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Dom Robinson reviews
Polygram
- Cat.no: 056 204 2
- Cert: E
- Running time: 86 minutes
- Year: 1997
- Pressing: 1998
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 24 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: Songs sung in respective languages; dialogue in English
- Subtitles: French
- Widescreen: 1.66:1 (15:9)
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £18.99 (£15.99 at Blackstar)
- Extras : Scene index, Biographies
Conductor:
- Marcello Rota
Director:
- David Amphlett
Producer:
- Lana Topham
Cast:
- Andrea Bocelli
Sarah Brightman
Zucchero
Nuccia Focile
Marta Sanchez
Andrea Bocelli: A Night In Tuscanyis a concert featuring the Tenor from Tuscany at the historic setting ofPiazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa with special guests Sarah Brightman,Zucchero and Nuccia Focile plus offscreen conversation with the manhimself, a look around his home town with his family and a duet with thegorgeous Marta Sanchez.
Andrea Bocelli was born on September 22nd 1958 and in 1993 he embarked on ajourney that has led him to international stardom. From playing in piano barsto now, he is one of the biggest selling artists in Europe, achieving massivechart success and performances with Pavarotti, Bryan Adams, Zucchero andSarah Brightman, scoring a No.2 hit with the latter in May 1997 with“Time To Say Goodbye”, taken from his Top 10 album, “Romanza”.Europe has embraced this man whose remarkable voice and range is capable ofsinging great operatic arias and classical popular love songs.
Visually impaired from birth, at the age of 12 Andrea went completely blindfollowing a freak accident. He recounts :
“I don’t want people to get too emotional about it. Basically I wasplaying football with some kids
and took a knock to the head. It brought on a brain haemorrhage and a fewdays later, I was blind”.
There are 24 chapters and the listing is as follows :
1. Introduction
2. Setting up the stage
3. Nessun Dorma (Puccini – Turandot)
4. La Donna e Mobile (Verdi – Rigoletto)
5. Lamento di Federico (Cilea – L’Arlesiana)
6. E Lucean le Stelle (Puccini – Tosca)
7. Interview with Andrea
8. O Soave Fanciulla (Puccini – La Boheme)
– with Nuccia Focile
9. Brindisi (Verdi – La Traviata)
– with Nuccia Focile
10. Andrea and his family
11. Tona a Surriento
12. Santa Lucia Luntana
13. O Sole Mio (Di Capua/Capurro)
14. Andrea in the studio
15. Vivo Por Elle
– with Marta Sanchez
16. Con Te Partiro
17. Romanzo
18. E Chiove
19. Voglio Restare Cosi
20. Caruso
21. Il Mare Calmo Della Sera
22. Miserere
– with Zucchero
23. Time To Say Goodbye
– with Sarah Brightman
24. Closing Credits
The picture is perfect and artifact-free bringing out the plush colour in theset design and facial tones, allowing a crystal clear image.The average bitrate is 6.77Mb/s, regularly peaking at around 9Mb/s but is notanamorphically-enhanced for widescreen televisions. The back-cover states aratio of 16:9, but the performance is actually presented in 1.66:1 (or 15:9) whichis narrower than 1.77:1 (or 16:9) so to fill a widescreen TV you’ll need tozoom the picture in yourself and lose some resolution. This is a bit of a shameas it would be possible to produce an anamorphic master but enclosing its ownsmall black bars to compensate for the difference between 15:9 and 16:9 as hasonce been done by Buena Vista’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The sound is what most people will be playing this disc to discover – given thecontent – and it doesn’t disappoint whatsoever. Whether it’s Andrea on his own,with Sarah Brightman, Zucchero or Marta Sanchez (I wonder if she has a fan clubwebsite :), it comes across without a hitch in Dolby Digital, for thosewith the equipment, or downmixed to Dolby ProLogic for the less well-endowedin musical terms.
Extras : Chapters :There are 24 chapters on this disc as described above in the track listing,although the back-cover confusingly makes it look like there’s only 16 as itlists the concert songs and nothing else. Biographies :Four biogs are available, each covering 3-5 pages apiece, for Andrea Bocelli,Sarah Brightman, Zucchero and Nuccia Focile and each ratherinformative. Languages and Subtitles :The booklet comes in the same six languages in which the menus are available (seebelow for details) but only gives a track listing. The language and subtitlesoptions are not as adventurous though – the songs are in their native languages,while dialogue spoken in the interview scenes is in English. Subtitles areavailable for the spoken parts, but only in French for some bizarre reason.Why not for all other languages and during the songs too? Menu :
The onscreen menus are static but work very well, responding quickly withevery selection taking you exactly where you need to.
There’s no Polygram logo on this disc, it just launches into the main menu withselections for onscreen text in six languages: English, French, German,Spanish, Dutch and Swedish.
Overall, this is a release worth buying for fans of opera music and the gueststhat appear during the show, but there’s precious little in the way of extras.That said, the Region 1 releasew seems to suffer further with no extras of anykind, a 4:3 transfer and a higher retail price of $30 so the UK version seemsa better bet.FILM : ***PICTURE QUALITY: *****SOUND QUALITY : *****EXTRAS: *—————————————OVERALL: ***½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.