DVDfever.co.uk

Follow

Follow DVDfever.co.uk

WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com

Dom Robinson reviews

Andrea Bocelli: A Night In Tuscany

Distributed by

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

Nuccia Focile

Marta Sanchez

Andrea Bocelli: A Night In Tuscany is a concert featuring the Tenor from Tuscany at the historic setting of Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa with special guests Sarah Brightman, Zucchero and Nuccia Focile plus offscreen conversation with the man himself, a look around his home town with his family and a duet with the gorgeous Marta Sanchez.

Andrea Bocelli was born on September 22nd 1958 and in 1993 he embarked on a journey that has led him to international stardom. From playing in piano bars to now, he is one of the biggest selling artists in Europe, achieving massive chart success and performances with Pavarotti, Bryan Adams, Zucchero and Sarah 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 of singing great operatic arias and classical popular love songs.

Visually impaired from birth, at the age of 12 Andrea went completely blind following a freak accident. He recounts :

"I don't want people to get too emotional about it. Basically I was playing football with some kids
and took a knock to the head. It brought on a brain haemorrhage and a few days 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 the set design and facial tones, allowing a crystal clear image. The average bitrate is 6.77Mb/s, regularly peaking at around 9Mb/s but is not anamorphically-enhanced for widescreen televisions. The back-cover states a ratio of 16:9, but the performance is actually presented in 1.66:1 (or 15:9) which is narrower than 1.77:1 (or 16:9) so to fill a widescreen TV you'll need to zoom the picture in yourself and lose some resolution. This is a bit of a shame as it would be possible to produce an anamorphic master but enclosing its own small black bars to compensate for the difference between 15:9 and 16:9 as has once been done by Buena Vista's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The sound is what most people will be playing this disc to discover - given the content - 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 club website :), it comes across without a hitch in Dolby Digital, for those with the equipment, or downmixed to Dolby ProLogic for the less well-endowed in 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 it lists 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 rather informative.

Languages and Subtitles :

The booklet comes in the same six languages in which the menus are available (see below for details) but only gives a track listing. The language and subtitles options are not as adventurous though - the songs are in their native languages, while dialogue spoken in the interview scenes is in English. Subtitles are available 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 with every selection taking you exactly where you need to.

There's no Polygram logo on this disc, it just launches into the main menu with selections 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 guests that 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 any kind, a 4:3 transfer and a higher retail price of $30 so the UK version seems a better bet.

FILM 	 			: ***
PICTURE QUALITY			: *****
SOUND QUALITY 			: *****
EXTRAS				: *
---------------------------------------
OVERALL				: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

[Up to the top of this page]

Page Not Found - DVDfever.co.uk

DVDfever.co.uk

Follow

Follow DVDfever.co.uk

WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com