Opera on screen

Still working my way through a stack of discs. This week i saw:

La Fanciulla del West (Stemme / Kaufmann / Wiener Staatsoper): resists the invitation to camp it up like Calamity Jane by bringing the action forward to a down-at-heel mid-20th century mining community. Nina Stemme initially seems a little ill-suited to Puccini but her Wagnerian training really pays dividends during the high-voltage gambling scene. Kaufmann elevates everything he is in, and does the same here. The rest of the cast is good, on the whole - Tomasz Konieczky doesn't have the strongest of voices but brings good dramatic weight to Jack Rance.

Falstaff (Maestri / Meade / NY Met): a complete delight from start to finish. Ambrogio Maestri and Falstaff were made for each other - his warmth, charm, humour, pathos and Giant-Haystacks build have made him the definitive Sir John of the modern era across 20 separate productions. Everyone else does well to support - Angela Meade and Stephanie Blythe have fun as Alice and Mistress Quickly and the young Cuban-American soprano Lisette Oropesa makes an endearingly winsome Nannetta. The 50s setting works well and some of the set-pieces, particularly Nanetta's aria, are very well handled. It's a very fine staging of a magnificent opera.

La Fille du Regiment (Dessay / Florez / ROH): another production lifted to great heights by a spectacular lead performance - this time by Natalie Dessay. Her combination of physical comedy and stunning bel canto seems to verge on the superhuman at times. I assume it's not easy to hit a high C while being held horizontally above the heads of eight members of the chorus. Juan Diego Florez also excels as the lovestruck, lederhosen-clad partisan Tonio. Dawn French probably draws more laughs than she should as the Duchess of Crackentorp but that's the nature of the role.

Great thread, excellent writing throughout. Nothing to add now except that I saw those productions of Prince Igor and Falstaff at the Met and your descriptions are spot-on.