Worth having but DVD could stand to be remastered - First off, this DVD has some issues. The video is soft and the audio is not as clear as it could be. Howver, by no means, is the current DVD unwatchable. In fact, I am surprised and pleased that it is available at all!Although not a perfect production by any means, there is much here to merit notice. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Daltrey conducts himself fairly well in the lead role, although his voice doesn t seem especially suited to this style of singing. But, they needed a name and they wanted to make the production seem more hip, so what are ya gonna do?
Great! An opera in English - I enjoyed watching this opera. I enjoyed it more when I searched for a libretto off the internet. (It has no subtitles.) The words are spoken and sung quickly, and many are not familiar modern English terms. Like many comic operas, it is really rather ridiculous. it is sung and acted well and the costumes are a delight.
RETRAIN ME BACK! - This is an excellent show. I first saw it on PBS. Roger does a great job, not what you would expect. The fun back story is that Roger had to be classically trained to do this part and when he was done, he found he couldn t perform Who music. He went back to the vocal coach in a panic and he retrained Roger to go back to singing in a rock voice. He was fine then, once he would scream properly!Too bad that his turn in the Wizard of OZ (also PBS) is not available, as he made an excellent tin man and didn t have to retrain his voice!
Gritty Beggar s Opera On the Whole a Success - To those reviewers who long for the Olivier version and who think of The Beggar s Opera through the charming lens of the 1920s revival: Gay would be spinning in his grave if he ever heard someone use the word romantic in conjunction with his acid little play. I know that the play took on a life of its own, and was revived virtually every season throughout the 18th century, but let s not forget that he was out to write a scathing satire of the political and social corruptions of his day: the very idea of having a beggar write an opera for the marriage celebration of two catch-singers seemed so outrageous that the audience wasn t sure whether or not to boo it offstage until the middle of the first act. Audiences in 1728 loved it because it ridiculed rich and powerful political figures while it skewered the pretensions of Italian opera and opera-singers, audiences afterwards got charmed by the songs and by the mythology of its characters, as the play lost its immediate topical sting.Jonathan Miller s production attempts to restore something of the grittiness of the original play, both by having Roger Daltrey as Macheath and by recreating the squalor of Peachum s lock and of Newgate prison (compare Miller s set of Newgate with Hogarth s famous painting of Act III and you ll see what I mean). Daltrey is both good and not good as Macheath: Macheath does have something of the rock-star about him--and makes Polly and Lucy s attraction to him plausible--and Daltrey s sneer captures the cynicism that underlines Macheath s character. Moreover, Daltrey rises to the occasion perfectly when he sings the Greensleeves rewrite Since Laws were made for ev ry Degree, thundering out his bitterness with a power that could only come from someone more used to belting out Young Man s Blues than Handel. I m a little surprised that one reviewer would refer to him as a boy--Daltrey was 39 when this production was made in 1983. However, he sometimes seems a little out of place with more classically trained singers, such as Carol Hall (a staple of John Eliot Gardiner s Montiverdi Choir). He may also strike some as too modern for what is presented here as a period-piece, tho personally I found Daltrey made the piece more accessible. As for the rest of the cast: Peachum is a hoot, and Mrs. Peachum is delightfully grubby. Lockit gets a bit annoying after a while, but he really is a one-dimensional character. The teo female leads are equally matched, as Gay s beggar says they should be: Polly tries to be as starched and respectable as Lucy tries to enjoy her low status. Kudos also to the Broadside Band for their excellent period-instrument rendering of the music--again, a vast improvement over more romantic conceptions of the opera.Two criticisms to finish off: why Miller changed the ending is beyond me,and is the biggest misstep in an otherwise fine production. The sound, as others have noted, is terrible: a real hindrance for those trying to hear the music. Given that this was recorded for TV in 1983, some of the technical problems are excusable--but a digitally remastered version of the soundtrack would be most welcome.Not a perfect rendering of the Beggar s Opera, but one appreciably closer to an eighteenth-century sensibility than previous versions.
(none) - A very good preduction overall if not slightly uncut ...however, all those other reviewers who say that the olivier version has disapeared should try looking on the amazon.co.uk website where it is available on either region 2 dvd or PAL video.