Spectacular in its blandness
347712
It's easy to give Simon Rattle credit for having a soul, because everything about him is so agreeable -- his smile, his enthusiasm, his niceness. But music runs deeper than niceness, and when he invites us to join him in a warm bath of orchestral sumptuousness, as he does here, the invitation has a counter-effect. I was a bit repelled by the perfection of every note on this CD of Mussorgsky and Borodin. Karajan was constantly accused of slickness, but the blandness of these performances is almost incandescent. Hollow beauties abound. There's not a note that escapes polish, and in the meantime the whole thing becomes denatured, sterile, and pointless. I feel much the same way about Rattle's Beethoven, Debussy, Haydn, and Dvorak in recent outings.

I don't mean to give way to a rant, but the musically promiscuous Rattle needs to learn a great lesson from Giulini: Only conduct what you deeply love. Pictures at an Exhibition and the Borodin Second Sym. have been recorded so well so often that the last thing we need is Rattle's dutiful run-through, so lacking in Russian soul that it made my teeth hurt.

Unless you like that sort of thing, of course.
4112128
The film looks amazing,  the physical special effects spectacular.  Where it lacks is the story, borderline generic and just underwhelming. Don't start me on the last five minutes,  I was screaming "really!?" at the screen. Maybe im missing the message
80871
Anthony Marra is a very gifted writer. There is no doubt about that. I often stopped after reading a passage and re-read it, admiring it for its beauty.

The characters were fairly interesting, as was the setting.

Outside of the foregoing, I don't have much to say. The time travelling back and forth didn't add anything to the story and may have detracted from it.

But most of all, the story was blah. I didn't find it compelling in any way. I kept thinking there would be some big reveal or major event but none of that happened. It just... started... and then ended.

Quite underwhelming.

That said, it remained a solid read because of the good points I outlined above, most significantly, the excellent writing.

6.5/10
1370061
This title offers a slick presentation and well-drawn art, but there's no real meat to the game. Each battle plays out pretty much the same and the story is so barebones you'll find little reason to see it to the conclusion. The online persistent "war" between the factions isn't much incentive to continue, either, as you have no real effect on things and the world resets as soon as one faction is declared the winner. There's a good variety of character classes, and each one is gloriously drawn and animated, but once you learn each unit's strengths, battles become glorified Rock Paper Scissors tournaments. Grand Kingdom looks great, but ends up being a real missed opportunity.
4498078
I never was able to shake the feeling that there was something missing in this novel. Maybe it was a soul or heart that it lacked? Hard to say because it was, at times, quite beautiful, and the ending was very well done, but I felt empty after I was done with the book.

One of the biggest problems I had with the book was that the characters felt very thin. Even Moon, who was written as a 'complicated man' never jumped off of the page and no amount of discussion between Wolf and Andy at the end about his mysteriousness was going to change that. And Moon was probably the biggest issue I had here; he seemed just too damn convenient as a character. His Plains Indian background never felt like more than an excuse to talk about how bad the native peoples of the Americas have been treated and how poorly we ever understood their cultures.

I would have been much more interested had the book been about his back story only.

I did, however, like Wolf, though I have to admit to always imagining him in my mind as played by Tom Waits from the film. Still, he was the only real character in the book and I really felt for him. He really was a very lonely man who acted tough (and could be tough, too) but he loved the people he let in.

Hazel would have been a great character, too but she was a serious missed opportunity. I could almost feel Matthiessen's hatred and judgment of a certain type of American mid-western Christian woman. She got off to a great start and seemed like she was going to be worth exploring, but she nearly ruined the entire book. The only thing I enjoyed her doing was when she hated her husband for being so good, for being so much like Jesus. That was a great thing for a missionary to say.

As for everyone else: Martin was painfully dull and boring, Leslie was thinner than water, and while Andy had the most potential, she never went anywhere. Even Matthiessen just leaves her sitting at a table staring into nothing at the end. Uyuyu, I'll admit was rather good, but he wasn't used enough and Father Xantes was just never tied down to anything I felt was relevant beyond an allegory for the Catholic Church in this part of the world.

The novel is well written and some passages are very beautiful - the opening scene of the airplane is stunning - but it never adds up to much more than a story that is supposed to be sad but just winds up being sort of flat.

