A wonderful recording of a minor work | Alfano - Cyrano de Bergerac / Alagna, Manfrino, Rivenq, Ferrari,...

Alagna & Alfano - An Amazing Cyrano! | Alfano - Cyrano de Bergerac / Alagna, Manfrino, Rivenq, Ferrari, Troxell, Schaer, Barrard, Rittelmann, ... | Roberto Alagna, Nathalie Manfrino

DVDs:


	• Alfano - Cyrano de Bergerac / Alagna, Manfrino, Rivenq, Ferrari, Troxell, Schaer, Barrard, Rittelmann, ... Roberto Alagna, Nathalie Manfrino Deutsche Grammophon, 2005 average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A winner in every way! Bring back Alfano!

This is a lovely production of a lovely and undeservedly forgotten opera. The performances and fine, the sets and lighting brilliant, and the opera itself is beautiful and lyrical. Some unfairly criticize the opera's music as being average or boring. Not so! While there is little that could be hummed on the way out of the opera house, the entire score is lushly romantic and gorgeous. Forget the humming.

Alagna is riveting in the role. Three cheers!

Do not miss this very fine modern opera!

A wonderful recording of a minor work

This is a truly rewarding experience- when the production values including a first-rate French cast headed by Alagna and Manfrino elevate a so-so opera to the highest possible level. Compared to other famous opera houses recent productions, this one is simply overwhelming. Do not miss it! It's worth every penny...

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Alagna & Alfano - An Amazing Cyrano!

I don't understand those who find Alfano's score here "unmusical." There seems to be an increasing number of people who think music stopped being beautiful with Beethoven or, perhaps, Verdi.

Well, call me a sap, but I'm writing this through (yet again) a veil of tears. The entire final act of Cyrano simply overwhelmed me.

Just about every aspect of this production is flawless, and it makes as strong a case for the revival of this opera as I can imagine. First off, there is the Cyrano of Roberto Alagna. We first see him before the opera starts darting down the stairs of the opera house and running through the lobby. Once the opera begins, he makes a sensational entrance from the back of the house, moving among the audience, before hopping up on the stage. There is no way to describe his performance as anything less than simply sensational. The performance finds him in excellent voice, thrilling top notes and with his natural ability in French means the text is sung with
elegance and plenty of panache. Whether running, strutting like a peacock, swashbuckling or hiding from view, Alagna's every move is executed with the elegant grace of a dancer. It is a joy watching someone have this much fun in a role. He executes some fine sword fighting and even as diminutive as he is, makes this character larger than life. His arioso "Oh! Paris!" which
ends the first scene begins so hauntingly beautiful and then builds to a crashing, thrilling and exciting conclusion. The call to arms for the Cadets of Gascony (I don't know what it's properly called) is as rousing as one could hope for. I'd have joined the Muskateers, too!

Richard Troxell strikes all the right balances as Christian. The duet between he and Cyrano pledging their alligence to become "one man" develops beautifully, and rushes into an breathless finish.

Alfano's music opening Act II is, in my opinion, no less successful than Massenet in Manon at conveying musically, and eloquently, a sense of a specific time without actually resorting to composing 18th century style music.

What a gem is the Roxane of Nathalie Manfrino. Physically and vocally she could be the twin of Christiane Oelze - nowhere more so then in the final act where, with Alfano's so very French music she recalls Oelze as Melisande. Manfrino is a genuine beauty and the voice, a lovely lyric with some wonderful bloom to the top notes, constantly impresses. Like Alagna (and Troxell) her acting felt genuine, one believed her Roxane at every turn. There were times I was a little angry with her shallowness and cruelty towards Christiane, but it all works out.

The physical production is gorgeous - and by Alagna's brothers, David and Frederico, with costumes by Christian Gasc. I don't know how long they all worked on this, but the flow of this Cyrano, the quality of the acting is as fine as one could hope to see in any opera video.

There were plenty of gorgeous musical highlights; the amazing Balcony Duet, with everybody firing on all cylinders; the wordless chorus sung by the soldiers . . . , so many others.

It is, however, the final act that absolutely destroys me. Alfano's score here, so heavy on the woodwinds, descending scales played on flute, the vibrant buzz of the reeds, and with swirling strings, it could easily be mistaken for Debussy (especially with the uniformly excellent French coming from this cast). Alagna's transformation of Cyrano, from cocky now tired and weak, but no less proud is a heartbreaker as soon as he arrives at the convent. As his death approaches, the score grows more and more delicate, passages sung by Roxane unaccompanied, also reminiscent of Debussy, but with Alfano's own stamp (which I'm getting to know better and better and like, more and more). As Cyrano reads the final letter to Roxane, the clarinet takes a soaring melody that shoots right to my heart. I know, some of ya'll think I'm nuts, but this music - this act - I find overwhelmingly poignant.

The efforts of all involved pay off in a wonderfully theatrical and musically exquisite performance. For the longest time I believed Alagna could do nothing better than his performance in that amazing Don Carlos from the Chatelet (also with inspired casting), but this Cyrano really is a creature that touched me as profoundly as anything I can immediately think
of.

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Le Nez Sait!

This is an exquisitely produced DVD of what turns out to be an undeservedly neglected masterwork. True, Alfano's "Cyrano de Bergerac" will not be to everyone's taste, but the score is much closer to the romantic lyricism of a Puccini, say, than to Busoni-esque atonalism. If that helps. And I can't imagine the opera being given a better production than this, beautifully designed and directed by David and Frederico Algna, and solidly conducted by Marco Guidarini. Some other guy named Alagna is brilliant as the titular, long-nosed Gascon. At turns funny, touching and above all heroic, he sings with such passion and vigor that one can easily overlook his usual slight uneveness in tone and pitch. (In fact, I feel a little churlish even bringing it up!) This is, in short, a superb performance. The supporting cast is equally fine, although Nathalie Manfrino seems to have been cast more for her looks than her voice; even so, she acquits herself nicely. If you're at all a curious operagoer, by all means pounce on Alfano's "Cyrano" -- I'd be very suprised if you were disappointed.

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This is, by operatic standards of fidelity, a very faithful musical treatment of Edmond Rostand's classic drama about the swashbuckling poet and swordsman with the big nose. The music is competent but not spectacular; that quality is found in the libretto. The title role is expertly filled by Roberto Alagna, who not only has the best tenor voice in France but also turns out to be an accomplished actor in a demanding role. He is well-supported by a cast that clearly loves the story, its various characters and its often brilliant dialogue.

Franco Alfano is best-known for his completion of Turandot which was not quite finished at Puccini's death. Among his other work, he produced one operatic masterpiece of his own, Cyrano, which was long neglected but now has a fitting representation on home video. The opera also exists in an Italian translation, but Alfano originally used the superior French text by Henri Cain, which is used in this production.

Nathalie Manfrino is charming as the beautiful but superficial Roxane, whom Cyrano loves hopelessly through his whole life without telling her, and Richard Troxell characterizes precisely the handsome but not particularly bright Christian, whom Cyrano assists in his wooing. The chorus, orchestra, sets, and costumes are all excellent, helping to make this a first-class production. --Joe McLellan

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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