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Weill - Street Scene / Holmes, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

Weill - Street Scene / Holmes, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $26.99
Product Info Reviews

Features:
  • Color
  • Dolby


Description:

Kurt Weill's "Broadway opera" is an amazing mélange of show tunes, arias, jazz numbers, folk songs, and spirituals, a true musical melting pot that aptly underlines the rich variety of characters that populate the New York City tenement block in the 1930s that's the focus of this exceptionally vital and criminally undervalued work. This 1995 production originated at Houston Grand Opera, and as presented on disc, it's an exciting way to experience this most atypical composer's extraordinary musical-theater piece. The acting and singing of a formidably talented cast, including several excellent youngsters, couldn't be better, although occasionally their clear diction slips, making one wish for subtitles (it's sung in English, of course). James Holmes conducts with passion and precision, and the staging generously evokes a bygone era of American history, simultaneously looking rundown and part of a dreamscape worth longing for. The visual and audio presentation is exceptional. Shown in its original aspect ratio (16x9 enhanced) and heard in full-bodied Dolby 5.1, this is a Street Scene for the ages. --Kevin Filipski
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