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Finding Eleazar

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Austria, United States · 2004

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A feature length documentary which chronicles the journey of international opera star Neil Shicoff as he develops the infamous tenor role of Eléazar from the Grand French opera La Juive.

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What are critics saying?

40

Village Voice by

Only true opera diehards will appreciate the backstage psychodrama, a catalog aria of the singer's multiple neuroses.

50

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

Because his self-conscious musings are given so much space, it helps to arrive at the movie already awed by Shicoff's talents so you can overlook his (and this dramatically unfocused film's) flaws.

63

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

Her heavy-handed montage of war, civil rights demonstrations, revolutions and KKK gatherings, intercut with Shicoff's delivery of the opera's devastating fourth-act aria, is so amateurish it very nearly succeeds in trivializing the power of his performance.

50

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

But compared to great documentaries about the process behind performance-"Last Dance" and "Original Cast Album: Company" spring to mind-Finding Eléazar is too choppy and fussy.

80

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

If Mr. Shicoff ultimately comes across as a short-tempered, egotistical prima donna, the upshot of all the fuss is worth it: his Viennese performance is transcendent.