Salieri - Tarare / Lafont, Caleb, Lorenz, Crook, Malgoire, Schwetzinger Festspiele

This delightful production of Salieri's Tarare should be a welcome edition to any music lover's library. The performance is excellent, period instruments, bright & delightful costumes, an artistic direction & set design that emulates the late 18th century; and above all superb singing and acting make this DVD quite memorable.This opera partakes of the traditions of French opera as modified and reformed by Gluck and progresses beyond into a new realm of theatricality. The opera, as conceived by both Salieri and Beaumarchais, was intended to break down all barriers of late 18th operatic genre as well as provide a political commentary on the tottering ancient regime. However, the story stands on its own as theatre without any knowledge of its particular historical context.The opera is set in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Hormuze, and revolves around King Atar and his faithful soldier Tarare. Tarare, a commoner, once saved King Atar from drowning and was promoted to the rank of General for this act of heroism. Tarare, now a hero of the people, has become the object of Atar's jealousy and rage. To cause Tarare anguish Atar has Tarare's beautiful and virtuous wife Astasie kidnapped and brought to the harem. However, rather than embrace the Sultan, Astasie spurns him causing a great outburst of cruelty. Atar has his chief Eunuch Calphigi and Calphigi's wife Spinette (both Europeans) entertain Astasie in an attempt to turn her hatred into affection. Tarare arrives and begs the King to grant him leave to pursue his wife's unknown kidnappers. Atar berates Tarare for his tears but consents thereby sending him on his rescue mission and into a trap that will result in his death. However, Calphigi owes his high position to Tarare who once rescued him and his scheming and libidinous wife from Arab slave traders, so Calphigi informs Tarare of the plot to kill him and plans a ruse that will allow Tarare access to the harem and enough time to rescue his wife...much more follows, but eventually Tarare is captured by Atar, and he and his wife are reunited at last, only to be...The musical design of Tarare is very fluid and relies on the text in the manner of Wagner and colorful text painting abounds. Though sadly, Salieri does not develop his ideas as Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven would have, resulting in an endless stream of new ideas. This generally through-composed style calls for constant movement from orchestral accompanied recitative to arioso and short cavatina or chorus, which means that there are no grand arias. There are several powerful short solos in particular Atar's aria at the end of Act I, also Tarare's in Act III and Calphigi's rage at tyranny in Act IV; also highly entertaining is Calphigi's splendid strophic song in the style of a Barcarolle, the longest solo in the work. The women also have moments of great pathos as well, but among the most interesting portion of the work is the intellectual opening. Though Beaumarchais is somewhat superficial and possibly tedious - depending on your taste. The opera features a very lengthy prologue with a mythic/secular/enlightenment? creation story that frames the basic philosophical question that the opera attempts to answer, namely "What is the relationship between station or class and conduct in life?", i.e. what makes one person noble and another base? Both the Prologue and Epilogue feature some fine moments of orchestral writing and choral moments that remind one of early Beethoven.The work is moving and the sprightly attitude of the cast helps keep the lengthy work from dragging. Tarare the hero is bold and confident, his passions rising with the score, his wife Astasie is elegant in her sorrow and full of moral outrage at having been kidnapped. Atar, the most difficult of the characters to portray, is at times cruel and humorous. In fairness one must add that though the two "Europeans" in the cast add much comic relief, at times, perhaps they overdo it a bit. The second overture in the "Turkish" style has been cut to a few bars, a shame; and a few moments of dead time between the acts is given a little too much prominence. There are a few small intonation problems from the orchestral pit during this live production, but they are very few and very brief, and directly related to the nature of 18th century instruments. Also the ballet and choral movements in the middle of the work are very charming.Salieri is not Mozart and one must anticipate a very different work than say Figaro or Don Giovanni, or even Salieri's much more traditional Falstaff, though one might argue this opera has a taste of both Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. However, it is fast paced, witty, and there are musical moments of great daring and beauty. Mozart's operas greatly benefited from borrowing many of Salieri's operatic innovations, but Salieri's music lacks both Mozart's constant technical and melodic brilliance. However, this opera proves that Salieri could write a moving and powerful work touched with his own personal graces. The cast, crew and orchestra give a fine performance, Bravo. One hopes that other Salieri operas of this quality will follow.

The Salieri revival continues with this very strange opera - in some ways way ahead of its time. It is a play with music. The only real aria is the Barcarolle in Act 3. The rest is "endless melody" in service to the text. And the plot is pure Enlightenment - character counts above rank. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it enjoyable? Yes. This is a wonderful production. The singers are good. The staging is in character. If you want to see what music drama would have looked like 50 years before Wagner, let Salieri and Beaumarchais - yes, the creator of Barber and Figaro - be your guides.

I simply loved it. Howard Cook, looking angelic, and Eberhard Lorenz, playing a "castrato" to the hilt, are magnificent, but Jean-Philippe Lafont steals the show as Atar, the 'evil" sultan who in looks and temperament resembles the current occupant of the WH, minus the humor.I imagined what he could have done in a similar role next to Horne's "L'italiana in Algieri"! I short, another Salieri romp but with a barbed commentary on our present political situation. The last chorus, telling "those who make others tremble", that the their time has come to be afraid could not be more to the point. A true gem. More Salieri, please! Ah, yeah, the women are also superb.

