Best for diehard fans of Anna Russell
S. J. Koblentz | Columbus, OH United States | 09/04/2008
(2 out of 5 stars)
"For those who do not know Anna Russell's contribution to classical music, comedy and musical appreciation, you are missing a great deal in your life. A musical prodegy, Russell took her love of hamming it up and combined it with her msuical abilities and created a genre of comedy that was uniguly herown. Her best works include put-on's on Wagner's Ring Cycle, song stylists and Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
While audiences know her best by the legacy that she left of taking classical music and decontructing pieces into humourous bite sized morsals, one needs to step back and remember that Russell was also a supurb musical talent herself.
"Anna Russell Takes on..." is not what I would call Russell at the top of her entertainment game, and isn't without her trying. The works - Nabucco and The Magic Flute, are dense pieces for satire, and they don't work as well as the Ring Cycle or her other efforts.
Unfortuntaly, I can only recommend this CD to people who are familiar with Russell and/or familiar with the opera's she parodies.
"
Contents of This CD...
Jeff N | Oakdale, CA | 03/16/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The hilarious and knowledgeable Anna Russell does it again...
Spoken introduction to the live 1973 discussion of Verdi's Nabucco and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte 3:33
About Opera and the Deficiencies of Most Plot Synopses (Spoken Discussion) 3:54
Anna Russell Takes On...Verdi's Nabucco (Spoken Discussion) 28:41
Anna Russell Takes On...Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (Spoken Discussion) 32:32"
Two more operas deconstructed
Observer | 12/18/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"If you want a complete Anna Russell collection, by all means obtain this DVD. But her rendition of these two operas is not quite as much fun as her send-up of the Ring. I could understand satrizing The Magic Flute but it seems to be that some other Italian opera mught have been a better subject of "Russelization." As I am not any kind of an expert on opera, it may be that I did not get all the nuances."
