What an odd opera this is! Filled with beautiful music and built around a story which, if it has a problem or two, is far more plausible and interesting than those of many standard-repertoire works. It is an opera that I want to like, and do, but in the end I have to admit that it doesn't quite work, at least not in Petr Weigl's film version on this DVD.

Rather than providing a detailed summary of the plot here, I'll suggest that you read the excellent synopsis at http://www.steenslid.com/music/delius/lyrics/villageromeojuliet.htm .

As I watched A Vllage Romeo and Juliet, I found myself wondering how the opera could possibly work on stage. More than forty of its 112 minutes are purely instrumental: Preludes, interludes and a dream sequence. They're all lovely, particularly the justly famous thirteen-minute Walk to the Paradise Garden. (By the way, if you only know the opera from the Walk, you are likely to be surprised by what the Paradise Garden turns out to be.) It would take a director of considerably more imagination than I can summon to get around this problem, but I suspect it can and probably has been done.

Director Weigl gets around the problem of the extensive orchestral sections to a large degree by providing visual sequences in a gorgeous countryside. These even advance the plot a little or, more exactly, portray events that would take place during the music. In addition to the Walk, The Dream of Sali and Vreli and the interlude between scenes two and three are particularly lovely.

As in all ofPetr Weigl's filmed operas, the characters are represented by one performer vocally and another on screen. Aside from Thomas Hampson, who sings and plays the Dark Fiddler, the actors have a degree of trouble lip-synching. One might fault Dana Moravkova and Michal Dlouhy for being a little too bland as the lovers, Vreli and Sali, and boy soprano Samuel Linay, who sings Sali as a child, isn't really very good. But all in all, this is probably the best account of the opera most of us are ever likely to see, in part because it's likely the only one.

Vreli and Sali dream of a respectable wedding