DVD 11950 LA PIETRA DEL PARAGONE (Rossini)

Just when you think REGIE can not get any worse this awful rubbish turns up I have to give it 1 star but it deserves minus 8. Scala did a very good production in 1982 but it is not available

The singing and music is fine. Classic Rossini. Costumes are modern. This is the strangest treatment of the visual aspects of an opera film yet. The screen varies from full screen to split screen to a horizontal split in the middle with the top half divided into thirds. Sometimes these panels are used for close ups, Sometimes for splitting up the bottom half into thirds. The background doesn't always match in the panels. You never know what you will get. Sometimes a rat or two will scamper across the screen, an airplane will fly across. or someones head will rise out of the kitchen sink. The subtitles are fine but you have a hard time focusing on them with everything happening in the panels. Its quite distracting. Whats it about? I don't know. Just tune out and enjoy the singing and the music.