And it's a shame, too because there was a real opportunity to explore some very interesting ideas, but perhaps this is material only Joseph Conrad would have known what to do with. And this novel does feel very often as if Conrad is standing over Matthiessen as he wrote it - the subject matter, the rough men as outlaws, the (sometimes here) very beautiful language, though Matthiessen's language never reaches the same depth as Conrad; he's no master wordsmith, but rather just a good putter-togetherer-of-words.

In the end I do not feel as if I learned anything insightful about Christian missionaries, about native Amazon Indians, about South American politics (the parallel story of Guzman reads like a bad Hollywood movie), nor about the larger issues of faith and acceptance. I felt like we never really left that plane in the beginning and we only ever saw glimpses through the jungle canopy.
3168563
It was like one of those long, mysterious dreams you have on Sunday mornings, substantial while experiencing it but gossamer upon reflection.  The Chess Garden's merits are well known, and Boone (Hansen's first book,  with cowriter Nick Davis) was possibly the best book I ever read in my  life.  Unfortunately, this book did not live up to the previous promise in  my mind.
The premise was irresistable to me.  In London at the turn of  the (previous) century, a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism to cure patients  of various phobias is presented with a teenage girl who has such a sudden  and severe fear of water that she has refused to drink for 11 days and  almost dies. When he begins to treat her an alternate personality takes  over her body, presenting a story akin to the Atlantean myth.  This myth  enchants a new friend of his, the sister of a dead composer revered by the  doctor, and she begins to hold a salon around the girl, playacting the  events retold, and threatening the doctor with her spiritualism.
The  atmosphere was perfect, and the tension caused by hindsight (Freud is just  on the horizon, as is Russian communism and the Holocaust) was superb.  Hansen is a writer obsessed with the ideas behind art forms, and he goes  into great detail to present philosophical arguments about music here  (melody vs. structure) that totally engaged me.  Unfortunately, I didn't  feel the substance here that I felt in the two previous books. Conflicts  were neatly wrapped up but it seemed too pat, and explanations were wholly  devoid. (Considering the theme of the novel the author intended to leave  one guessing, but I could have used a few more hints than this.)  The book  is more accessible than Chess Garden (the narrative is more straightforward  and less symbolic) and presents many interesting questions, but in the end  the protagonists are left unchanged, which to me is the failure of the  novel.  This would make a great book club book, though, lots to argue  about.  If it sounds interesting, go ahead and try it, I definitely enjoyed  reading it, just got frustrated when I was done. Boone figuratively sliced  the top of my head off to let in a cold breeze, and Chess Garden was an  intellectual challenge, but this was, IMO, a failed but valiant attempt.
1918530
I have seen only one other filmed version of "The Tempest", the BBC version, and I agree with others who say that in spite of a good cast lead by great Shakespearean actor, Michael Hordern, it is flat and visually uninteresting. That is a good place to start when speaking of this film, shot on two Hawaiian islands, including the volcanic regions on the big island. The scenery is gorgeous and perfectly befitting the play. The landscape tends to put the humans in proper perspective. Little.

The great background is enhanced by a touch of special effects, especially in the presentation of the spirit, Ariel. In the background piece, it was reported that Ben Whishaw, the actor who played Arial, would not be available when the company went to Hawaii. So, many of his parts are inserted by special effect, which has the benefit of giving him a very spectral quality.

If the special effects and the landscape do anything unfortunate, it is to shrink Prospera in comparison. Either though direction, camera work, or acting, Prospera the magician simply does not come off with the gravitas of Gandalf in LOTR (even though he rarely uses magic.) Prospera's effects are spectacular. It almost seems as if Prospera were played by an even slighter actress, the contrast would have been so great as to make a strong impression.

Caliban is Ariel's opposite, earthy in the extreme. In the BBC production, the Caliban character was covered with a stringy, weedy costume which tended to obscure his reactions to the camera. You can almost recognize Djimon Hounsou as the Nubian who played Russell Crowe's fellow gladiator in the movie of that name. Between his natural skin color and makeup, it appears he is caked with mud.

Caliban's two henchmen from the storm-tossed ship are two of Shakespeare's great fool characters, Trinculo and Stefano, played to perfection by Russell Brand and Alfred Molina. It just may be that this trio steals the show from Mirren. But Mirren gives a great performance, outdoing Hordern easily. As director Julie Taymor notes, it was simple to change the male character Prospero to Prospera, as it was no more than changing a few pronouns. Far, far easier, for example, than changing King Lear or Hamlet to a woman.

