With this open-air concert in Sch�nbrunn, the Vienna Philharmonic wishes to provide all Viennese, as well as visitors to the city, with a special musical experience in the impressive setting of Sch�nbrunn Palace and it's beautiful baroque gardens, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. - Since 2004 the Vienna Philharmonic has provided an outstanding experience for the audience. In the recent years the orchestra has been conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, Valery Gergiev, Franz Welser-M�st, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta and Andris Nelsons. Among the previous guest soloists were: Ren�e Fleming, Lang Lang, Rudolf Buchbinder, Katia and Marielle Lab�que, Yuja Wang, Jonas Kaufmann, Igor Levit, Gautier Capu�on and Elina Garanca. It is Sony Classical�s 12th release of the Summer Night Concert.

Royal Opera favourite Bryn Terfel heads the cast for this exhilarating production of Donizetti’s comedy of domestic drama across two generations. Don Pasquale is the witty story of a middle-aged man whose supposed young wife runs rings around him – with her own ulterior romantic purpose in mind – and has long delighted and surprised audiences, not least as presented with the sparkle of its music and the virtuoso skill of its performers. Damiano Michieletto’s production shows how contemporary the characters still are and how immediate and touching the story remains.

In June 1995, a virtually unknown group of Japanese musicians embarked on the monumental task of recording the complete sacred cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Almost eighteen years later, on 23rd February 2013, the Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki – by then household names in the international music world – reached their goal when they finished recording the 55th release of a series which, in the meantime, had been met with overwhelming acclaim worldwide. Made in conjunction with the final cantata recording, this film commemorates the occasion. Besides performances of the three last cantatas – Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV191, Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV69 and Freue dich, erlöste Schar, BWV30 – the film includes interviews with Masaaki Suzuki and key members of Bach Collegium Japan as well as behind the-scenes footage.

REVIEWS:

This disc is essentially Volume 55 of the Bach Sacred Cantata series with an extra chorus and added video. At least two reviews are elsewhere on the Music Web International site. The addition of 25 minutes or so of interviews with the soloists, chorus members, players, engineers and Suzuki himself make this celebratory issue fascinating to watch and hear. A secondary bonus is the presence of subtitles during the four performances, making it far easier to stay with Bach’s religious message. The air of dedication hanging over all the activity is actually quite inspiring, and rightly so, for this series is a landmark in recording history, up there with the Solti Ring. Not only has a complete set of the sacred cantatas been committed to disc but they are in period style, in SACD surround and they are superbly well documented. Reviewing this has cost me money because I realised that I could no longer resist buying the recently released, complete remastered set on BIS SACD9055, not only for the missing few dozen cantatas I gained, but also for the old CD-only issues being newly minted as SACD surround. And, I might add, for the useful indexes to help navigation around the 55 discs!

The performances of the three cantatas on this Blu-ray are of course superb; from the most prominent soloists to the back desk of the violins, all are now seasoned performers, and it shows. Each cantata appears to be a single performance with only the audio and video team and the microphones as audience. The singers move smoothly out of their place in the chorus to the front to sing their solos and then walk back into place. It is all impressively smooth and unfussy. The addition of the great Dona Nobis Pacem chorus from the B minor Mass acts as a wholly appropriate closing tribute. The surround sound, unusually not in DTS Master Audio but LPCM Surround 5.0, is excellent as always. Even those who have purchased the final volume of the series should obtain this too. You might even be tempted to raise a glass to the series as you watch the performers and engineers do just that on your screen.

-- MusicWeb International

Vincenzo Bellini is widely regarded as the last and greatest composer of bel canto opera, and his most famous operas, Norma, is one of the leading works in the genre. Even Richard Wagner said of Norma: "If we weep from emotion on hearing it, it's nothing to be ashamed of. " This release is a new production of the opera, directed by Grammy Award-nominated director of opera, theatre, and film, Kevin Newbury. Sondra Radvan stars as a captivating Norma in a performance in which the New York Times described as "powerful, elegant. " Gregory Kunde performs as Pollione. Operatraveller. com wrote of his performance: "something very special. The word 'historic' is used perhaps a little too often but tonight there really is no other adjective to describe the sensational performances offered to us by Sondra Radvanovsky and Gregory Kunde. "

Review:

At last! While we have plenty of filmed productions of Coppélia to watch and enjoy – whether vintage, bang up to date or downright wacky – and a very good one of Sylvia, this new release finally brings the first of Delibes’s three ballets, La source, to a wide audience via Blu-ray and DVD.

