Puccini - La Rondine (Genoa, 2018)

Giacomo Puccini - La Rondine

Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova - 2018

Giuseppe Acquaviva, Giorgio Gallione, Elena Rossi, Giuliana Gianfaldoni, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Marius Brenciu, Stefano Antonucci, Giuseppe De Luca, Didier Pieri, Davide Mura, Francesca Benitez, Marta Leung, Marina Ogii

TCF Streaming - 21 March 2018

It has some supporters - the Royal Opera House and Angela Gheorghiu among them - but for a work that comes in the midst of Puccini's mature period, La Rondine is surprisingly a mostly forgotten and neglected work. I entirely forgot about it myself when I assessed the strengths and weakness of Puccini's work post-Butterfly in my recent review of Turandot, but it's at least 15 years since the only time I saw the work performed - in Dublin - and despite it having Puccini's familiar melodic strengths, it's clearly not the most memorable work, and it's hard to see how it can be rehabilitated for a modern audience.

It's not that La Rondine is a bad opera as much as it feels like a misstep by Puccini, who uncharacteristically appears to look towards other operas for inspiration and direction rather than follow his own instincts. La Rondine comes across as an attempt to look back at Verdi's La Traviata and attempt to do for Paris what Strauss did for the glory days of Vienna in Der Rosenkavalier; taking a light operetta setting and likewise filling the score with dance melodies that are ironic and nostalgic at the same time. As lovely as it can look and sound, La Rondine nonetheless comes across as slight and superficial, with none of the same sense of engagement that Strauss and Hoffmansthal had with Der Rosenkavalier, and hence none of its sense of fun and sophistication.

Everywhere in La Rondine you get a sense of compromise - compromise that resulted in no less than three versions of the opera, as Puccini struggled to give it some shape and depth. Even the plot seems to only really superficially resemble the setting and action of La Traviata without really connecting to any true emotions or the social commentary that fired Verdi's response to the subject. La Rondine opens with the party of a courtesan, Magda. Amidst the scene-setting introductions to the characters, which present Puccini with a number of songs and dance melodies that he sets beautifully, Magda reflects on her position, and on a lost love in the past that a new visitor Ruggero has brought to mind. When the guests leave, she wonders whether she might still have a chance at love and, disguised as Paulette, she follows him to a night spot that had been recommended by some of the other guests.

Puccini can't but follow his own style however, and the scene at Bulliers in Act II of La Rondine owes more to La Bohème's Cafe Momus; the scene filled with life, glamour, colour and the promise of romance, no matter who you are or what your past is. Elsewhere, La Bohème likewise remains like a model imposed unsuccessfully over La Traviata as a way of treating the subject. In Act III, when 'Paulette' and Ruggero go to Nice to be free to love outside the constraints and gossip of Paris society, Puccini introduces a tension similar to Act III of La Bohème. Although like Violetta and Alfredo there are financial problems with this arrangement and a crisis of conscience for Magda who doesn't want to destroy the young man's reputation, her self-sacrifice here comes like Mimi's in the form of a decision to return to her wealthy benefactor Rambaldo in Paris, who loves her for who she is and can provide for her.

And Puccini, in the second version anyway, leaves things there, with none of the fire and fury of La Traviata, and none of the melodramatic and heart-rending deaths from tuberculosis scenes of either La Traviata or La Bohème. It might be refreshing to have the heroine live at the end, but it doesn't provide a strong narrative arc in the sense of love being taken through to death that makes Tosca, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly such perfect dramatic opera creations. Like Manon Lescaut, La Rondine feels like it's short of an Act that might better round out the drama, characterisation and bring some further emotional engagement with the characters and their situation. Without it, Puccini's music in La Rondine feels empty and perfunctory, just as Manon Lescaut feels over-elaborate for its slightness.

There is one respect in which Puccini is characteristically successful and that is his association of mid-19th century Paris with the idea of glamour, romance, music and colour. All of the characters constantly vaunt its charm in their conversations; its night-life, its writers, its music, its dancers, its women - a place where anything can happen and dreams can come true, but it's also a place that can turn the head of the unwary. It's also a place where for some who are supposedly living the dream, like Magda, it can bring social pressures and expectations that are hard to continue to live up to in opposition to one's deeper needs and nature, and the swallow (la rondine) needs to fly south. It's a rounded portrait of the attractions and pitfalls of the City of Lights, if not a socially realistic one, or even a La Bohème verismo one which the harsh deaths in La Bohème and La Traviata at least bring emphatically to the forefront.