The love interest is played by Reeve Carney as Ferdinand, Alonso's son, who falls in love with Miranda, Prospera's daughter, played by felicity Jones. Like many of Shakespeare's romances, they tend to be less interesting than the fools and the perils of the plot. Neither seem accomplished actors, although they carry their parts reasonably well, in this, one of the Himalayas  of English language theatre.

The four noblemen are played well by Chris Cooper as Antonio, Prospera's brother and Miranda's uncle, Alan Cumming as Sebastian - Alonso's brother, Tom Conti as Gonzalo, a counselor to Alonso, who gave aid to Prospera and Miranda
David Strathairn as Alonso, King of Naples, but I confess, Shakespeare has saved the best parts for the fools and the young lovers.

The overall effect makes this possibly the only Tempest worth watching.

One yearns to see what The Tempest would look like with Ian McKellen in the lead, after his long run as that most famous wizard, Gandalf.
1137342
Anyone familiar with Heather Nova's past can look towards her beautiful and ethereal albums Glow Stars and Oyster to know that she can do a lot better than the warmed over, pop mess that is South. Though the album starts promisingly enough with "Welcome" (which is co-written by Dido), there are only sporadic moments of what has made Heather Nova special throughout the years. It's a shame, really. Nova's never made an album quite as bland as this. It sort of blends in with the rest of the ordinary pop/rock found on the radio these days. A major step down from the underrated Siren, and a large disappointment.
1613795
Cornelia Funke's massive fantasy story has very little charm and substance after you get passed the first 100 pages or so. I was enthralled by the beginning one-fifth of the story, about a young girl who grows up in a paradise of books. Funke does such a great job of creating a sense of mystery and awe early on that it's a big disappointment how the rest of the story turns out. Once the reader learns what the story is really about, it grows very dull. The colorful characters lose their glimmer, and much of the story is populated by flavorless, witless villains who merely brandish knives and cold gazes. Funke follows the trend of recent YA fantasy that prefers a dark story to a light-hearted one. It took the Harry Potter series several books to finally cave in to its dark urges, but Inkheart switches over in the matter of 100 pages, and from that point on I felt like I was trudging along rather than enjoying myself.

One of the problems is that nobody seems to take the danger in the novel very seriously, and as a result it's difficult for the reader to take it seriously either. When Mo is kidnapped forcefully by Capricorn's men, it never occurs to even the elderly Elinor to call the police. Instead, everybody packs up and heads out to find him, convinced a simple discussion will win him back. All of the characters in the novel have a tendency to behave like naive children. It's as though they don't realize there are bad things in the world. They talk when they should probably keep their mouth shut, but in truth the villains hardly do anything villainous at all except make threats, hold knives to throats, and throw people into prisons. The reader is supposed to take the narrator at her word when she says that Capricorn is a very evil dude. Funke forgets that it's more powerful to show than to tell.

The novel is very long and it feels even longer because it is repetitive and predictable. The problem with the story is that it has nowhere to go, and Funke merely prolongs the inevitable by showing us many different perspectives and introducing several new characters. In the process, Meggie takes a backseat to everyone else; she is merely pulled along and doesn't truly make a decision of her own. Nothing about the story is very convincing, and the ending comes together too nicely. The reader doesn't really have any reason to be afraid, nor does the reader have any reason to invest anything emotionally into the story. It's flat, dull, and lifeless. Such a shame, too, because it opened up with such promise.
2673730
Having loved CRANFORD, the original BBC series shown on Masterpiece Theatre, I placed my advance order for Return to Cranford with great expectations.  Unable to wait for the DVD to rlease I watch the two part series when it aired on Masterpiece Theatre, and found myself enjoying the first of its two parts and looking forward to the second and final installment, only to discover that it lacked everything that made the Cranford expirience what it was.

Return to Cranford picks up a year after "Cranford" ends.  While the four women at the center of Cranford life remain, many of the other charecters have also gone including the village doctors, without any explaination.  Given how important it was for the village to have a doctor in the first series, and then to have the doctors absent without any explainations seemed odd. The cast is smaller and many of the charecters that drove the first series are gone, one would think that the actors have gone onto others things.  However in this series the town seems less full of English life, which is what made the original Cranford so glorious.