The usual explanation for La source’s historical neglect has been that the contribution of Delibes’s co-composer Ludwig Minkus diminished the overall quality of the score. But that suggestion isn’t an adequate one – or even necessarily accurate. In the first place, we need to be clear that “co-composers” doesn’t mean that each of the score’s individual numbers was a sort of high-quality-Delibes-watered-down-by-workmanlike-Minkus hybrid. In fact, the way in which the collaborative process worked was a very practical one – even if we have no idea why it was adopted – with each man allocated responsibility for different parts of the score. Minkus was entrusted with Act 1 and the second scene of Act 3, while Delibes was responsible for Act 2 and Act 3’s first scene. That turned out, in practice, to be a pretty even split, for Minkus ended up providing about 45 minutes worth of music and Delibes penned about 44[.]

It is certainly true that there are differences between the two men’s scores. To some extent, those derive from the mundanely practical point that each composer was writing music for very different sections of the story. Minkus’s focus in Act 1 was on establishing the ballet’s various characters and generally setting the scene, while the finale to Act 3 offered few opportunities as it gave him only six minutes to wrap up the whole drama. Delibes, on the other hand, was tasked with creating the music underpinning the more glamorous jollifications at the khan’s court, which allowed him to concentrate on writing livelier material that was characterised by far more colour, glitter and exotic sensuality.

There is, however, a second and somewhat more fundamental explanation for the perceived contrasts between the two composers’ scores, for Minkus and Delibes had rather different conceptions of what writing music for the ballet actually meant. The former was a composer of the old school who, as Ivor Guest wrote in his booklet essay for the aforementioned Bonynge CD, “specialised in composing music for the ballet, a field not highly regarded in musical circles but which nonetheless demanded a special gift to satisfy the ballet-master’s requirements – to produce melodious numbers for the dances and suitably descriptive passages for the action, and above all to deliver to a deadline”. That has led some critics to perceive Minkus as little more than a hack journeyman who churned out unmemorable material on demand, even though audiences who have come to appreciate the manner in which his skilfully-wrought scores underpin such popular ballets as Don Quixote and La bayadère might beg to differ. In reality, his music was in no way “inferior” to that of the next generation of ballet composers: it simply aimed to achieve a very different - but certainly no less legitimate – musical and dramatic purpose. The first embodiment of that subsequent generation, Delibes himself, was, on the other hand, a composer whose conception of ballet was developing into something rather more ambitious. No less a figure than Tchaikovsky, the originator of the modern “symphonic” style of ballet score, regarded Sylvia as “the first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the main, but the sole interest. What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic and harmonic richness. I was ashamed. If I had known this music earlier, then of course I would not have written Swan Lake”.

It is far too easy, in fact, to assert glibly that any contrasts between the two composers’ contributions are necessarily qualitative in nature. Indeed, when listened to blind and without foreknowledge of who actually composed what, the score of La source – skilfully edited and occasionally augmented here by Marc-Olivier Dupin - actually emerges as a pretty seamless whole.

In reality, there were two other much more significant causes of the ballet’s failure to maintain a long-term place in the repertoire. In the first case, its plot was undeniably involved, and it is notable that the production under consideration omits several of its complicating plotlines. Moreover, the fact that there are no less than three central female figures and that easily confused names were selected for some of the central characters (Naïla/Nouredda, Djémil/Dadjé) does not help. The inconsistency of some of the participants’ on-stage motivations can also be puzzling from time to time – though, in the absence of any other modern production with which to compare it, that may be a feature unique to this particular one.

The second legitimate reason for La source’s relatively rapid descent into obscurity is simply accidental. It successfully maintained its place in the repertoire for a decade and there is no reason to doubt that regular revivals might subsequently have been mounted. However, a disastrous fire in 1873 destroyed the drawings, models and plans on which the original production had been based and, rather than recreate them from scratch, it no doubt seemed easier to ballet impresarios at the time to move on to different projects.