Giorgio Gallione's production for Genoa captures the essence of both Paris and Nice well, as well as mark the contrasts between them, without having to rely on hackneyed Belle Epoque imagery. The period is updated to another stylish era that has echoes of the 1920s, albeit a little more hyperstylised and glamourised. There are plenty of party-goers and lots of dancers doing choreographed moves at Magda's party in Act I and at Bulliers in the colourful night club scenes of Act II, but it also manages to convey a sense that it is all forced, as the disguises and the contrasting behaviour between the couples of Magda and Ruggero and Prunier and Lisette suggest. Act III in Nice is also highly stylised, more open and easy going by Paris, but with a single fallen tree and sun terrace figures in the background, it also hints that pressures remain and all is not ideal for Magda and Ruggero.

I don't find Puccini's music for La Rondine particularly inspired, memorable or well-attuned to the dramatic action. It feels perfunctory in its distribution of arias, in its weaving of songs and dance melodies and rarely displays any of the composer's true character. It's performed well though by the Carlo Felice Genova orchestra under conductor Giuseppe Acquaviva, who keeps it light and buoyant. The singing certainly has its challenges, but they seem to be more in the bel canto register that you rarely find anywhere else in Puccini, although there are certainly dramatic and lyrical challenges in the role of Magda, which Elena Rossi sings very well. The lead tenor role doesn't particularly have great character to it in this opera, but Arturo Chacón-Cruz brings a romantic charm to Ruggero. and there's lively support from Giuliana Gianfaldoni's Lisette and Marius Brenciu as Prunier.

Links: Teatro Carlo Felice, TCF Streaming

Strauss - Salome (Genoa, 2016)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa - 2016

Fabio Luisi, Rosetta Cucchi, Lise Lindstrom, Jane Henschel, Herwig Pecoraro, Mark Delavan, Patrick Vogel, Marina Ogii, Marcello Nardis, Alessandro Fantoni, Naoyuki Okada, Jason Kim, Alessandro Busi, Frano Lufi, Manuel Pierattelli, Roberto Maietta, Luca Gallo, Alessandro Busi, Beate Vollack

Teatro Carlo Felice Live Streaming - 25 May 2016

Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice production of Salome doesn't appear to offer any specific interpretation or modernisation of the work. If it seems to take a more generic approach that never strays far from the expected lines, it nonetheless captures the destructive and almost self-defeating essence of what is vital about Strauss's first great operatic masterpiece.

The source and the context of the creation of Strauss's version of Salome are highly relevant in assessing its importance, its greatness, its legacy, as in some respects it's emblematic of a time of great change in music and in modernist thinking. Strauss had seen Wilde's play in a fairly faithful German-language translation by Hedwig Lachmann and the play's ideas and sensibility clearly resonate with what was happening in turn of the century Vienna. The impact that the work made on him provided Strauss with a challenge to replicate it within the world of music.

As a source, and for what the work says, Oscar Wilde's scandalous play is far more important than the original Biblical tale. All Wilde's plays - even the drawing room comedies like 'An Ideal Husband' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest' - are subversive in one way or another, gently mocking Victorian mores and attitudes. 'Salome' however is a little more daring. Written in French, Wilde knew that the play would never be performed in England due to blasphemy laws that prevented Biblical characters appearing on the stage, and it freed him creatively to expand on the florid poetry that would twist the exotic Biblical setting into a taboo-breaking tale of forbidden lust and death. 

In some respects then, at a level above the purely textual, 'Salome' is about destroying conventional views; quite literally delving into the cistern of corruption that lies beneath the comfortable facade of respectable society. It's easy now to see what attracted Strauss to the challenge of putting this transgressive text to a new and more rigorous form of music. This was the kind of subject that would take the Liebestod philosophy of Strauss's idol Wagner one stage further in musical terms, break with convention and upset a few people. There wasn't much point in doing anything else and, up to that point, there would be nothing that pushed musical boundaries further than Salome.

