Britten - Death in Venice / Tony Palmer, Robert Gard

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This is a musically and visually superb treatment of a 20th-century masterpiece. Based on Thomas Mann's novella, Benjamin Britten's last opera is not only a story of hopeless, idealistic, vaguely homoerotic love; it touches on deep philosophical questions: the nature of beauty, the agony of creativity and the greater agony of its loss; the ravages of time, the conventions and rituals we devise to mask life's horrible vacuums; ultimately, the mysterious meaning of life and death.

The cast is small and excellent: Robert Gard is the aging writer, Christoph von Aschenbach, whose genius has dried up but seems about to revive in the contemplation of an aristocratic boy he encounters in Venice. John Shirley-Quirk contributes equally to the effect in a half-dozen cameo roles that he pioneered in the first production under Britten's supervision. Steuart Bedford conducted that premiere, working closely with the composer. Director Palmer takes full advantage of the film medium's freedom to make Venice a character--monumental and crumbling buildings, seascapes, canals, bridges, and gondolas; the visuals are often breathtaking. --Joe McLellan

Description

This extraordinary operatic adaptation of Thomas Mann's haunting novella powerfully conveys the book's dramatic impact. Robert Gard stars as Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging writer who visits Venice and sees a handsome boy whose beauty obsesses him. Completely bewitched and agonized, Gustav struggles with his desire to please the boy, but his blind passion leads to his humiliation and eventual downfall. Filmed in Venice, this production heightens the novella's strong sense of tortuous passion straining against the 19th century city's stifling atmosphere of unbearable oppression. Composer Benjamin Britten, who worked closely with conductor Steuart Bedford, meets the challenge of adapting this intriguing story with music that is a constant surprise and revelation.

Customer Reviews:

Tadzio Too Robust.......2002-10-19

Well, we now have two performances of this opera on DVD: the one by the Glyndebourne opera, and this film from Tony Palmer. It's a film rather than a recording of a stage performance, and, perhaps necessarily, reminiscent of the Visconti film. Some of the lines are so similar that, if I didn't know otherwise, I'd think one artist was stealing from another. It's more visually interesting than the austere Glyndebourne performance, but I kept expecting to hear Mahler rather than Britten. Hallelujah, thank God and Image Entertainment that this DVD has subtitles in the original languages. That is when English is being sung, the subtitles are in English; when Italian, then Italian; and when German, in German. One aspect of both performances that I don't care for is that the actors playing Tadzio are not the delicate fourteen-year-old of Mann's novella, but robust dancers in their late teens.

DVD:

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