Rameau: Les Paladins (Opus Arte)

I like baroque operas to be historically authentic in the way they are presented--yet I find this production so amusing that I want to buy the DVD. Five stars.

(cont'd) way it would have been viewed was not in an environment where the piece was meant to be the sole focus of people's attention. If you read up on it, you'll learn that the ladies of the 18th century actually had a whole sign language set up using their fans so they could gossip with each other from across the theater. We shouldn't just assume people in the past had longer attention spans than we do now, because they didn't. Now we watch opera as an end-in-itself, so we need more glitz.

I saw this on tv in my hotel room in Paris, and I'm usually not a fan of opera, modern dance, or surrealism. Nevertheless I really loved this piece. Two points: 1) there was a libretto on screen and I could read what they were saying - it truly is very boring and slow and has not much in the way of plot. I would never sit through a conventional version of this. 2) Actually, opera houses were where the nobility met to show off their clothes, gossip, and flirt with one another; the "original"

How childishly simplistic, vulgar, and insulting.

From this and your other comments on clips from this DVD, it sounds like you're one of those people who takes himself too seriously, and is hell bent on dragging everyone else down to your level.

No it wouldn't turn the opera into a big mime since french baroque opera is filled with dance pieces. However, I think your point one with which I don't sympathise. When I go to the opera I don't do so to watch some musicological demonstration, but I go to see and listen to something fresh and relevant such as this. If anything I find so called period productions excrutiatingly boring. Although they are interesting to read about, I have no care to spend my evening in the opera watching one.

Don't forget giant storks!

Ah yes - the crowning glory.

Rameau must be beside himself.

yes, and also, the giant flamigos, chicken, the great stone fanny...and the transvestite scene

I feel like this is one giant acid trip... but the singing is nice!