So perfectly interlocked is the music with the text, the entire piece one continuous flow of intense poetry, that Salome really is a work that speaks for itself. In practical terms the set needs to be generally all-purpose for the locations of the continuous one-act opera and, like Strauss's subsequent opera Elektra, it needs to be focussed on establishing mood. The Carlo Felice production in Genoa takes a fairly generic approach then that is vaguely Biblical in look and feel, but perhaps actually looks a little more Greek tragedy. In fact, I'm sure they could use the same set just as effectively for Elektra with minimal changes, but there is at least a commonality between the treatment of the subjects in these two one-act Strauss tone-poem operas.

Salome, like Elektra, is about a corrupt or degenerate family (a nation, a way of life) that is being eaten up by its own descent into self-destruction. The facade of respectability is being stripped away to reveal decadence and dark lusts, and much of this is already there in the music and the poetry of the libretto. Tiziano Santi's sets provide a fairly conventional response to this, with a dark pit in the centre of the stage from which Jochanaan's warnings of the coming of a new way emanate. Salome dangerously flirts around this pit, the product of a corrupt union, trying to bend the promise of Jochanaan's visions to her own twisted will. Aside from the requirements of the stage direction and lighting to meet the drama, the only significant change to the set is to show the downfall of a royal line in the fracturing of the surrounding marble framework of the palace.

Fabio Luisi keeps a tight rein on proceedings from the orchestra pit, but like Rosetta Cucchi's direction, it doesn't really seem to plumb the dark depths of the work, although admittedly in a work as intense as this, that's difficult to judge from a live internet stream rather than from inside the theatre. Lise Lindstrom has that precise Turandot voice that matches Salome's requirements of meeting Wagnerian force with Puccinian high lyricism. The dynamic between her fluctuating states of reverie and fury isn't perhaps quite as pronounced as it might be but she has the voice and all the dangerous allure for this role. Herwig Pecoraro and Jane Henschel show their suitability and experience in the roles of Herod and Herodias. Mark Delavan is a fabulous deeply intoned Jochanaan.

Links: Teatro Carlo Felice Streaming

Giordano - Fedora (Genoa, 2015 - Webcast)

Umberto Giordano - Fedora

Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, 2015

Valerio Galli, Rosetta Cucchi, Irene Cerboncini, Rubens Pelizzari, Sergio Bologna, Paola Santucci, Margherita Rotondi, Manuel Pierattelli, Alessandro Fantoni, Luigi Roni, Claudio Ottino, Roberto Maietta, Davide Mura

Carlo Felici Web Streaming - 24 March 2015
 
The spirit of Victorien Sardou weighs heavily upon Umberto Giordano's Fedora (1898). Adapted from Sardou's play, it has much in common with Tosca, even though Puccini's opera version of that work wouldn't come until two later. History has made judgement on the relative value of the two works and undoubtedly Puccini's particularly visceral treatment of similar romantic-historical material has ensured that the later work would eclipse not just Fedora but the only other well-known work by Giordano, the revolutionary drama of Andrea Chénier.

Unless you have a complete aversion to Puccini - and there are many in the opera world who are at least agnostic as far as the composer is concerned - it would be hard to argue that either of Giordano's best known works rates well alongside almost anything by Puccini, and not just Tosca. A fine production of Fedora by the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa (broadcast live from their web-streaming service) however gives us an opportunity to consider whether history, and the love of Puccini's admittedly more populist treatment of the subject, has been unkind to this particular work.

It might resemble Tosca in its dramatic format, but Giordano's approach to verismo opera is rather more purist. There are no familiar numbers, the music arising out of the drama, if not quite flowing in easy through-composition. There is only one real aria, a very short one ('Amor ti vieta di non amar'), but a famous one nonetheless, sung not by the leading lady of the title, Fedora, but by her lover Loris. The real problem with Giordano's treatment however is that it doesn't propose any significant distinguishing character of its own.

Giordano's music and approach to opera is unfortunately and all too apparently, no great advance upon the work of the undisputed master of Italian opera, Verdi. Puccini made his mark in his melodies and in storytelling that touches the heart in his early work and he even extend his techniques into impressionism and through-composition in his later operas, but on the strength of Fedora (and Andrea Chénier), Giordano might have the musical ability, but the chosen subject matter of his operas, and in particular the influence here of Sardou, don't really provide the kind of material that is going to break any new ground.