The first of the two episodes is the better of the two.  One story line involves Lady Ludlow and her faith in her son who has failed her at every turn.  This thread seems to come off the best.  Another story line inolving actor Jonathan Price and his family - and a budding romance is keeps your interest, but it is a pale comparision to the romance in the previous episode as neither actors involved have any spark. This episode's finale has the women of Cranford doing what they do best, and perhaps they should have ended everything right here and left best alone.

However in the second episode, while the town and the relationships of the people of Cranford are put to the test, the production falls completly apart.  Too many story lines are processed too quickly - including the introduction of a new charecter and a surprise wedding go full circle -  while the story of Harry and Lord Septimus is left unresoved as is the story line of Mary Smith who appears and then disappears.  In one scene, Dame Judy Dench goes to the Railway Camp in search of another charecter and she just seems very lost - and this becomes an untentional metaphore for the viewer, who is also lost in this scramble to tie up loose ends.  But it the quick cut to, and the chop, chop, chop pacing throws the whole production off kilter. And then, probably because they killed off people in one railway explosion in the first series, the producers thought a second railway explosion would be a nice way to get rid of a few problems.  But the explosion, and accident, and its aftermath is sloppily done.  The final event with no reason, is the return of Jem and Tillie - why?  Not that I'm complaining, but it just happens.

This two part event just made me feel as if the producers had the best of intentions, but ran out of time and money.  And that is sad.  Cranford deserves better than the lot it was dealt.
3171088
I'd imagine that most American critics will be tripping over themselves to sing the praises of this visually stunning French animated film.  Hey, it's got a great premise AND it's subtitled, so what's not to like?

Quite a few things, unfortunately.  But first, the good: this film's terrific and unusual style literally feels like a painting come to life.  A handful of scenes also blend more realistic CGI and live action footage with the colorful CGI characters in a convincing, surreal manner.  The story itself features a number of interesting allegories, especially the representation of class division based on appearance (sketches, half-finished drawings and finished characters), which could be substitued with the race/culture/relgion of your choice.  At the end of the day, it has a good message that, thankfully, isn't just aimed directly at kids.  Most American audiences equate all animation with children's movies, and I'm glad films like "The Painting" exist to prove otherwise.

So why didn't I like it more?  The allegories are, at times, heavy-handed and a bit too obvious.  Two of the central characters are of different "class" but fall in love (talk about predictable), and the film feels padded even at less than 80 minutes.  The ending also falls flat, closing on a half-note that would feel more appropriate in a short 7-8 minute production, not a feature-length film like this.

Two other complaints, sadly, stem directly from this Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.  The dialogue at times is a bit corny, but mainly because the English subtitles are simply a port of the optional English dub track.  They're not a more literal translation of the original French audio (also included), which is unfotunate.  I almost feel like I can't give "The Painting" a fair and objective review because of this...but since I don't speak fluent French, I can only make do with what we get.

As for the A/V quality and extras, they're fairly good.  The 1.78:1 transfer looks crisp and colorful with minimal problems; there's some moderate banding during at least one sequence, but it's not overly distracting.  Non-music surround effects sound flat at times, but there are moments when they create a convincing atmosphere.  Extras consist of a 34-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, a self-playing art gallery and the film's trailer.  Not bad for a lesser-known French import.

So "The Painting" is still enjoyable from a visual standpoint...but like many modern animated films, the story doesn't consistently reach the same level.  It's still worth a look for animation fans 13 and up, as I doubt younger kids will really get much out of it.  There's also brief artistic nudity, mild language and one or two violent (not gory) scenes, if that makes a difference to you.
4950116
This movie has but the thinnest hint of the greatness that it could have achieved.  Two absolutely first-rate actors, Nicholson and Freeman, wallow about for an uncommonly long time in a sappy and unlikely story line, apparently unable to find a way out.

