Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie Review

The Bolshoi Ballet walks (and dances) like an Egyptian in one of the 19th century's most epochal pieces of dance, 'The Pharoah's Daughter'.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 10, 2010

When the venerable Howard Carter got his first peek inside Tutankhamun’s tomb in November, 1922, he probably had little idea of the international cause célèbre he would foster. By the time he opened the tomb in February of 1923, it seemed the entire world had gone Egypt-mad, a fascination that led to everything from The Mummy to Cleopatra hairstyles becoming the fashion rage of the day. Thus began the modern era of love of all things Ancient Egyptian, but the fact is the public’s interest with Egypt had waxed and waned for centuries. Little more than one hundred years before Carter, Europe was enthralled with the adventures of Giovani Battista Belzoni, who discovered untold treasures in his explorations of Egypt, and then returned to England to pen an international best-seller, Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia (not exactly a catchy title, but times were different then). In fact Belzoni ushered in a pre-modern era for Egyptophiles, one which continued well into the mid-nineteenth century and saw a number of efforts not just in the scholarly world about Ancient Egypt, but also a number of artistic accomplishments in a variety of performing arts. If the best remembered of these is Guiseppe Verdi’s Aïda, which debuted in 1872 (in Cairo, appropriately), a decade earlier a ballet had premiered in Russia’s Bolshoi troupe which captivated audiences and was probably at least as famous if not more so than Verdi’s accomplishment, at least until the late 1870’s. That ballet was Marius Petipa’s The Pharoah’s Daughter, a succes d’estime so overwhelming that Petipa was soon offered the position of Second Maître de Ballet to the Imperial Theatres. The ballet was a phenomenon until, ironically, just a few years before Carter enflamed everyone’s Egyptian imaginations again. But even the magic of King Tut couldn’t rescue The Pharoah’s Daughter from decades of ignominy, as it passed out of the repertory and into the vestiges of history. It wasn’t until 2000 that French ballet historian Pierre Lacotte returned to the piece and decided to adapt it for a new Bolshoi production. It is that production which is presented on this new Blu-ray from Bel Art, filmed in 2003.

If Lord Wilson had just said no to drugs, then he'd never have been transformed into Taor and met the lovely Aspicia.

We modern audiences are spoiled rotten with perhaps too many choices with which to enchant our many senses. We’ve become jaded to the widescreen, multi-track phenomena which often assault us from every angle. To understand the excitement which surrounded The Pharoah’s Daughter when it first trod the boards 150-plus years ago, we must put ourselves in the shoes of an audience that had no television, no radio, no CD’s, and certainly no multiplex summer blockbusters, with which to keep themselves entertained. It was symphonies, operas and ballets that were the calling cards in those days, and opera hadn’t quite yet exploded into the spectacular heights that composers like Verdi would soon offer. The biggest spectacles of the day were often ballets, and Petipa recognized that the worldwide fascination with Egypt was about as spectacular a subject as a ballet master could hope for.

The Pharoah’s Daughter is really a dream in the original libretto (liberally adapted by Lecotte) by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, based on the novel Le Roman de la Momie by Théophile Gautie. An Englishman, Lord Wilson (Sergei Filin), who is visiting Egypt escapes a horrible desert storm by seeking refuge inside a pyramid. The caretaker of the pyramid and his cronies being smoking opium and the Lord, to use modern vernacular, takes a toke or two and quickly settles into a pleasant little hallucination. Magically mummies come to life, including the lovely Aspicia (Svetlana Zakharova), daughter of a beloved Pharoah. Aspicia touches Wilson, who is instantly transformed into an ancient Egyptian named Taor. We’re then off on three acts’ worth of tableaux and pageantry, as Taor and Aspicia, obviously fated to love each other, must confront the vagaries of Aspicia’s father and the unwanted amorous advances of the King of Nubia. In all honesty, the libretto is simply an outline onto which Petipa, and later Lacotte, hang one gigantic set piece after another.

