mefistofele Dennis O'Neill: Faust Daniel Harper: Wagner Emily Manhart: Pantalis Douglas Wunsch: Nereo Gabriela Benacková: Margherita/Elena Judith Christin: Marta

Arrigo Boito's treatment of the Faust legend has never been as popular as Gounod's, but Boito was an imaginative composer and a great librettist (he wrote the words for Verdi's Otello and Falstaff, the two finest librettos in Italian opera). As the title suggests, his Mefistofele puts the spotlight on the diabolical villain of the story at least as much as its hapless hero. It is a role ideally suited to Samuel Ramey, requiring a rich, deep voice, a striking stage presence, and only elementary acting skills. He has taken it to most of the world's great opera houses with spectacular success, and it is good to have it in a first-class video recording. The libretto stands out, among operatic treatments of Faust, for its effort to capture the full, epic scope of Goethe's drama, including its moments of unearthly sublimity. The prologue and the conclusion are among opera's most memorable moments of choral grandeur, as this production makes clear. Elsewhere, Boito is witty, colorful, and, sometimes, philosophically dry. --Joe McLellan

Price: $39.98