Although Giordano's musical approach to the subject doesn't really bear any comparison with Verdi, Fedora does however resemble the structure and nature of La Traviata more closely than any similarity with Tosca. It's a tragic story of a woman who falls for the wrong man (twice!), and because of actions in the past, is unable to find happiness and love, and is doomed to die a terrible tragic death in her lover's arms, believing that she cannot live with the betrayal. As melodramatic as the story is, it's typically well constructed for dramatic effect, getting straight to the romantic heart of the story, complicating it with some political involvement, and indicating early on that there are going to be tragic consequences later.

Set in St. Petersburg during the troubled late years of Czarist Russia, the tragic heroine here is the Princess Fedora Romazov. She is about to be married to Count Vladimir Andrejevich, but the first we see of the count is him being carried onto the stage wounded and dying. Suspicion for his murder falls upon Count Loris Ipanov, and to try to obtain proof, Fedora travels to Paris where she hopes to lure the Count into a confession. Unfortunately, when she learns the nature of the truth - that Loris did indeed kill Vladimir, but only because he was a dissolute wretch who seduced his wife - she really does fall in love with him. Their happiness together would be threatened if Loris knew of Fedora's connection to the Count, and indeed, Nihilist attacks on the Romanov family bring events and revelations tragically to their door.

Giordano's treatment of the subject is earnest, not overly distracted by the melodrama or seeking to overplay it (as you could accuse Puccini of doing in Tosca). One lovely touch, for example, is to set the key confession and revelation scene of Fedora's confrontation with Loris not to any great orchestral arrangement or with any kind of flair that would beg comparison with La Traviata, but rather setting it in contrast to a piano piece being played in the background at the Paris reception by an invited Polish musician Lazinski. It's wonderfully effective, as is the simplicity and placement of the beautiful short aria 'Amor ti vieta') in this act.

As fine as this is, there's still not dramatically or musically distinctive enough, but Fedora nonetheless remains a work that places big demands on its soprano and tenor leads (the role of Loris famously created by Caruso), and it can still be effective when it is sung well. If you want to see this work in its true Italian character moreover, you want to see it put on at an Italian opera company, and that's done rather well here in Genoa with Valerio Galli conducting the very capable Carlo Felice Orchestra and the principal roles well taken on the web broadcast performance of 24th March, by Irene Cerboncini as Fedora and Rubens Pelizzari as Loris. Technical problems prevented a viewing on the 21st of the principal cast of Daniela Dessì as Fedora, illness preventing her partner Fabio Armiliato from singing Loris that evening in any case. That's an indication of the kind of singers required for these roles, and the alternate cast didn't disappoint.

There's really only so much you can do with a drama like this however and Rosetta Cucchi doesn't really find any way to make it feel more relevant or contemporary. There is an attempt to frame the opera in flashback, an aged Loris seen at the beginning of each of the acts and at the conclusion. As such the production extends the scope of the drama to take in subsequent political upheaval that would have occurred in Loris's lifetime - silent scenes from WWI play out in the background at the start of the acts, but it's not to any great effect. The main part of the opera remains hard to distinguish from a production of La Traviata, with its period dress, ballroom scene and tragic finale. Attention to characterisation was strong however, and with good singing performances, this was a fine way to re-evaluate one of the many forgotten works of Italian verismo.

Forthcoming operas streamed from the Teatro Carlo Felice are BILLY BUDD on 17th April, CARMEN on the 8th and 12th May and THE MERRY WIDOW on 18th July.

Links: Teatro Carlo Felice Streaming

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor (Genoa, 2015 - Webcast)

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor

Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova - 2015

Giampaolo Bisanti, Dario Argento, Desirée Rancatore, Gianluca Terranova, Stefano Antonucci, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Alessandro Fantoni, Marina Ogii, Enrico Cossutta, Fabiola Di Blasi

Teatro San Felice Web Streaming - 21 February 2015

 
Although I'm not really familiar with his film work, I wouldn't have put the director Dario Argento down as a traditionalist as far as opera direction goes. And yet, there no question that his Lucia di Lammermoor for the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa is very much period in design and conventional in its adherence to the original stage directions. With one or two exceptions, there's little here that you wouldn't have seen in a production of this opera thirty years ago, but it's in those exceptions that we get a little of the personal touch of Dario Argento, without evidently taking it too far into extremes.

