Television Programs

Review of the Downton Abbey Movie

Both the Downton Abbey movie and the television series have the same strengths and weaknesses.  The acting is superb and the costumes are wonderful; however, the dialogue sounds flat and the plots are melodramatic and sometimes illogical.  Audience members who have not watched the television series will be overwhelmed by the number of characters in the film. The movie version spends too much time on the British king and queen’s visit to Downton Abbey in 1927, which I did not find very interesting.  Then, script writer Julian Fellowes throws several new plot twists into the last thirty minutes without really developing the characters or the situations, which I found much more potentially enticing than the pomp and circumstance of a royal entourage.  Fellowes tries to tie up loose ends from the television show.  For example, he finds a new love for Tom Branson, a new love for the scullery maid Daisy Robinson, and another new love for the gay butler Thomas Barrows.  Marital discord between some royal and nonroyal couples gets quickly resolved without being…

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Review of La Traviata Performed by the Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 production of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances on August 25, 2017 features spectacular singers.  Sonya Yoncheva as Violetta Valéry, Michael Fabiano as her lover Alfredo Germont, and Thomas Hampson as Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont portray the opera’s strong emotions powerfully.  When they sing together, their voices blend in brilliant harmony.  By combining acts 2 and 3 without an intermission, this fast-paced production builds suspense and emotional intensity.  Nicola Luisotti conducts the orchestra flawlessly.  However, I question many of the choices of Director Willy Decker.  Setting the show in the twenty-first century, dressing all women except Violetta and Annina in male garb, emphasizing the huge clock, and having Dottore (Doctor) Grenvil constantly onstage distract the audience from the major themes of La Traviata. (more…)

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