Product Description

Recorded live with the San Francisco Opera, the world premiere production of Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire. For his first-ever opera, Previn turned to one of the most celebrated plays in the history of American theater, Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning A Streetcar Named Desire. He saw the haunting story of lost youth and innocence in the romantic, shadowy world of New Orleans as ideal material. Collaborating with librettist Philip Littell, Previn has captured all the claustrophobic tension, volatile emotion and sexual undertow of Williams' original in his own Streetcar. This world premiere recording took place in September 1998 at the spectacularly renovated War Memorial Opera House, with Previn conducting. The cast includes Renee Fleming as Blanche DuBois, Rodney Gilfry as Stanley Kowalski, Elizabeth Futral as Stella Kowalski, and Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch. Nominated for a 1999 Emmy Award. English: Stereo. 167 minutes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69083 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-11-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Classical, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 166 minutes

Amazon.com
There are those who believe (whether they admit it or not) that opera is an exclusively European art whose history ended with the death of Puccini. They are, of course, entitled to this delusion, but it creates serious obstacles for a vital form of new music and it deprives opera fans of some memorable theatrical experiences. For most of the 20th century and very intensively in its last half, American composers have been transforming literary masterpieces into operas that deserve and are gradually winning a place in the repertoire with the European classics. With A Streetcar Named Desire (1998), André Previn is the latest addition to the list of these composers, with Gian Carlo Menotti, Dominick Argento, John Corigliano, Carlisle Floyd, John Harbison, William Bolcom, Mark Adamo, and others.

Previn came to classical music from a background as a jazz pianist and soundtrack composer, credentials that may raise a few eyebrows but obviously developed his sense of what works dramatically in music and a knack for regional flavor in an opera set in New Orleans. The libretto preserves the impact of the original Tennessee Williams play about the fragile Blanche DuBois (brilliantly portrayed by Renée Fleming) and the loutish Stanley Kowalski (sung with precision and a subtle sense of character by Rodney Gilfry). There are no weaknesses in the supporting cast and there are particularly fine performances by Elizabeth Futral and Anthony Dean Griffey. Previn, a world-class conductor, is of course an expert in his own music, and Kirk Browning has a convincing approach to the opera's visual elements. Highly recommended to anyone not allergic to modern opera. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

A WASTED OPPORTUNITY

Andre Previn and his librettist, Philip Littell, have performed a remarkable feat: they have taken what could have and should have been a tremendous opera, and managed to do everything wrong that could possibly be done wrong. Here is one of the greatest plays ever written, which in its power and intensity is basically an opera already. Now - music presumably enhances the drama in an opera, intensifying the dramatic highlights, so if anything, this should have had twice the power. Instead, Previn and Litell have concocted an "opera" entirely devoid of either dramatic or musical impact. Start with the libretto. The "librettist" has for all practical purposes merely taken ninety percent of the play script verbatim, and called it a libretto. Previn might just as well have written the music straight from Williams' script - it could not have come out much different. A libretto is supposed to be an adaptation: the librettist should condense the drama while maintaining the dramatic highlights, and then add some original material to suit the purposes of a libretto, and to give the composer the proper material to work with. One of the main aspects of this new material is the writing of arias, which of course cannot be found in the original. Arias did not come about as some arbitrary formula imposed from without. They evolved as the most natural and logical development of the previously mentioned function of music enhancing the dramatic highlights. If music in general enhances the dramatic highlights, an aria does it to an even greater degree, being longer, broader, and very specific to the particular moment. This "Streetcar" has not one single aria as such. There are four passages which the audience dutifully applauds as though they are arias, but they are merely sections of verbatim play dialogue, and to make matters worse, they seem arbitrarily chosen, not even of any special dramatic strength or importance. One waits and waits for an aria, but alas, none are forthcoming. More frustrating yet, no end of potentially powerful dramatic moments arrive, and one says, "At last, here will most certainly be an aria, the moment cries out for one." But no, the moment is allowed to simply peter out, and golden opportunity after golden opportunity is lost, and powerful dramatic passages that should have been expanded and intensified evaporate, rendering the entire opera dramatically and musically homogeneous. Furthermore, while the music is not atonal, Previn, in three hours, not once manages to find the tonic. When music accompanies drama, there is no neutral or middle ground - if it does not enhance the drama, it diminishes it by its very presence, which then becomes merely intrusive and essentially gratuitous. Such is the case here. Whatever drama manages to emerge, which isn't much, is solely the drama inherent in this great play. The question then arises: why did Previn bother to write this in the first place. Since the music neither improves the drama, nor can stand alone as music, it becomes an utterly pointless and futile exercise, and we are left with only the drama, severely diminished. It is clearly preferable, then, to simply go see the original play on stage if one can find a performance, or watch the film. Either of these two alternatives will show the great and powerful drama of this play, and will demonstrate just how inept is Previn's attempt to turn it into an opera.

One of the few new operas that really hit the mark.
Many, many new operas written each year. Some of them get workshopped by an opera company, and even fewer get to the stage of actually being performed in front of a paying audience. Now, if the composer has a name like Andre Previn, and the work is based on one of the twentieth centuries best know plays from one of America's most respected writers you most definitely have a head start. However, actually making all of these elements work together as a cohesive and worthwhile whole is the true challenge, and this new opera has met and exceed the expectations of that challenge. Here is a work that enhances the effect of the original rather than defacing it or 'dumbing it down'. The music is beautifully evocative of the time and place in which the drama is set, and has the huge benefit of being composed by a man who is also a jazz musican, and therefore understands that less often creates more. The libretto has been skillfully 'arranged' from the original play so that well known lines are still as they appeared in the original, but has been augmented for moments when there is more time needed to expand the original thoughts musically. The direction of Colin Graham is masterly, naturalistic and truly based on the development of each of the characters. The set is extremely clever in its simplicity, and yet still creates exactly the right claustrophobic atmosphere. And finally, the performances will be very hard to better. Renee Fleming is a singing actress of considerable stature who creates a new Blanche DuBois that is full of complexity and 'guts'. Both Elizabeth Futral and Rodney Gilfry give of their considerable best as Stella and Stanley, and also both look exactly right for the roles they play. The supporting cast are all quite exceptional and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the baton of the composer run the full gambit styles, making huge lush sounds when needed, and even more surprisingly, sounding truly 'jazzy' at other times. A triumph for all concerned, and a joy to experience at home.

A Great Disappointment
I am crazy about Renee Fleming, admire Tennessee Williams, and can enjoy, say, Lulu -- so why did I dislike this so? The sets and cast look great; the acting is good enough. The fault, I suppose, lies primarily with the composer: he captures some of the desperation of Blanche, but not the (faded) beauty. Apparently, he wrote this part for Renee Fleming; but, for one thing, I would like to hear it sung more softly -- with slower tempos! Maybe there is vocal beauty here that this performance fails to capture because it doesn't let the music sufficiently "breathe." Renee Fleming has a wonderful melancholy look, which her at times almost Wagnerian vocalizing belies -- Isolde, fallen on hard times.