Let's not forget that Dario Argento is famous for his giallo thrillers - big gothic melodramas with much nudity and blood (to point out only the superficial characteristics of his films), so in that respect at least the Italian filmmaker's style is perfect for a torrid bel canto melodrama like Lucia di Lammermoor that is always verging on the edge of madness and eventually topples over into full-blown murderous insanity. So it's not surprising that the set cries out Gothic right from the start, with a night-time exterior of huge crumbling tower of Lammermoor castle and dead trees all silhouetted by a crescent moon. All that is missing is the rolling Scottish mists.

It's completely the way you expect Lucia di Lammermoor to look, and it's certainly functional for the stage directions, but there's little sign of any distinct character or directorial input at this stage. Costumes are mid-19th century (Donizetti period?) rather than 16th century, the ladies in flowing robes, the lords and gentlemen in greatcoats and hats that are at least heavy enough for the Scottish winter weather. Familiarity with the opera - or even the nature of the mood established - means that we know however that there's going to be madness, murder and blood to come, and you can expect Argento to make a little more of that. And you can probably count on some nudity as well...

...and indeed, the first sign that this wouldn't be a staging from 30 or 40 years ago comes in Act I when a pale, naked corpse arises out of the fountain during Lucia's recounting of the ghost story. It might be characteristic of the director - and there is more to come - but it's still hardly a radical reworking of Sir Walter Scott's drama. It's not as adventurous, for example, as updating the work to Kennedy-era USA, as in the production of Lucia di Lammermoor currently running in parallel in Munich. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly the ghost-story horror elements of the original work that appeal to Argento, so why not just let them work on their own terms, with perhaps just a little directorial emphasis?

And indeed, the naked woman is just such an indication of the director's intentions. She's more than just an apparition, she's more or less the personification of the madness that is already manifesting itself in Lucia's mind. Being forced into a marriage with Arturo for family and political reasons when she is in love with Edgardo, a hated rival to her family, this pressure just adds to Lucia's already fragile state. Mourning her dead mother, weighed down by sorrow and a deathly fear that grips her, you could even say that death stalks Lucia. Argento's direction certainly highlights that and it's clear that it's only going to take one final push to topple her over the edge. Madness and murder are sure to follow.

The naked ghost significantly makes an appearance again at the start of Act II, standing in for Lucia's appearance and palor, but she doesn't appear in Act III. She's perhaps not needed in the final Act, as by that stage Lucia is in full-blown madness, and Argento and the work itself have other characteristic ways of expressing that state. The obvious familiar one is Lucia's 'mad scene', where it's left to the soprano to express her derangement in improvised coloratura while covered in blood. It wouldn't be like Dario Argento however to let a murder take place off-stage, and consequently Lucia's brutal stabbing of Arturo takes place in a lightning-flash backstage reveal of their room during the wedding celebrations.
 

There's no question that this has all the desired impact and that it assists a role that Desirée Rancatore is stretched to fill. For the larger part of the work, Rancatore sings well - she has dramatic drive in her voice and a fine lyrical timbre, but she is pushed somewhat by the high notes and is unimaginative in the coloratura. As one of the most famous and challenging scenes in all opera, there are however few sopranos who can really make something of this nowadays. Whether her acting is up to it either or whether she just isn't given the necessary direction here, I couldn't say, but Argento's direction doesn't give the performers much to do but walk-on, stand and sing. The Wolf's Crag scene, for example, between Edgardo and Enrico is static and utterly lifeless, although admittedly that's an extreme example, an add-on while the set is prepared for the wedding scene.

