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Title: Interesting film but not the opera
Review: This happens to be one of my favorite operas--I have 9 DVDs of it--and this is an interesting adaptation in a very good restoration. But as one early critic said, in this version the opera has really been turned into a play with a few songs. Felsenstein has made a lively innovative film for its time (1970) but the opera itself is all but lost in the process (there is lots of added spoken dialogue). One-third to a half of the gorgeous music (in the latest longer restored versions of the score) is missing. The better dubbed film version is by Powell and Pressburger (1951, now in a superb Criterion Collection edition) but lovers of the music will need one of the filmed theatrical performances--and I personally would recommend the new, wildly untraditional Olivier Py sex-driven performance from Geneva (2008), although newcomers might want to start with something more down to earth like Domingo at Covent Garden (1981).
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