Le nozze di Figaro - 4k Ultra HD

I bought this Blu-Ray because it’s one of the few 4K operas I could find. The sets look like rooms in a tenement that open into one another. They are various shades of tacky gray. The characters are dressed drably. Aurally the recording is fine, but why display such visually unappealing opera sets in 4K?

The 4K is crisp and sharp, even projected onto a 120" screen, making the characters look like they are standing and singing in your living room. The contrasting various surfaces look real: hard rock, soft wood, crinkling fabrics, sweat-dripping skin. Also, the surround sound is excellent, rich and vibrant. The 4K provides an immersive experience, worth watching many times over. I had to watch it in pieces it was so good, savoring the experience. Please make more of these 4K concerts! Bravo!

Great 4k picture and very unusual stage set for this opera. Sound is very good, but could use a little more bass (noted that the sound encoding is for DTS HD 5.0, not 5.1). Noticed that the English translation on-screen text is incorrect in a few places, but not enough to deter from the overall screen experience. Recommended!

The performances are excellent, but I have a complaint. First, getting the English subtitles to work on my Sony UBP-X700 was difficult. The top level menu has a Subtitles page, but once you get there and select your language, there's no way out. I had to restart from the Sony main menu, start playing the video, then press the subtitle button on the Sony. I hope this helps others with a similar problem.

I involved myself viewing opera ten years ago. There are many versions of this one. I tend toward the updated versions of all operas. This is one of them. I just recently invested in 4K equipment and love the increased density, as in this release.Worth the effort.

Our first classical 4K disk. It is stunning. More please UPDATE: I replaced my Samsung player with Sony's ES player. New Sony will not play the disc. Still good on Samsung. Anyone know an issue? Sony would only say it is software issue. I suggested they update. They said thank you....UPDATE: Sony did update at the disc looks great!More 4K classical please! Opera! Ballet Modern dance

The set at first seems imaginative in that you see a whole house, two stories, with all of the rooms where action takes place, simultaneously. It's like watching a 3 ring circus. Your attention is constantly diverted from the main action and singing to various sub actions and sub plots that go on, all at the same time. Another one of those Salzburg attempts to embellish a basic story with additional levels of action, sub-action and artistic sophistication that destroys the integrity of an opera.

Im not a huge opera fan but i bought this 3 hour stage presentation to use as a demo because it was 4K HDR and it looks insanely good. Great sound but this thing just pops off the screen. Expensive but worth it. I wanna see more concerts in 4K!!!

Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s new production of Le nozze di Figaro is a brave adaptation of the original piece. The action is updated to the early twentieth century and the production is set in a multi-level space. If it's not quite a perfect fit here, it works well enough for the purposes of Mozart's version of the work, which is less concerned with the social and political climate than the richness of human values that the work expresses. What is rather more important then is how its characters are brought to life, and it's clear from the superb casting and the fine singing, that this is the principal strength of the production. Split-level action provide the opportunity to see into a number of rooms, and more importantly, what other characters are doing. Sometimes this is a distraction, thanks to the selective eye of the camera, when during arias and ensembles, we see what other characters not involved in the scene are doing. However, more often, the simultaneous activity illuminates the tensions and obsessions in the Count Almaviva household. The costuming looks vaguely like England and clearly not Spain.There is not a weak member of the cast. The charismatic bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni is a wonderfully self-aware Count Almaviva. He’s portrayal of the Count is fascinating. Count Almaviva is less amenable to interpretation than Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In some ways he has to exhibit all the characteristics of Don Giovanni's personality simultaneously, not leaning too much towards one aspect or the other, however, this Count is evidently a vain man, checking in the mirror for, perhaps, grey hairs. This lends a touch of realism to the Count’s fear that his appeal to women might be weakening as he enters middle age. Mozart’s Countess is just as precisely balanced and even more expressive of her vulnerability in this work and in its interpretation. Anett Fritsch is a lovely Countess with stunning stage-presence, mellow sound and elegant phrasing. Adam Plachetka’s Figaro maybe looks slightly older than one expects nowadays but he’s a very fine singer and actor. He and Martina Janková’s Susanna are a lively, resourceful servant couple.. Veteran Ann Murray is an outstanding Marcellina. Dan Ettinger’s conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic is well paced with due attention given to the recitativesI was hugely impressed at the incredibly detailed images that the 4K Ultra HD could deliver to the TV, as well as the wonderfully natural and saturated colours. The picture was crisp, with stunning clarity making the most of fine textures, and because the highlights really popped up, the entire image had a greater sense of depth. The resulting pictures appeared more realistic, with colours and details that simply weren't apparent on the normal Blu-ray. The sound was excellent.There’s no denying Ultra HD Blu-ray and 4K TVs are luxuries, but they're luxuries worth having. Opera and ballet, with their beautiful and detailed costumes, lavish sets and fantastic music, can really benefit from the format, perhaps even more so than other releases. What this first-ever opera release on Ultra HD does give you, is a stunning demonstration of the superiority of the format.

This production of Le Nozze is very polished and the singers are excellent, however the period chosen is in the mid 30's so it looks to me a lot like a PG Woodhouse script, and I feel that Jeeves is going to burst into song anytime soon.I cannot get my head around the fact that Figaro is on the phone.Why do producers change the period intended by the author?That the Lord of the manor tries to exercise his right to sleep with a servant in the 1930's seems ridiculous. The staging is ingenious and the sound and picture in 4K UHD are superb but I cannot give it 5* as the plot does not match the period that the production is set in.I find it a bit difficult to distance myself from some P G Wodehouse's characters such as Jeeves and Aunt Agatha as their costumes and looks are of the same period.Why is it that directors do these changes is beyond me.

This is rather impressive.Picture quality great ... performers and singers greatBonus notes, and great camera workCan't imagine anyone disliking

Wonderful viewing experienceExcellent production of the opera....Beautiful voices!Extraordinary music from heaven !

I was a bit concerned it would not work on my sony UBP800 after reading some reviews, but no problems, nice 4k image and sound.