Fuenteovejuna [Blu-ray]

Brilliant production undermined by a couple of post production flaws
Had it been any other production, I would have berated this blu ray for the lack of subtitles. I thought I had made a mistake and would be disappointed... but NO! In fact, the production is so beautifully done that you really understand whatever they are singing - and I do not know a word of Spanish. The dances bring those words that are not understood by me totally alive. What is more, the continuity is simply superb. That is what Brilliance is all about. In fact, I am almost glad that there are no subtitles.

The video recording is as good as a blu ray should be. About the sound recording, I will comment later in this review.

The disc comes with a well written booklet and description of the whole story, a true story on which Lope de Vega based a play on, around 400 years ago about abuse of Power by a Commander in Spain during those dark feudal ages and about a community rising up against him, led surprisingly, by women of a village wherein the villager folk are...

A marvellous and dramatic experience not to be missed
This has been something of a second, very exciting, adventure for me and follows on from my first purchase of this series of three - that of Carmen. That production was so gripping that I immediately ordered this - and I have not been disappointed. If anything, I would rate this as even finer still.

This was the last story that Gades choreographed/produced and dates from 1994. It is based on a play written by Lope de Vega nearly 400 years ago which tells of a true event in Spanish history and from which this creation takes its name. The story is about the abusive misuse of power and privilege of a commander to take advantage of the vassals in his `care' during feudal times. Finally the abuses become so intolerable that the villagers rise up and kill him with their farming implements. At the following enquiry all the villagers, despite the use of torture to extract confessions, stick to the explanation that the village killed him. As it was not possible to apportion blame on...



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