Search - BBC - Singer of the World / Mattila, Terfel, Hvorostovsky, Gasteen, Malis, Esposito, Harteros, Brenciu, Cardiff - Wales on DVD

Almost perfect

Eunice | Lake Mary, FL United States | 08/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I give this DVD four stars because although the recordings are superb, and it is a wonderful opportunity to see some now famous singers when they were young hopefuls, the production suffered from a "classroom" approach. Rather than an introduction and small anecdote about the performance and/or the artist or chosen work, each singer was simply shown performing four songs with no introduction and nothing to indicate what they were singing. Unless one is familiar with the work, it is necessary to constantly refer to the booklet. The songs were separated by a brief blackout, leading one to expect a caption denoting which lesson we were watching.

Surely, for a magnificent work of this importance there are semi-retired opera stars who could have introduced each contestant and told us a brief backstage tale. The first disc had the competition winners, I would have liked to have seen more of the finalists and perhaps something of the backstage atmosphere. Disc two does have a documentary about the contest and interviews with accompanyists and judges, but I would have preferred more of that between the singers on disc one. There is an all-too brief (3 minutes) feature on the legendary battle of the baritones in 1989 with up-to-date interviews with Bryn Terfel and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. The DVD could have used more "where are they now" features.

Overall, this DVD is a wonderful souvenir of a memorable competition."