Never have two such magnificent actors, both gifted with immense natural talent, taken so long to accomplish so little.  The only way they could have achieved less would be to talk longer.
1674303
Like the automaton in the story, this movie is exquisitely crafted. It's a marvelous contraption of shiny moving parts and pretty faces. But it has almost no plot. It quickly becomes tedious and twee. B-o-r-i-n-g.
1150342
Ian R. MacLeod's The Light Ages is fantastically well-written, with believable, flawed characters.  This fantasy-cum-alternate history eschews standard adventure plots and presents a contemplation of a society on the cusp of change.  MacLeod deals with the affects technology has on society, the reactions people have to social change, and the way in which society mutates and evolves.
Unfortunately, MacLeod has very little that's new to say on any of these subjects.  Although he tries to write in the steampunk, science-fantasy tradition, he seems to have forgotten that at the core of these sub-genres there must exist strangeness, newness, and wonder.  The story he tells is remarkably mundane.  Were it not for a few fantastic touches, such as the strange mutations that take place after too much exposure to aether (the novel's magical McGuffin), The Light Ages might just as easily have been a general fiction novel set in the turn of the last century.
The Light Ages describes a tumultuous period - with society on the cusp of ruin, a group of disgruntled have-nots are in the process of orchestrating a people's revolution.  The narrator, Robert Borrows, exists on the fringes of this group, and although their struggle is interesting, it is also off-putting.  Most of us who have read a few history books know that revolutions, no matter in who's name, will inevitably turn bloody and cruel.  We've know that revolutionary leaders who talk about equality, giving power to the people, and an end to ownership will almost certainly end up hoarding rights, power and property.  That MacLeod expects us to be shocked or saddened when these very things happen is almost insulting.
In a possible attempt to humanize this struggle, MacLeod weaves in the story of Robert's life as he struggles to understand a tragic event that has colored his life, the life of his family and his home town, and eventually makes a discovery that alters the course of history.  Both of these plots move slowly, and their revelations are thin and obvious, unlikely to surprise even the most inexperienced reader.  MacLeod attempts to artificially inflate his story by bookending it in a conversation Robert has with a "changeling" - one of the aforementioned mutants.  Her identity is supposed to be a big surprise, but it ends up being meaningless.
I gave The Light Ages three stars for the power of its prose and for being a fine attempt at thinking outside the fantasy box.  Unfortunately, MacLeod was unequal to the task at hand, and I wouldn't recommend this book at all.
1670848
In Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri rigorously imagines nine realities inhabited by vivid characters whose perfectly calibrated strangenesses and compelling actions take us where we would not have gone before. In The Namesake, her strong beginning, involving her two most compelling characters, Gogol's parents, devolves into bland, yuppy stereotyping as she moves on to the life of the namesake, with whom she clearly identifies. First, I question the appropriation of the writer Gogol in this novel. Unlike Michael Cunningham's The Hours, The Namesake pays no serious homage or attention to Gogol, but merely borrows the author's name and makes use of the most obvious biographical information--i.e. that Gogol was awkward, very unhappy. There is no literary investigation/application of Gogol's work, and, to me, the prominent surface appropriation of Gogol in the Namesake is not justified. The shallowness of the Gogol concept unfortunately also afflicts the increasingly thin plot of the novel. There is not the multi-tonal, multi-textured richness that we need in a 300 page novel in which less and less happens. Surprisingly, the character Gogol is not really developed, and, increasingly, cultural touchstones are introduced to flesh the character out, in place of the fantastic, quirky, convincing character development in Interpreter of Maladies. For example, Gogol, the son of immigrants from India who remain people of very modest means attends Yale as an undergraduate. We never see that he has the focus, intensity, brilliance, or financial means to underwrite his education, nor are we told how this expense was paid for. Similarly, after the college years, Gogol's young adulthood is depicted as a series of upper middle class cultural adventures (i.e. expensive meals, wine, presents, and vacations) that would max out the budgets of established 40 year olds. The beginning of the novel is very good and Gogol's parents remain the strong, haunting presences of this novel. But I feel that Lahiri could have pushed her plot out of its comfort zone to find ways to keep Gogol's parents, and the real Gogol, the writer, more bothersome, persistent, strange, vivid, and alive throughout this novel. The yuppy extravaganza that the namesake falls into is not nearly as attractive to read about as Ms. Lahiri seems to assume, and is not grounded in the true ideas behind her novel, which atrophy. She certainly can write a 300 page novel--there is no doubt about that. I hope her next one shows the courage, inventiveness, and rigorous imaginative powers of the Interpreter of Maladies. She needs to work in the dangerous deep of her writing, not in her writing's shallows, and to beware of the potentially cloying and, I agree, potentially automatic quality of her often brilliant lyricism.
