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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila (Directed by Valery Gergiev) (1995)

Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila (Directed by Valery Gergiev) (1995) (NTSC)

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Released 15-Jun-2003

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Opera Booklet
Featurette-Introducing Ruslan
Featurette-Catching Up With Music
Trailer-Showreel
Rating Rated E
Year Of Production 1995
Running Time 211:05 (Case: 210)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (68:56)
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Valerie Gergiev
Lofti Mansouri
Studio
Distributor
Philips
Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring Mikhail Kit
Anna Netrebko
Vladimir Ognovenko
Larissa Diadkova
Gennady Bezzubenkov
Galina Gorchakova
Case Scanavo-Opaque-Dual
RPI $49.95 Music Mikhail Glinka


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None Russian Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s)
Russian dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio Unknown Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Chinese
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

   This landmark DVD marks the release of the first production of Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila broadcast outside of Russia. Whereas Russian ballet forms a major part of the essential repertoire, Russian opera has, until now, largely been a well-hidden secret. Mikhail Glinka is fondly regarded as the 'father' of Russian opera even though he composed only two operatic works, the present production and A Life for the Tsar. Ruslan and Lyudmila premiered in St. Petersburg on 27 November 1842 and enthusiasm for the production waned throughout the 5 Acts, culminating in the Imperial family walking out during the final scenes. Glinka was left embittered and lacking inspiration for further works and died in Germany, a broken man, 10 years later.

    The libretto (or screenplay for the more film-orientated) was based on Pushkins' magical fantasy of the same name and was penned by the amateur poet Valerian Shirkov due to Pushkin's untimely death in a duel. The story, set in 9th Century pagan Russia, concerns the beautiful princess Lyudmila, and her 3 prince suitors, the tall Slavic Ruslan, the Germanic warrior Farlaf and the Oriental poet-prince Ratmir. Ruslan's joy at having successfully won the hand of his fair princess is short-lived after she is kidnapped by the wicked sorcerer-dwarf Chernomor during the pre-nuptial celebrations. In true fairy tale tradition, the king Svetozar decrees that whoever rescues his daughter will take her hand in marriage and gain half the kingdom. Naturally along the way there are wizards, evil witches, a fallen giant and a magical ring with which to awaken the slumbering princess.

    Quite simply this is a magnificent production of a fabulous opera. The gorgeous Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg hosts the production with costumes dating back to1928. One of the world's leading dance companies, the Kirov Ballet, accompanied by the Kirov Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, support a very fine ensemble of opera singers backed by a chorus of nearly a hundred singers from the San Francisco Opera. As for the opera singers, the girls really shine - the soaring, clear-ringing soprano of Lyudmila (23 year old Anna Netrebko) is ably accompanied by the more dulcet tones of contralto Ratmir (Larissa Diadkova) who in turn is later accompanied by the accomplished, slightly softer, lyric-soprano Gorislava (Galina Gorchakova). Very able performances from the basses Ruslan (Vladimir Ognovenko) and Svetosar (Mikhail Kit) perfectly ground the three sopranos against the tenor backgrounds of Farlaf (Gennady Bezzubenko), Finn (Konstantin Pluzhnikov) and the Bard Bayan (Yuri Marusin).

    Like many operas, the obvious highlights occur in the first and final acts where the opening overtures and dramatic finale provide the most memorable moments - this is an entertaining opera through and through, however, and anyone with a love of drama and good melody should have little difficulty digesting the whole work. A little light relief from the middle section is brought by the superb Kirov Ballet maiden dancers in Act 3 No.15 (Disc 1 Chapter 17) or Act 4 No.18 (Disc 2 Chapter 2). For me, the highlights in a memorable opera are the ensembles at the end of Acts 1 and 5 and the leading opera singers couldn't have been better picked to provide a more harmonious, balanced experience.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    I was interested to note from the closing credits that the production was assisted by the European 16:9 Action plan. Presumably our European allies are taking widescreen seriously and accordingly we see that this production is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The broadcast modality is NTSC, which raises the interesting possibility of trying out earlier progressive scan players which are Region 4 locked. I tried just this on a Sony DVD player and NEC plasma screen and was struck by the increased resolution and smoothness of action - I have to seriously consider a PAL progressive player now!

    Sharpness on a 42 inch plasma screen, in progressive mode, was exemplary. Projection onto a 100 inch screen was less impressive and started to reveal the flaws in the transfer. Shadow detail was good and there was no evidence of low level noise.

    Colours were well rendered - the superb costumes of the production were well displayed by front-stage lighting, whilst the gloomier browns, blues and blacks of the hall, cave and forest backgrounds were also well portrayed without chroma noise.