Elsewhere the singing is good. Gianluca Terranova is outstanding as Edgardo, a classic Italian tenor with a strong lyrical, clear tone. Stefano Antonucci is mostly solid, authoritative and authoritarian as Enrico, although the voice is not always as lyrical and occasionally you notice the lack of musical and dramatic expression. Giovanni Battista Parodi - due to sing the role in later dates, but standing in for an indisposed Orlin Anastassov - also gave a good performance as Raimondo. The orchestra was conducted with genuine Romantic fervour by Giampaolo Bisanti, stirring up all the dramatic tension, yet full-bloodedly lyrical. Full-blooded is what you expect from Lucia di Lammermoor, and Argento - despite a small smattering of boos from the audience at the curtain call - certainly brought enough of that to the Genoa stage.

Another live streaming of Dario Argento's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, with the alternate cast, can be viewed on 28th February on the Teatro Carlo Felice website.

Links: Teatro Carlo Felice Streaming

Puccini - Tosca

Giacomo Puccini - Tosca

Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, 2010

Marco Boemi, Adolf Hohenstein, Renzo Giacchierei, Daniela Dessì, Fabio Armiliato, Claudio Sgura, Nikolay Bikov, Paolo Maria Orecchia, Max de Angelis, Angelo Nardinocchi, Roberto Conti, Luca Arrigo

Arthaus Musik

The principal attraction of this 2010 production of Tosca from the Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova is that it the staging is based on Adolf Hohenstein’s original production designs from 1900. The gritty realism of the sets, particularly the Sant’ Andrea chapel of Act I and in the Castel Sant’ Angelo of Act III, look superb, fitting perfectly with the melodramatic verismo nature of a work that is not so much concerned with grand themes or concepts as much as in relating a human drama of love, jealousy and passion set against the backdrop of revolutionary activity, writ large in the sweep and tug of Puccini’s grand score.

In contrast to another recent production at the Royal Opera House also inspired by the realism of the original locations but which looked somewhat cluttered and cramped, there’s a wonderful sense of space here to allow the drama, directed well by Renzo Giacchieri, to play out without any complications. This is how Tosca was originally meant to be seen, and this is as close as you can get to its original intentions. There’s merit in this alone, but it’s even better when the opera is played and sung as well as it’s done here. The singing is outstanding in all the main roles, the husband and wife team of Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato slipping into the roles like a glove. Claudio Sgura isn’t quite as strong as Scarpia, but it’s a fine attempt at a more human performance of a role that is more often played – and unfortunately scored as such by Puccini – as a caricature baddie.

It would be all too easy to just go through the motions in such a well-known opera, in a very traditional production – albeit a wonderfully beautiful and lushly decorated one – and it’s easy for the listener to become blasé about yet another production of Tosca, but there’s no sign of any complacency here from any of the main performers and never any danger of the listener remaining detached from it all. There’s a real sense of commitment in Dessì’s Floria Tosca and in Armiliato’s Caravadossi. Neither are as young as they used to be, and the close-ups in High Definition are rather unforgiving, but there’s no substitute for experience. There’s scarcely a weakness anywhere in their performances or their singing, a perfect pairing who work exceptionally well together. You don’t often get that, and it’s something remarkably special when you get such a connection. Both are clearly aware of the inner nature of their roles and how they need to be sung in relation to one another, and they give it their all.

Listening to Dessì and Armiliato sing it, paying attention to every word of the libretto, weighing and balancing it for maximum impact, the qualities of the work and the depths of emotional content within it (so generously underscored by Puccini and perfectly performed here under Marco Boemi) come fully to life. Neither gives any sense of this being a prestige performance, but both are clearly totally involved in the roles for the sake of the drama. It’s unfortunate then that the performance here includes in-the-moment encores for ‘Vissi d’arte’ and ‘E lucevan le stelle’ that disrupts the flow of the drama, but on the other hand, it is a recording of a live performance of a popular work for a paying public and there’s no question that the encores called for here are merited and impressively reprised. They could possibly have been edited out, but that can easily be done by the viewer if so desired on the flick of the chapter switch.

There are plenty of versions of Tosca out there (a 2011 Royal Opera House production featuring Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel will be hard to match when released), but this is an outstanding performance that for now is as good as it gets. Superbly directed for TV, capturing all the intensity and passion of the live performance as well as the beauty of the stage production, this Tosca looks and sounds tremendous on Blu-ray. Image and sound are just about flawless. There are no extra features on the disc and no synopsis in the booklet, but the background to the work and its plot are covered in an essay. BD25, 1080i full-HD, PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1, All regions, subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.