This new Blu-ray/DVD release preserves a new production of the ballet dating from almost 150 years after its premiere. Conservatively choreographed by Jean-Guillaume Bart for the Paris Opera Ballet, it follows the original story’s broad outlines and uses much of the Minkus/Delibes score. Booklet notes author Laure Guilbert is nevertheless at pains to stress that this production is in no way a “reconstruction” of the original but instead has a character and identity of its own. Those last words might be enough to strike fear in the heart of traditionalist ballet fans, but in reality the French choreographer (gushingly described by Ms. Guilbert as a man who “fervently cultivates his attachment to the classical universe… a lover of dance who has transformed [it] into an odyssey throughout the near- and far-flung realms of the art”) is owed a real debt of gratitude for his achievement in returning La source to the stage. There are, it’s true, a few significant problem areas that would have benefited from attention. In the case of the plot, Nouredda’s motivation and reactions as she experiences her character’s trials and tribulations can be somewhat opaque or even downright puzzling. In addition, the stage production itself is visually rather disconcerting. There is, to my own eyes at least, a jarring mismatch between Christian Lacroix’s detailed and often gorgeously elaborate costumes and Éric Ruf’s essentially impressionistic set designs. The latter are highly imaginative and attractive in their own right (especially a set of prominent and exquisitely lit ropes, lowered over the stage from the flies, that represent trees) but they are clearly not intended as any sort of realistic depiction of the settings and that doesn’t gel with the detailed, elaborate and convincingly “realistic” clothing sported by the dancers. Neither element can be described as wrong in itself, but another producer might have chosen to integrate them more effectively.

The quality of the dancing, meanwhile, is generally high, with the women, in particular, demonstrating confident assurance in their own technical skills. Ludmila Pagliero as Naïla performs with delicacy and an appropriate sense of otherworldliness; she presumably impressed not only the theatre audience but the company’s management, too, as within a year of this performance she had been promoted to the top rank of danseuse étoile. Meanwhile, the nature of her role as the princess Nouredda means that the other leading female dancer, Isabelle Ciaravola, tends to spend a disproportionate amount of time on stage looking depressed and generally mopey – although there are also moments, as already noted, when she looks bizarrely happy even though her circumstances are at their worst. If her acting is somewhat questionable, the same cannot be said, however, of Ms. Ciaravola’s dancing which is, invariably, both sensitively and often rather beautifully delivered. Of the men, Karl Paquette combines sheer energy with attention to detail in a winning performance that suffers only from an uncharacteristically drab and featureless costume, little suited, in my opinion, to the hero of a classical ballet. The role of Nouredda’s brother Mozdock, concerned about her only as far as she serves his own political ambitions, is taken by Christophe Duquenne who delivers an effectively villainous turn while leading his energetic and well-drilled soldiers in several lively numbers. Dancing as the elf Zaël, Mathias Heymann is the audience’s favourite as he leaps his way enthusiastically and repeatedly across the stage, creating a genuine character out of his role. The dancer portraying the libidinous khan, Alexis Renaud, makes the most of his opportunities but does not create as much of an impression as the other men. The rest of the company make a very positive contribution, to the extent that I thought that the numbers in which the primary focus was on the corps de ballet were among the most effectively delivered in the whole performance.

On the technical side, I was particularly impressed by the effectively realised stage lighting which has been very well captured on film. The sound, as relayed on this recording, is also more than merely acceptable and allows us to appreciate plenty of felicitous detail from the orchestra, led on this occasion by Koen Kessels who will be known to many as music director of the Royal Ballet. Meanwhile, the experienced François Roussillon’s film direction focuses our attention to everything that we need to see while not distracting us unnecessarily or drawing undue attention to itself.

This is an important release for balletomanes. It is, I think, unlikely that there will be an alternative version of La source any time soon...I repeat, therefore, my original reaction to the release of this new and well-produced Blu-ray disc – at last!
 
Rob Maynard

The Cleveland Orchestra is the “aristocrat among American orchestras” (The Telegraph) and its sovereign, Franz Welser-Möst, rules his subjects with a velvet glove. Indeed, velvet and silk keep showing up in descriptions of the Clevelanders’ sound under its principal conductor. It is Welser-Möst’s nimble alternation between smoothness and a sound that’s as “sharp-edged as a skyscraper” (The Telegraph after the Brahms’ First at the orchestra’s London Proms concert). That keeps the ensemble and the audience figuratively on its toes. Brahms’ Fourth and last Symphony could be said to glow with autumnal colors. Endowed with a strong undercurrent of subdued melancholy, it seems to pine for an irretrievable past. Franz Welser-Möst offers a “lean, propulsive performance” (The Plain Dealer) of this work with his highly concentrated Cleveland Orchestra. The swift pace of the symphony in Welser-Möst’s hands reflects the conductor’s quest for a distinctive, far-from-the-mainstream interpretation. Written nearly contemporaneously in the late 1870s, Johannes Brahms’ rousing Academic Festival Overture and Violin Concerto op. 77 bear witness to a composer at the height of his abilities, a mature master of large-scale masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands extreme technical proficiency. As if to exemplify this, violinist Julia Fischer gears herself from the very start of this emotionally searing work to maintaining a restrained yet passionate tone.

