Franco Alfano: Cyrano de Bergerac


Year: 2007
Genre: Opera
Director: Tiziano Mancini
Conductor: Patrick Fournillier
Cast and crew:

Cyrano (Plácido Domingo), Roxane (Sondra Radvanovsky), Christian (Arturo Chacón Cruz), De Guiche (Rod Giltry), Ragueneau (Corrado Carmelo Caruso), De Valvert (Roberto Accurso), Carbon (Javier Franco), La Duègne / Sister Marthe  (Itxaro Mentxaka), Le Bret (Nahuel di Pierro)


Description:

The story of Edmond Rostand's epic romantic drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) should be known to most audiences from the various film versions that have been made - some of them even predating Alfano's 1937 opera - the most notable being Gérard Depardieu's performance as the long-nosed poet in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's popular French film from 1990, but it may also be known to more through Steve Martin's modern updating of the role in Roxane. The story however is essentially the same, that of a man with an exceedingly large nose that disfigures his face, who believes that he is ugly and unworthy of the love of his beautiful cousin Roxane. Working closely to Rostand's original text, Rappeneau's film captured all the comedy, wit, romance and tragedy of the situation, retaining the verse format of the original, and did it so well that it's impossible for anyone who knows and loves the film version not to measure up Franco Alfano's opera against it. It has to be said that the opera compares very favourably, working so naturally that one wonders why it isn't better known and more frequently performed. [Amazon UK - custom review]


Filmed at the Palau de les Arts 'Reina Sofía', Valencia, 8, 11 & 18 February 2007.

Production: US | Naxos
Runtime: 02:21:29

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