Charlotte Church-Enchantment (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Biographies-Cast Discography Interviews-Cast Featurette-Aerial Tour Of South Wales Featurette-Video Tour Of Cardiff With Charlotte
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	82:12 (Case: 101)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:07)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	James Kellahin
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Charlotte Church Josh Groban
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$29.95	Music	Various

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, closing titles over end of concert and aerial tour

    Charlotte Church is either the the loveliest and freshest voice you have ever heard coming from a sweet and angelic face, or she is a squeaky oh-so-cute bubbly little girl who is annoying you.

    If you belong in the latter camp, you probably won't be reading this review so I'll address my comments to the former.

    Charlotte burst into fame with her first album Voice Of An Angel (which, incidentally, I own the CD of), featuring her singing a selection of mainly traditional and classical songs that showcased her lovely voice and emphasised her child-like innocence (not surprising, since she was only 12 years old then). Since then, she has released three more albums. Her latest album, Enchantment (released in 2001), has her broadening her musical style and repertoire to include Broadway and pop songs.

    Enchantment From Cardiff, Wales is a rather special concert because it showcases Charlotte's first full-length concert in her hometown. Recorded at St. David's Hall on 18 September 2001, one week after the tragic events in America that culminated in the hijacking of several passenger airplanes by terrorists and the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, this concert was broadcast on PBS in late December 2001. Charlotte mentions 11 September briefly, and also dedicates the concert to the audience in America, and the last two songs in the concert - Imagine and Amazing Grace - are obviously a reference and a memorial to those who lost their lives.

    The concert includes nearly every song from the Enchantment album (apart from The Flower Duet and The Laughing Song) and also includes a few previously unrecorded songs and three songs from her first album (Suo-Gân, My Lagan Love and Amazing Grace).

    The concert features Charlotte accompanied by the National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Arnie Roth. The concerts starts with an orchestral overture of major themes from West Side Story, then Charlotte bursts onto the stage with a rendition of Tonight. The Broadway theme continues until Carrickfergus, a Celtic song, after which we are back to Broadway but Charlotte has now changed from a shimmering gown to a black pantsuit.

    Young singer Josh Groban is the first of Charlotte's guest stars and joins her for a duet in Somewhere. Then, Charlotte is accompanied by a Welsh harpist in Suo-Gân and My Lagan Love. The first half of the concert ends with The Prayer which is another duet with Josh Groban.

    The orchestra plays the Prelude to Act 1 of Carmen following the interval. Charlotte comes onto stage in a vaguely Spanish looking outfit and hairdo and sings The Little Horses accompanied by two guitarists as guest stars. Then we have an arrangement of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies No. 1 (Lent et douloureux) set to lyrics and renamed From My First Moment. Finally, of course we have the last song featuring the two accompanying guitarists: Habańera, before Charlotte sings a few more songs on her own until the end of the concert, including Papa Can You Hear Me? and Bridge Over Troubled Water.

    Charlotte is obviously stretching her repertoire to include more "adult" numbers but I kind of feel some of the songs are too "mature" for her and demand someone, well, a little bit less innocent and more worldly. I felt some of the songs would have suited say Barbra Streisand more than a teenage girl.

Video

    As Charlotte herself might exclaim, this is a "gorgeous, gorgeous" widescreen 1.78:1 transfer, complete with 16x9 enhancement.

    The transfer is pretty much reference quality and looks like it might have been recorded directly onto high-definition digital video and then down-converted to SDTV. It was very easy to sit back and enjoy the scintillating and natural colours, and detail levels were more than acceptable.

    Try as hard as I might, I did not notice any major instances of video or compression artefacts, apart from very occasional aliasing here and there and minor instances of Gibb's effect ringing in the background.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). The layer change occurs at 64:07 in Chapter 17 at the end of Habańera during a fade to black, and results in a slight but not too annoying pause.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this disc: English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s), and English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s). I listened to both tracks.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is based on a "true" surround mix, with vocals directed towards the centre speaker, the orchestra spread across all front speakers, and audience noises decorrelated across all speakers. The rear channels are used mainly for hall ambience and audience clapping, which is as it should be. The subwoofer is used lightly to support the low frequencies in the audio track. The audio track is pretty much reference quality as far as music videos go.

    The PCM audio track is also quite pleasant to listen to and is CD-quality except it is recorded at a very low level - nearly 8-9 dB below the equivalent levels on the Dolby Digital 5.1 track which means it is reduced by nearly half in apparent loudness.

    I did not notice any issues with audio synchronisation. Dialogue level is fairly low, and you may have to turn the volume a bit up to decipher what Charlotte is saying in between songs. There should be no issues if you have a proper home theatre set up, but I noticed that some of Charlotte's sentences were quite difficult to understand when I was playing the DVD onto a TV and listening to the TV's speakers.

Audio Ratings Summary

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    Extras on this disc include the usual biography and discography stills plus some featurettes. I am surprised that the menus are not 16x9 enhanced given that all the video content is.

Menu

    The menu is full frame and static.

Biographies-Cast

    This is a set of four stills providing some textual background on Charlotte Church and the concert.

Discography

    This has a sub-menu that allows you to select any of her four released albums. Information provided include the album cover, year released, and track listing.

Interviews-Cast (4:53)

    This is a short featurette about the making of the Enchantment album, featuring footage of recording and photographic sessions, interview excerpts of Charlotte Church, and Charlotte shopping in Los Angeles. The transfer is full frame and the accompanying audio track is Linear PCM 2.0 48/16.

Featurette-Aerial Tour Of South Wales (6:12)

    This contains a selection of aerial shots of the gorgeous scenery and various landmarks of South Wales and Cardiff, plus exterior and interior shots of famous buildings and castles. It is presented in widescreen 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement and Linear PCM 2.0 48/16. The audio track consists of Charlotte singing Carrickfergus plus a short voiceover narration by an unidentified male speaker.

Featurette-Video Tour Of Cardiff With Charlotte (7:27)

    This featurette is similar to the featurette above in that it also includes some aerial shots but we get additional scenes of Charlotte walking in and around Cardiff extolling the virtues of the capital city of Wales. We get to see the City Hall, St. John's Church, shopping arcades, the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Bay, the Norwegian Church, and Cardiff Castle. It is presented in widescreen 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement and Linear PCM 2.0 48/16.

    Amazon claims that the R1 version of the disc has a "full frame" transfer and the following additional extras;

• PBS bonus aerial tour
• "Carrickfergus" video
• PBS intermission interview with Charlotte
• PBS support announcement

    However, these extras have not been confirmed by other R1 web sites and do not appear to be present on the R1 owned by at least one reader of this web site, so I would rate both versions as identical in features unless I hear otherwise.

    Charlotte Church - Enchantment From Cardiff, Wales features the young singer performing in her hometown in a special concert one week after the tragic events of 11 September 2001. Most of the songs from her recent album of the same title are performed. The video and audio transfers are pretty close to reference quality, and extras include a number of featurettes plus the usual biography/discography stills.

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