Also available on Blu-ray

One of the most vibrant, colourful and eye-catching productions staged at London’s Royal Opera House who offered it as the 2009 Christmas presentation. Starting out life as Vakula the Smith, whatever its title, Tchaikovsky’s opera was based on Gogol’s story, Christmas Eve, its lighthearted fairytale aimed at creating an evening of delightful fantasy. The plot is complicated and requires a large cast, but taken down to its bare bones, it tells the story of Vakula, whose mother is courted by many men including the Devil, she too being something of a witch. He falls for the young village wench, Oxana, a rather highly-strung filly who says he will have to get the Empresses shoes before she will marry him. With the help of the Devil, who carries him on his back to St. Petersburg, he does successfully obtain a pair of the Empresses shoes. Victorious he returns only to find a contrite Oxana who has missed him greatly, and wants him as her husband with or without the Empresses shoes. Though it was heavily revised by Tchaikovsky to create Cherevichki (The Tsarina’s Slippers), he thought very highly of the finished product, but it has never found a place in the international opera repertoire. With a largely Russian cast, the Royal Opera House turned it into a visual spectacular, presenting one big scene after another, with big ballet scenes and a massive extravaganza at the Empresses palace. The cast is superb throughout, with Vsevolod Grivnov a heroic heldontenor as Vakula; Olga Guryakova a charming and typical Russian soprano as Oxana; Larissa Diadkova is a fulsome Solokha in voice and stature, but it is the big voice of Vladimir Matorin as Chub that almost steals the show. Maybe the chorus is just a little tentative at times, particularly at the return of Vakula, but with the range of magnificent costumes they still make a visual delight. A joint BBC/Royal Opera House product, the whole presentation is superb, the costume’s colours so thrillingly brought to your screen.

Solokha – Larissa Diadkova
The Devil – Maxim Mikhailov
Chub – Vladimir Matorin
Panas – John Upperton
Oxana – Olga Guryakova
Vakula – Vsevolod Grivnov
Pan Golova – Alexander Vassiliev
The Schoolmaster – Viacheslav Voynarovskiy
Odark – Olga Sabadoch
Wood Goblin – Changhan Lim
Echo – Andrew Macnair
His Highness – Sergey Leiferkus
Master of Ceremonies – Jeremy White

The Royal Ballet Royal Opera House Orchestra
Alexander Polianichko, conductor

Francesca Zambello, stage director
Alastair Marriott, choreography

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, November 2009.

Bonus: - Introducing Cherevichki by Francesca Zambello
- Cast and Characters
- Staging Gogol's world

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 154 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Wagner's rarely performed early comic opera, based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, enjoys its Spanish debut in a new production by director Kasper HOlten. The lively score boasts clear Italian, French and Weberian influences that pre-date the composer's mature voice, yet the music continually delights with the unmistakable emergence of Wagner's precocious genius. His adaptation of the Bard's play reflects the rebellious modd of a Revolutionary Germany, vindicating sensual love and attacking the fanatical repression of sexuality by a puritanical and hypocritical authority. Ivor Bolton conducts a vibrant cast featuring English baritone and Cardiff Singer of the World Lieder Prize-winner Christoph Maltman, Turkish-Viennese tenor and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Ilker Arcayurek and Germany's htotest Wagnerian leading lady, Manuela Uhl.

An Evening with the Royal Ballet brings together a fabulous collection of some of the world's most beloved ballets. This disc showcases the outstanding productions from the stage of the Royal Opera House including Coppelia, Giselle, La fille mal gardee, Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, Sylvia, The Firebird, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty.

Featuring Carlos Acosta, Tamara Rojo, Lauren Cuthbertson, Marianela Nunez, The Royal Ballet.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 95 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Benjamin Britten
DEATH IN VENICE

Gustav von Aschenbach - John Graham Hall
Traveller / Elderly Fop / Gondolier / Barber / Hotel Manger / Player / Dionysus - Andrew Shore
Apollo - Tim Mead
Tadzio - Sam Zaldivar
The Polish Mother - Laura Caldow
Two Daughters - Mia Angelina Mather / Xhuliana Shehu
The Governess - Joyce Henderson
Jaschiu - Marcio Teixeira

English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor
Deborah Warner, stage director

Recorded live at the London Coliseum, June 2013

Picture format:1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 153 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

This unique collection celebrates the pas de deux: the ‘steps for two’ or partner dances so central to ballets both modern and classical. It brings together 16 exceptional pas de deux from The Royal Ballet’s unequalled repertory, in outstanding performances by Company dancers past and present. Representing The Royal Ballet’s heritage works and recent creations, as well as 19th-century classics, Pas de Deux demonstrates the choreographic diversity, technical brilliance, show-stopping spectacle and artistry for which The Royal Ballet is acclaimed around the world. Included in this collection are Frederick Ashton’s Voices of Spring and pas de deux from his La Fille mal gardée; from Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Concerto, Elite Syncopations, Manon and Mayerling; from Wayne McGregor’s Limen; from Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale; and from the 19th-century classics Giselle, Don Quixote, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. All captured in high definition and recorded in true surround sound.