     The major defect of this video transfer, related to lack of disc space for such a long production, is pixelization which is very obvious in the dark backdrops and on my 'vintage' plasma screen was quite distracting. On CRT sets it was less intrusive. Aliasing was minimal and there were no film artefacts as the production was recorded on video. There was some scan lag of assembled figures during the final scene which may be related to 3-2 pulldown artefacts from the video to NTSC transfer. There was an unusual transient dip in contrast levels lasting a split second at 15:45 the cause of which I am uncertain.

    The subtitles are excellent and make first viewings of the production much more understandable. I can't vouch for the accuracy due to my lack of Russian but the detail of the European languages was self-evident.

    The production is spread over two RSDL discs. Total time of the production (excluding extras) is 211:05. Disc 1 total time is 134:01 with a layer change between Chapters 9/10 at 68:56 and Disc 2 total time is 77:04 with a layer change between Chapters 6/7 at 39:55. Both layer changes are imperceptible, occurring between scene changes. The extras are located on the end of Disc 2.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    I must admit to some scepticism on initially hearing of plans for the new 'Blu-Ray' DVDs - for the incognoscenti these are a refinement of the present disc and utilise a shorter wavelength (hence the Blu terminology) laser to increase disc capacity by some 3-fold. However, a high quality production such as this really shows the holes in the lossy DTS compression or limited bandwidth of  LPCM - this is a production crying out for a high-resolution audio release which, together with the video, would demand far more than the two presented DVD-9 discs could carry. This is not to say that the audio transfer isn't excellent - it is! - but complex, acoustic orchestral pieces such as this really shine in top-notch DVD-Audio or SACD recordings.

    There are two audio tracks, both sung in Russian of course; a 2 channel offering in 48/16 LPCM and the surround version in 5.1 DTS. Experienced readers of these reviews realise what a difference the reviewer's equipment makes and this presentation shows this. On a good, 2 channel stereo hi-fi the LPCM sounds just fine but on a surround system it comes across as over-bearing in the high frequencies, thin and 2-dimensional. In surround sound, however, the DTS version shines, the singers take on their correct position in stage depth and there is a delicacy and ambience that the LPCM version can't match. So if you're listening in surround, the DTS is the track to go for whereas in stereo you'd probably be happy with the 2 channel offering.

    Dialogue was very well delivered in both the 2 channel and surround versions with no obvious delays in lip or audio synch. There was an audible click at the layer change in Disc 2 at 39:55.

    No gimmicks here - the surround version increased ambience without resorting to distracting rear effects. The subwoofer was similarly used in a subtle way to augment and not draw attention to the plentiful bass effects courtesy of double bass and percussion.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

 Menu

    The menu was nicely presented with a static 1.78:1 display and backing excerpts from the overture in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

Introducing Ruslan

    17:25 of Valerie Gergiev interviewed by Dr Reiner Moritz offering fascinating insights into the production and history of the opera. Filmed in letterboxed 1.33:1 with 2 channel Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

Catching Up With Music

    More interview and footage of the busy life of conductor Valerie Gergiev with plenty of excerpts from performances filling the 58:58 duration. Gergiev's childhood, musical upbringing and insights into Russian music are provided in letterboxed 1.33:1 aspect ratio and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

Showreel

    20 minutes of excerpts from other Philips releases in 1.33:1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

Booklet

    One of the best I have seen! 20 pages of background to the story and production together with credits and listing of Acts - repeated in slightly less detail in French and German.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    There would appear to be just the one version of this production in multi-region NTSC.

Summary

    A brave and creditable attempt to pack 3 1/2 hours of opera onto DVD - judging by the quality and enjoyability of my first taste of Russian opera, I can't wait to review the remaining two productions in this 3 title box set! There's no justifiable way to meaningfully criticise this production - the limitations of this production are imposed by the capacity of the disc medium.

    The video quality is very good and will please all but the largest of screenings.

    The audio quality is good but also limited by the duration of this sonically demanding production.

    The extras are very good - excellent interviews with Valerie Gergiev for those interested in Russian musicians and the booklet and subtitles provides adequate explanation of just what is going on - always a problem with opera!

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© John Lancaster (read my bio)
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Review Equipment
DVDEAD 8000 Pro, using Component output
DisplayPanasonic PT-AE300E Projector onto 250cm screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationTheta Digital Intrepid
SpeakersMartin Logan - Aeon Fronts/Script rears/Theatre centre/ - REL Strata III SW

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