As soon as I finished the DVD I had rented from netflix.com, I went to amazon.com to buy a copy; every one of the half-dozen previous purchasers who rated the production had given it five stars - the maximum on that site. All those who had commented went overboard; and I added my own comment, which was that I agreed with everything the previous writers had said in praise of the experience. The opera is a great masterpiece, with a near-constant flow of gorgeous melody; the libretto is sung in French but the excellent sub-titles make sure that one knows what is going on at every moment, and the drama is irresistible from first to last. It is the music-making, though, which makes this production take off, and the acting and the dancing - in other words, everyone on stage and in the orchestra pit performs superbly. If this is typical of the work of Australian Opera then what goes on inside the Sydney Opera House is as breathtaking as the landmark building itself.
Reviews
2 Reviews
To the Lighthouse
(1983 TV Movie)
"Nothing Happens"
12 March 2006
I read somewhere that Kenneth Tynan took a friend who knew nothing about Chekhov to see a production of "The Cherry Orchard;" as they were leaving the theatre, Tynan asked the other guy what he made of the play, and got the reply, "Rather boring, I thought. Nothing happens." "Nothing except the end of an age and the birth of the next one," was Tynan's response. I think that something similar applies to this version of "To the Lighthouse;" the film is heavy with pathos, regret, longing, decline, all coming from the interactions each member of the household has with all of the others. I felt again the pleasure of watching Mrs Wolff's genius at work, in the mosaic created by so much seeming-random-but-always-revealing dialogue as well as the interior monologues spoken by some of the characters. I was completely enthralled by the film and deeply impressed by the great honesty of all the actors' performances. Definitely a winner in my estimation.
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