I suppose the best way to watch opera videos these days is to ignore the plodding, philistine production--often designed by someone who has never seen an opera--and just concentrate on the singers, as though we are back in the days of LP's. The singers are very good here, especially Diana Damrau as Konstanze, and Franz Selig as Osmin, oily and so much fun to watch. Then too there is the Blonde of Olga Peretyatko, a singer new to me whom I will have to watch for in the future (I'd love to hear her Rossini album).
The preceding review describes the visual flaws in this production better than I can. I had a good time looking at the photos in the Victor Book of the Opera, and dreaming of a time when operatic kings dressed like kings, bishops like bishops, dairy maids like dairy maids and so on and so on. Sigh.