Salieri - Tarare / Lafont, Caleb, Lorenz, Crook, Malgoire, Schwetzinger Festspiele IMO:Splendid score by [the usually underated] Salieri.Great musical performance.Great casting, acting, and costumes.GREAT choreograpy.Fine audio and video.Trifle overproduced in places.Get it to enjoy Salieri's music and French opera!!!

On cite toujours le Barbier de Séville comme oeuvre pre-révolutionnaire de BEAUMARCHAIS. Mais l'opéra TARARE, mis en musique par SALIERI, contient davantage encore, si l'on veut bien supporter le prologue, de thèmes pre-révolutionnaires, et la musique de SALIERI est au moins aussi intéressante que celle des Danaïdes.

In all honesty, I can not give this a high scoring as this is like comparing Mozart and Salieri to Gilbert and Sullivan with Wagner. Both excellent in their own fields but of no comparison. In fact Salieri wrote second rate music. This piece is daring for the times, only 2 years before the French Revolution and finishing with the toppling of a despotic crown. A type of comedy popular then though less humorous now . The production has much to commend it with an excellent cast, good conducting and a lavish performance [especially the costumes] yet it remains a second rate opera. Some composers rate a revival- Meyerbeer, Donizetti and Bellini- but Salieri I think not.

In 1784 Salieri was anointed as Gluck’s heir. Antonio Salieri was the greatest opera composer of his days; Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt were some of his students.Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was France’s most applauded playwright of the late seventeen hundreds and he decided to write a libretto where the text is the main part of the opera and the music has to accompany the words.Beaumarchais selected Salieri as the composer to tackle this new concept. The opera premiered in 1787 and was a huge success, then it faded, disappeared, stayed in the shadows of insignificant works for 160 years.In 1988 the Schwetzinger Festival performed Tarare again.When I saw the prologue to this opera, I couldn’t believe what I saw and heard, then reran the prologue. Yes, here was a gem. Unbelievable that such a great opera is not performed in our days where, so it seems, the public is fed Carmen, The Magic Flute, Tosca, etc.The singers are first rate, the stage settings [considering the small stage of this opera house] are excellent, the costumes remarkable, and the orchestra is without faults. If you, the searcher for an unforgettable opera, are reading my acclaim, see for yourself and add Tarare to your collection. I haven’t regretted my purchase.

If you are English speaking, you need subtitles. At first the subtitles seem to follow the singers, but when it gets to the entertainment portion before the sultan, there are none. Then later on they are very erratic. Good luck following the plot. The opera itself is interesting to me as it is in full period costume. The singing was good although I think it was dubbed; but this was made in 1988 and techniques to capture live singing have greatly improved.

Not a great opera, but fun, and throws a real light on the composer that Salieri was, here cooperating with Beaumarchais in creating a strongly pro-democracy and anti-tyrant story with a light touch. The music is skillful, making the telling of the story dominate over vocal brilliance. Salieri had worked with Gluck and here it shows. This is no Nozze di Figaro by a long shot, but it is not aimed in that direction. Seems it was a smash hit in Paris just a few years before the Revolution began; one can see why Beaumarchais is sometimes credited with having started it!In Michelin guide terms, worth seeing, but not worth a long trip. Yet fun, and well done. And teaches one something about the context within which Mozart worked.

Fast jeder kennt den Schlusschor aus "Tarare": in Milos Foremans "Amadeus" (1984) kann man Mozart gelangweilt diesem Stück (in der italienischen Version "Axur, re d'Ormus") zuhören sehen: "Jaja, der Salieri konnt's halt net."1988 dann der Schwetzinger "Tarare"; als 16jähriger fieberte ich wochenlang dem Ereignis entgegen und hörte am Radio die Aufführung mit; die Presse hat die Aufführung verrissen ("Salieri doch nicht zu retten") und Volkmar Braunbehrens, der wohl nicht dabei war, hieb 1989 in seinem Salieri-Buch in dieselbe Kerbe.Jahrelang geisterte dieser "Tarare" als Mythos durch die Erinnerungen bzw. schliesslich als wacklige Raubkopie der Fernsehaufzeichnung durchs Internet, um jetzt endlich auf einer sauberen DVD Auferstehung zu feiern. Und was für eine!Die Aufführung hat unglaublich gut gealtert, geistvoll, stilvoll, gallisch, politisch unkorrekt und witzig.Musikalisch viele schöne Stimmen (Eberhard Lorenz ist umwerfend, zum Küssen), ein mit Verve agierendes Orchester und eine phantasievolle, opulente, vielschichtige Inszenierung, eine wahre "Geburt einer Aufklärungs-Tragödie aus dem Geist der 1980er Jahre" wie sie schöner nicht sein könnte; postmodern, etwas Greenaway, etwas Fellini, etwas Bergmann, viel Ponnelle, und selbst der Pariser "Atys" vom Vorjahr hat seine Spuren hinterlassen.Der Text von Beaumarchais (endlich ein Libretto des 18. Jahrhunderts, das Sinn macht und ein Genuss ist, anzuhören) in akzeptablem Französisch (!!!), und das in einem deutschen Opernhaus! Merveilleux!Kurz: ein MUSS für jeden Freund der Oper des 18. Jahrhunderts, und mit der "Grotta di Trofonio" von Lausanne 2004 und den "Danaides" in Stuttgart 1990 die Referenz für Salieris Bühnenschaffen bis anhin. Da hätten die Stümper, die 2006 Kraus' "Aeneas i Carthago" in Stuttgart exekutiert haben, einmal genauer hinschauen sollen. So macht man das!