Mendelssohn-Midsummer Night's Dream, A (Ballet) (BBC CO/Kershaw) (HD DVD) (1999)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Ballet	Menu Animation Booklet Gallery-Photo-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	93:42
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ross Macgibbon
Studio Distributor	Opus Arte Select Audio-Visual Distrib	Starring	Patricia Barker Paul Gibson Seth Belliston Julie Tobiason Ross Yearsley Lisa Apple Batkhurel Bold Ariana Lallone Charles Newton Kaori Nakamura Timothy Lynch Louise Nadeau Olivier Wevers
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$89.95	Music	Felix Mendelssohn

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby TrueHD 2.0 English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080i
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This HD DVD contains a ballet called A Midsummer Night's Dream, with music by Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn though did not write any such ballet. In 1826 when he was 17 he wrote an overture inspired by Shakespeare's play, and in 1843 he expanded this with a lot more music into a set of pieces which was intended as incidental music to a performance of the play. Even then it is nowhere near the ninety-minute running time of this ballet.

    The ballet in fact dates from 1962 and was created by George Balanchine, a Russian dancer and choreographer who emigrated to the United States and was influential in the development of American ballet. The music was pieced together from a number of compositions, all by Mendelssohn, though the bulk of it is from the incidental music.

    The ballet vaguely follows the story of the original play, and anyone familiar with the play would be able to work out what is happening on stage. Being from the 1960s the ballet is free of post-modernist trappings and is essentially a faithful representation of the play in balletic terms. Costumes and makeup are all idiomatic.

    I would imagine that anyone who likes ballet would enjoy this performance, which comes from the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the BBC Concert Orchestra at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London and was recorded in 1999. It is full of colour and movement and judging by their response, the audience enjoyed it immensely. I can't say that I got much out of it, apart from the pleasant music and the high video quality, but then I'm not a ballet fan.

Video

    The performance was presumably recorded in 1080/60i as it comes in that resolution on this disc. I tried watching part of it upscaled to 1080/60p but did not notice any improvement over the interlaced resolution. The aspect ratio is the original 1.78:1.

    The only significant problem with this transfer is one which occurred in the filming of it, in that often the performers are slightly out of focus. This is something that would be less noticeable on a DVD. Otherwise there is a lot of fine detail. It's hard to concentrate on the detail as there is a lot of movement, both of the dancers and of the cameras, and there are frequent cuts from one shot to another. Regardless of this it is clear that the detail level is vastly superior even to upscaled DVD.

    The colour range on this transfer is excellent, with lifelike tones and clear, vivid hues. Black levels are excellent and there is reasonable detail in shadows.

    There are virtually no video artefacts. Occasionally there was a slightly grainy look to backgrounds, but I doubt whether I would have noticed this if I wasn't looking for it.

    There are no subtitles. The disc appears to be single-layered.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The two audio tracks on this disc are Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD 2.0. I listened to the former in full and sampled the latter.

    The surround mix is geared to the front channels. There is some music coming from the rear channels, but at very low level. Even the applause is mainly from the front channels. There are low frequency effects, which are audible but not intrusive. The stereo mix is not much different from the surround, though to my ears it sounded a little more realistic in terms of the positioning of the instruments.

    The audio has plenty of detail, although it sounds a little boomy and reverberant at first. There is none of the digital edge associated with DVD transfers.

    There is no stage noise whatsoever. I gather that the footfalls of the dancers should be able to be heard, but they were resolutely silent on this disc. There were no issues with audio sync.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Animation

    Some scrolling silhouettes.

Booklet

    The booklet contains a brief essay about the ballet and a synopsis, repeated in several languages. There is also a detailed cast list and track listing.

Cast Gallery (1:31)

    Photographs of the major cast members identifying them and their characters.

    This release is the same in all regions. It should also be noted that Opus Arte have announced that they will be releasing this title shortly on region-free Blu-ray in the UK, with other countries likely to follow.

    A very well done ballet.

    The video quality is exceptional.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    Very skimpy in terms of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall