Bellini: Norma
Sondra Radvanovsky (Norma), Gregory Kunde (Pollione), Ekaterina Gubanova (Adalgisa), Raymond Aceto (Oroveso), Ana Puche (Clotilde) & Francisco Vas (Flavio)
Symphony Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Renato Palumbo (conductor) & Kevin Newbury (stage director)
[Radvanovsky’s] ‘Casta diva’ is dispatched with juicy flair, but it’s in the preceding lines tht the soprano really shows her mettle. Here Radvanovsky astutely establishes Norma’s divided loyalties...
Bellini: Norma
Sondra Radvanovsky (Norma), Gregory Kunde (Pollione), Ekaterina Gubanova (Adalgisa), Raymond Aceto (Oroveso), Ana Puche (Clotilde) & Francisco Vas (Flavio)
Symphony Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Renato Palumbo (conductor) & Kevin Newbury (stage director)
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[Radvanovsky’s] ‘Casta diva’ is dispatched with juicy flair, but it’s in the preceding lines tht the soprano really shows her mettle. Here Radvanovsky astutely establishes Norma’s divided loyalties...
About
David Korins, set designer
Jessica Jahn, costume designer
D.M. Wood, lighting designer
“If we weep from emotion on hearing it, it’s nothing to be ashamed of” Richard Wagner on Bellini’s most famous opera Norma, the most successful work by the last and greatest composer of bel canto. This new production of Norma, directed by Grammy Award-nominated opera, theatre and film director Kevin Newbury and starring Sondra Radvanovsky as a “powerful, elegant” Norma (New York Times) and Gregory Kunde as Pollione, is “something very special. The word ‘historic’ is used perhaps a little too often but tonight there really is no other adjective to describe the sensational performances offered to us by Sondra Radvanovsky and Gregory unde.” (operatraveller.com)
Radvanovsky’s performance as Norma has been the fixed point of Newbury’s staging as it has travelled from San Francisco where it opened in September 2014, to Barcelona, and on to Chicago and Toronto, and was enthusiastically received from the off: British Opera magazine described her as “fearless in scaling the heights of this bel canto challenge. Her range of colours, from smoky to crystalline, and her authority [...] were wondrous and energizing, starting with a consummately phrased ‘Casta Diva’”.
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, German, English, Catalan, French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 176 mins
No. of DVDs: 2 (DVD 9)
Contents and tracklist
- Recorded live at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, February 2015
- Sondra Radvanovsky (Norma), Gregory Kunde (Pollione), Ekaterina Gubanova (Adalgisa), Raymond Aceto (Oroveso), Ana Puche (Clotilde) & Francisco Vas (Flavio)
- Symphony Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
- Renato Palumbo (conductor) & Kevin Newbury (stage director)
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Awards and reviews
December 2016
[Radvanovsky’s] ‘Casta diva’ is dispatched with juicy flair, but it’s in the preceding lines tht the soprano really shows her mettle. Here Radvanovsky astutely establishes Norma’s divided loyalties rather than affecting to channel the voice of divine ‘Irminsul’
May 2017
Radvanovsky’s soprano is indeed a mettlesome instrument, sizeable, colourful, extremely well grounded – each of her finespun, long-sustained high pianissimos is a pleasure to hear – and its possessor certainly knows how to command the stage.
Opera Now December 2016
Sondra Radvonovsky and Ekaterina Gubanova blend well in the lead female roles.