Search - Charlotte Church - Prelude: The Best of Charlotte Church on DVD

Beautiful, stunning, splendid performance!

01/25/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... Technically, this DVD is superb-video is sharp, clear, colors strong, bright. Audio is clear, flawless. The selections are all taken from DVDs Voice of An Angel, In Jerusalem, Enchantment. Charlotte looks beautiful and exquisite in all the selections.I have all of Charlotte's DVDs so I have seen all the selections before. But it is good to have a summary of the best on one DVD. I am glad The Lord's Prayer and Ave Marie are included - these two are sung with so much passion by Charlotte. She has the ability to sing songs which are well known and make them her own by putting her own interpretation on them. Bridge over Troubled Waters and Imagine are another two examples of this. Pie Jesu and Habanera are so excellently done, the latter looks so charming.For Josh Groban's fans, Somewhere and The Prayer with Charlotte would be a reason for buying this DVD.I do not completely agree with all the selections but this is a small matter. I would have liked the popular "Carrickfergus" and my favorite "If I loved you" to be included. Watch Charlotte's performance in Enchantment when she was singing "If I loved you", in the camera shot from the back of her towards the audience. She was singing her heart out and she raised her left arm and slowly brought it down to express the emotions of the song. You will see the faces of the audience were awestruck as she did this. I have played this song many times and enjoyed this particular performance so much.One other comment on selection, I would have liked if The Holy City was selected instead of Jerusalem - just my preference. Needless to say, all the other selections were wonderful.On the bonuses, which are very important, you can hear Charlotte singing Carrickfergus in the background of Video Tour of Cardiff with Charlotte. This partially makes up for the video Carrickfergus not been included in the DVD. Finally, one good bonus one might overlook is the Photo Gallery with Music. This had many lovely and beautiful pictures of Charlotte including pictures from her CDs. This to me was very enjoyable and nice."

Highly disapointing

Za'chary Westbrook | Salem, OR | 04/10/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Charlotte Church is, without question, my favorite vocalist. I was thirteen when I first heard 'Voice of an Angel' and I was hooked. One of the thing I've enjoyed most over the last five years, is hearing her vocal talent improve. Each new CD topples the previous with skill. This look back over Miss Church's career, is really disapointing.
I loved the CD, the first time I heard 'Sancta Maria' (stabding in the music store listening on those [bad] headphones) I actually cried, it was so beautiful. The CD was kind of interesting in that you can hear, song to song, the evolution of her voice, it's especially good if you've never heard Miss Church before. I had hoped that, for the DVD, she would reperform the songs. Instead they are the performances from all her previous DVDs.
What was disapointing was that, along with her voice, she stage skills have evolved. Her early performances are mostly her just standing there, and there are no performances of the new songs. Like I said, I liked the CD (even though I already owned all but three of the songs) but the reason music DVDs are cool is because of the 'live experience'. With half of the performances, you may as well be staring at the CD cover.
I love Miss Church (probably more than I should) but this DVD really feels like a waste. For me, 'Sancta Maria' was worth the [money]for 'Prelude' alone, but the DVD just isn't nearly as entertaining."

A Solid Dissappointment!

D. W. Kelley | New England | 02/25/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Don't get me wrong, I think Charlotte Church is a fabulous soprano - I love to hear her sing & have many of her CDs. However, this DVD is purely a waste of the plastic from which it was cast. I looked forward with great anticipation to receiving this DVD so that I could "see" her sing/perform. And, with the name of "Sony Music on DVD" to substantiate the product, I ass/u/me-d it would be of great quality. I was wrong!

The DVD is compilation of live performance out-takes at various ages - not a problem with that. However, the soud engineering is of monumentally poor quality. In fact, in over half the tracks, her voice is so down-mixed that you cannot hear nor understand her over the music or crowd noise. To make matters worse, the microphone placement & sound mixing makes the elite orchestras & ensembles backing her up sound like a bad highschool band marching at halftime. Only 2 or 3 of the tracks are even enjoyable to watch/listen. The video quality is somewhat better on most of the tracks, but still falls well short of what I expected from Sony.

I forced myself to watch the entire DVD beginning to end to see if there was anything salvageable. I am sad to say that precious little falls into the category of worth the time to view.

I would strongly recommend to anyone seeking a Charlotte Church DVD to avoid this one like the plague. I have not seen nor tested any of her other Sony DVDs...I can only hope that they are much more well done. An artist of this talent deserves much more respect for her work than this DVD manifests."

10 STARS!

Gandalf | U.S.A | 09/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Forget all those reviews about sound quality and whatever! Charotte looks and sounds great here. This DVD Plays over 2 hours with the bonuses and is an incredible retrospective of her career! Amazon only allows 5 stars, but my family would rate this dvd 10 for being just perfect! The bonuses alone are worth the price! "Dream a Dream" video (duet with Billy Gilman)
Backstage with Charlotte Church (from Voice of an Angel); a Video tour of Cardiff with Charlotte; an Interview with Charlotte (from Enchantment), an Aerial tour of South Wales; a Charlotte Church Photo gallery with music; her Biography, and a Discography!"