Puccini - Gianni Schicchi / Corbelli, Palmer, Giordano, Matthews, McLaughlin, Jurowski, Glyndebourne Opera

I suppose you shoppers for "the next opera to add to my collection" noticed all the five star ratings for this production? I add another five stars. It is one of those operas that gets played again and again. The one you would select to play for your guests who heretofore have avoided opera, always saying the cliche, " I like all kinds of music , except opera and _ _ _ " This mind set is from the fifties, when all there seemed to be were audio vinyl albums ( back when records were indeed albums of 4 records or more ). "Get with it, people; we have a new invention called television, with subtitles"...actually big improvements over old television sets now, both in clarity of picture and magnificent sound.This is precisely what is drawing unprecedented attention to opera - which can be/shoud be one of the most sensually stimulating experiences one can have outside of the bedroom.Puccini here deals with one of the most compelling studies in flawed human behaviour in man's history...the business of gut wrenching envy and lust and skulduggerous, years -long- scheming over who gets what in the inheritance. I personally have seen horrible examples of it in my own family more than once! I bet you have too. We can all act like goody two shoes in church on Sunday, til it comes to the inheritance, then we turn sinister !Whole families no longer speak to each other decades after the reading of the will. For this reason I personally wish everyone was required to see this mirror of human failing, and in so doing stand some chinaman's chance of saving ourselves from ruin. The astounding thing is how it is accomplished with such soaring, triumphant music , tension building recitative, and guffawing, jaw dropping humor. A beyond superlative cast and directing was/is a great help. My hat is off to the director who so subtly choreographed the action for the entire performance without there ever being glimpsed the slightest overacting. Wonderful set, and wonderful singing. I am certain none of you will ever forget, nor will ever stop comparing Sally Mathews'portrayal of the adorable Lauretta - nor will her hauntingly beautiful "O mio bambino caro" ever leave your mind. Wow! Sung with such spine tingling beauty and great passion, without a trace of "overdone'. Magnificent!The cast is so very superb. I wish I could go on about each one; albeit, I single out Allesandro Corbelli for now, who carried the title role in a way that NO one will ever be able to match it! Allesandro's performance has caused me to seek him out wherever I can find him in other operas. He appears in Rossini's "La Scala di Seta", the Silk Ladder , as a mere blue collar worker in the opulent mason of the romantic triangle sitcom...yet, honestly, without Allesandro, the entire show would have collapsed of its own schmaltziness. He saved that production...yet barely gets the applause at the end.This little one act Buffo might seem a trifle and not one to take seriously as an addition to your collection; yet I assure you that you will make a serious mistake NOT to have this one. Moreover, I would wager that you would not part with it either! This is a real treasure.Glyndbourne, whose casting has not always been stellar, nor directing for that matter.... would do well to reassemble this design and direction team/orchestra, set designer,cast, etc. This one rings the bell.

Purchased this in SD years ago and wanted HD. Most comic operas aren't really funny. It just means that when the curtain goes down for the final act the stage isn't littered with corpses. This is hilarious. Why are you still reading this. Go buy it. It took a month to get here from Italy but the wait was worth it. I particularly loved Sally Matthews. The look on her face when she enters the rich guy's house and knowing that this is how rich people live and she will soon have a rich husband.

When the Blu-Ray arrived, I put it in my player (a Samsung) and about 5 minutes into the performance, the audio suddenly went out, and the picture started skipping. Thinking it was a defective disk, I returned it and ordered a replacement. When the replacement arrived it did the same thing! My player has had no difficulties with any other disks. Kudos to Amazon for their speedy and painless processing of returns. Has anybody else had any problem with the blu-ray?UPDATE======Turns out that the problem was not with the disk - it with my Blu-Ray player! This was the only disk that my player would choke on, so I naturally enough had assumed that the problem was with the disk rather than with the player. But when I took it to a friend's house, it played flawlessly on their Blu-Ray player. So I exchanged my 2-year old Samsung player for a new Sony, which handled the Schicchi disk with no probems.Now that I've been able to watch it, I have to echo the many positive reviews that have been posted here. If you know somebody who thinks that they "don't like opera", be sure to get this disk in front of them. Unlike most operas, this one is short enough to take in at a single sitting (the 162 minute run time that Amazon lists is for TWO operas that are packaged on this disk - Schicchi & the Miserley Knight). Schicchi is a one-act, tightly scripted comedy that's only about an hour long. And it's very funny. (One of the characters even resembles Sacha Baron Cohen's character in the Sweeney Todd movie). And the singing is wonderful.

Gianni Schicchi and the Dark Knight are at first sight an unlikely couple but the booklet explains why they have been linked. Schicchi is now a very popular black comedy but the knight's tale is really grim. The music however is pure Rachmaninov and well worth repeat listening. Both operas are very well staged and the Opus Arte presentation is excellent apart from the cover art. One would hardly know the Miserly Knight was included! This is silly as what appears to be a one opera disc is so much more attractive when one discovers it combines the previous two DVD release in a superb blu ray disc. Get it! A wonderful Christmas disc to match the joy of Schicchi, with the Knight more in tune with current economic times!

Excellent 👌, quick delivery

Une excellente production, de bons solistes, excellente orchestre et direction intelligente.

Compared to the Best Organic Japanese Matcha green tea powder Brave New Tea that I had bought earlier and was very good, this was too expensive.

Ottima opera buono l'audio e le immagini.. Lo consiglio a chi piace questo genere di opere..mi ha sorpreso davvero..grazie mille

Gran calidad de imagen y sonido. Precioso montaje con magníficos intérpretes. Muy recomendable. Además tiene incluye otra ópera de Rachmaninov: The Miserly Knight