This is a visually sumptuous production which makes the most of the nineteenth century’s Romantic ideas of what ancient Egypt must have been like. The ensemble are clad in the sort of faux Egyptian get-ups that would later populate the films of Cecil B. de Mille. It’s colorful, fanciful, and probably nothing close to being historically accurate. The music of Cesare Pugni (1802-1870) is pleasant enough, though hardly evocative of Egypt. It is firmly rooted in the mid-19th century symphonic idiom and is remarkable chiefly for its often very colorful orchestration, if not for the musical ideas themselves. Petipa’s original choreography has been adapted by Lacotte with a good degree of grace. There’s really more emphasis on ensemble numbers here than the typical late 19th century ballets, which often tended to highlight the prima ballerina. That said, Zakharova and Filin have ample opportunity to strut their stuff in several lovely pas de deux and solo numbers.

The Pharoah’s Daughter is the sort of gargantuan dance entertainment that is rarely if ever seen any more. Obviously redolent of a bygone age, it’s alternately quaint and frankly a little musty seeming at times. Its visual splendors at least offer abundant reasons to keep paying attention, even if the story and the music never completely engage the modern, more jaded, audience. Though the Bolshoi audience does in fact finally erupt in some fairly supportive cheers at the final curtain calls, note during the performance how tepid a lot of the applause is. They say you can’t go home again, and evidently that’s doubly as hard when you’re trying to get back to an Egypt that never was.

Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Pharoah's Daughter is one of the lushest looking ballet Blu-rays in recent memory, with a precisely detailed and beautifully saturated AVC encoded image delivered via 1080i "live" performance, in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Lacotte's gorgeous costumes and sets are a real highlight throughout this production. While things start off rather dark and drearily, once the Lord's opium-induced dream takes hold, we're awash in some beautifully brightly lit scenes which reveal some awesome color in the costumes. Reds, greens, golds and blues are all excellently saturated and very, very robust. This is an unusually sharp looking Blu-ray, with skin tones completely accurate, and a wealth of detail in the faces and bodies of the dancers. Lacotte's sets are also mind-boggling, especially once we get inside the columned court of the Pharoah, certainly one of the more impressive sets in recent memory. Through it all, the Blu-ray offers incredible sharpness, brilliant contrast and nice, inky black levels. You may not be a fan of ballet, but you might want to check out this release for its really sterling image quality.

Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audiophiles need to separate the recording of this Blu-ray from the fitfully spectacular if often de rigeur writing of Cesare Pugni. The recording itself is practically perfect in every way, especially in the expansive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, which wonderfully captures the hall ambience of the Bolshoi Ballet. What might disappoint some here is the music itself. Don't get me wrong--Pugni's writing is inerrantly colorful and flashy, but it's also often empty at the core, with little fire or soul. Pugni was a master orchestrator and many of his marvelous effects are brilliantly reproduced here. Note, for instance, the gorgeous harp glissandi which greet the Lord's immersion into an opium hallucination, offered on the DTS mix in absolutely crystalline clarity. Pugni's melodies and harmonies are almost always firmly within 19th century convention, are routinely pleasant if uninspired, and offer the Blu-ray audio experience frankly few really stellar moments to exploit. The lossless audio is best on the low end, which does get a nice workout with some great tympani effects (the roll accompanying the closing curtain is an especially notable example). Fidelity is excellent, and range is for the most part superb; if only the music itself were more captivating.

Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No bonuses are offered on this Blu-ray, aside from an in-depth essay in the insert booklet. The ballet is "looped" to start over as soon as it ends.

Pugni: La Fille du Pharaon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Aïda may be the 19th century Egyptian theatrical experience everyone remembers nowadays, but that wasn't always the case. Lacotte's revisiting of the venerable Pharoah's Daughter has spectacle and grace galore. The production is also augmented by the Blu-ray's really stunning picture and admirable sound quality. If Pugni's music is a little nondescript, at least there's an onstage extravaganza to keep you distracted, but the faint whiff of a bygone age and a bygone mode of entertainment can't be completely overcome.