355537
Colleen McCullough has done a fine job of recreating the Roman world in her "Masters of Rome" series, but her flaws show in "Fortune's Favorites."  More on those later.  For those expecting the rich characterization of "The First Man in Rome" or the emotional punch of "The Grass Crown":  You're going to be disappointed.
McCullough truncates the civil war between consuls Carbo, Cinna and Sulla to the final few months, but what she gives us in return is meager.  Her portrayal of Sulla's last years is the book's biggest disappointment.  Part of Sulla's glamour is his incredible physical presence and charisma; by making him repulsive, she robs him of any attraction save for some rubber-necking curiosity over what new monstrosities he'll commit.  Sulla just doesn't connect here, which is a shame for a character who was vivid and alive in her previous two novels.  The only time he's enjoyable--when he isn't wreaking havoc in people's lives--is when he's playing off young Pompey's breathtaking self-centeredness.
(Breathtaking, by the way, is the word.  Wait until you read Pompey's letter to Sulla from Africa.  If you don't get the joke, just read Sulla's answer).
"Fortune's Favorites" jolts the reader back and forth between Pompey, young Julius Caesar, Quintus Sertorius, Spartacus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus.  While it is refreshing to see Crassus portrayed as a decent family man at heart (in spite of his greed), the other portrayals are disheartening.  Pompey was easily led, immature, fond of believing what his flatterers said about him, and willful, so McCullough hits the mark (even though her broad portrayal of him makes him seem clownish rather than charming).  And Sertorius retains some sympathy through his attachment to a particular white fawn.  But McCullough's bias for Caesar is undisguised, and some readers might find her portrayal of him to be too much of a "superhero" cast.  And her treatment of Spartacus is, in my opinion, implausible and unnecessary, unless her publisher told her to avoid any comparison with the Kirk Douglas film of the same name.  In that case, why not tell it completely from the Roman point of view?
For its flaws, "Fortune's Favorites" isn't all bad.  Some parts of it are entertaining; I refer to any encounter between Sulla and Pompey, and Sulla's dealings with the Senate.  Yet when it comes to her characters, McCullough fails to create solid, believable women;  while Aurelia remains McCullough's premier heroine in this series, no other woman comes close to her.  McCullough's women are just not as well-drawn and, often, not as interesting as her men--which is a shame.
McCullough has polished two flaws into glaring annoyances.  The first is her mastery of the information dump--whole pages of exposition litter "Fortune's Favorites," with no relief in sight except to skip through the book and hope a conversation or a letter breaks out.  The second is her lavish use of anachronistic language throughout the book.  It's jarring and it breaks the flow of the story.
One final quibble:  Whoever commissioned the Harlequin-reject cover for the paperback edition should be forced to live in a room papered all over with the covers from Regency Line romances.  If nothing else, the nauseating presentation is a perfect reason to spend more money and buy the hardcover edition.
4523752
I had regretfully missed the cinematic transmission of the Metropolitan Opera's new pasticcio, "The Enchanted Island," the story after William Shakespeare and the music cobbled together from seven (!) baroque composers.  I viewed it via PBS.

I felt it an exercise in futility: Why not simply mount one of the many operas of that period that the Met has yet to present? Like the creation of castrati, the practice of operatic pasticcio is perhaps best buried in the past.

That said, it was an excuse for fine singing. The large cast was mostly delightful, starring Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Plcido Domingo, Danielle de Niese, Luca Pisaroni, Lisette Oropesa, and Anthony Roth Costanzo, well conducted by William Christie. The production, by Phelim McDermott, was childish; the baroque calling for grace and stylisation, McDermott delivering the dryly mundane.

DiDonato's singing was lovely, as was expected, although her limited abilities as an actress did not encompass the flamboyant sorceress Sycorax; Domingo was astonishing as the god Neptune, thrilling us as he has done for generations; de Niese was brilliant as Ariel, giving a vocal and theatrical tour-de-force; the handsome Pisaroni was marvelous as Caliban, gaining sympathy even through his thick make-up; Oropesa was an incomparable Miranda; and Costanzo was excellent, as well.

The only complete disappointment was Daniels as Prospero, lacking in thrust and intensity in both voice and acting. It is a mystery why his career has prospered far beyond any of the great counter-tenors of our day, most obviously Derek Lee Ragin.

--May 19, 2012