Mefistofele (Blu-ray) - Pape, Calleja, Opolais
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Item: 814337013936
Description
Mefistofele (Blu-ray) - Pape, Calleja, Opolais
Best-known today as the librettist of Verdi’s final Shakespearean masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, the multitalented Arrigo Boito was also a fine composer in his own right. Hugely ambitious in scope, and some 20 years in the making, his first (and only completed) opera, Mefistofele, sets out to encompass nothing less than the whole of Goethe’s vast poetic drama Faust (parts I and II), and is considered the very central work of his phase between Verdi and Puccini. Making his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, director Roland Schwab (a protégé of the legendary Ruth Berghaus) plays devil’s advocate by setting the opera in a nightmarish atmosphere. The exceptional cast features Rene Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais, and Karine Babajanyan. “[Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais’s Margherita] shines with understated Grace Kelly elegance” (Opera Today). “Conductor Omer Meir Wellber “holds all the musical textures together with admirable control” (BR Klassik).
Actors: René Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais, Karine Babajanyan, Omer Meir Wellber
Directors: Roland Schwab
Format: NTSC
Language: Italian
Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: C Major Entertainment
DVD Release Date: November 18, 2016
Run Time: 140 minutes
History
Mefistofele
Mefistofele is the celebrated and only completed opera by Italian composer, Arrigo Boito, who famously collaborated with Verdi on the libretti for Otello and Falstaff.
This work is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue based on Goethe’s Faust. In this tale, Faust, a forlorn, aged philosopher, makes a disastrous deal with the the Devil—aka Mefistofele, the fallen angel—inthe sort of dubious arrangement now known as a "Faustian" bargain.
The Met’s production of this double bill was set in an unspecified space, visually inspired by the film noirs of the 1940s.
The Metropolitan Opera has presented the work a total of 67 times since it first appeared there on December 5,1883 and most recently during the Met’s 2018–19 season.
Premiered on March 5,1868 at La Scala, Milan.
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