Also available on Blu-ray

In 2018, marking the exact 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending World War 1, the all-star World Orchestra for Peace gave two UNESCO designated performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Symbolically one in each of the UK and Germany – for the BBC Proms in London and for the Würth Music Foundation in Künzelsau. Founded in 1995 by Sir Georg Solti to reaffirm, in his words, “the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace”, leading players from the world’s finest orchestras gave this performance at ‘the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, 100 years after the guns fell silent in 1918. The performance is preceded by moving words of welcome and introduction from Prof. Würth and Lady Solti, both highlighting the need for brotherhood and joy amongst all nations, as reflected in the words of Schiller’s Ode in the choral finale. As a bonus, this release includes welcome and introductions from Prof. Dr. Reinhold Würth, Charles Kaye (Director/co-founder of the World Orchestra for Peace), and Lady Valerie Solti (Patron of the World Orchestra for Peace).

This release presents a rarely performed masterpiece: Gioachino Rossini's Mos� in Egitto at the Bregenz Festival staged by Lotte de Beer, who retrieves this hidden gem of opera literature for a spectacular staging. de Beer, one of the most sought-after stage directors of her generation (International Opera Newcomer Award 2015) teams up with the Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern to tell the story of the Biblical Exodus. Their unique production concept for Mos� in Egitto revolves around the ingenuity of Hotel Modern. The theatre group conjures up it's own reality by using live animations to portray the mass scenes and the parallel narratives of the people and the slaves. Miniature cameras, thousands of puppets, models of villages and cities and a spectacular aquarium installation present the biblical tale of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea on the Bregenz stage - "a stroke of genius" (Der Standard).

Also available on Blu-ray

World Premiere recording on Video! Church corruption, human violence and a daughter who plots revenge on her abusive father – Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci has every ingredient for a gripping opera. At Bregenz, Johannes Erath brought Beatrice Cenci on stage for the first time. Although written 70 years ago, “one musically quickly associates Puccini or other Romantics“ (Neue Zurcher Zeitung), underlined by Goldschmidt´s own words, saying it became a real “Belcanto-Opera”. “Johannes Debus conducts the Wiener Symphoniker with true feeling for the score“. ”In the title role, Gal James is moving“ and ”the baritone Christoph Pohl has all the vocal charisma.” (The Telegraph). A “brilliantly focused staging of a neglected work“ (The Telegraph), a “great, wonderful evening“ (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).

-----

REVIEW:

Goldschmidt set out to write a latterday bel canto work, and his vocal lines are certainly always singable, over orchestral writing that references Mahler, Busoni and Schreker as well as standard 19th-century operatic models. The Bregenz cast, led by Gal James as Beatrice, with Dshamilja Kaiser as her stepmother Lucrezia and Christoph Pohl as the swaggering, monstrous Francisco Cenci, complete with diamante codpiece, is a very decent one, and Johannes Debus makes sure that Goldschmidt’s whirling, churning orchestral writing gets the attention it deserves.

– Guardian

Claudio Abbado conducts the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela with Anna Prohaska in works by Prokofiev, Berg, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky.

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

br />
Also available on standard DVD

The Philharmonics:
Tibor Ková? first violin, Shkëlzen Doli second violin, Thilo Fechner viola, Stephan Koncz cello, Ödön Rácz double bass, Daniel Ottensamer clarinet, František Jánoška piano

Guests: Walter Auer flute, Christoph Traxler harmonium

The Philharmonics, the ensemble founded by members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, fill the Café Sperl with some of the most authentically Viennese sounds imaginable – the Strauss waltzes that Schoenberg, Berg and Webern arranged and performed in May 1921 to raise funds for their pioneering “Society for Private Musical Performances”. This is music the players have in their blood, and they maintain the echt atmosphere with Godowsky’s tribute to the city, “Alt-Wien” and a clutch of Kreisler gems, rounding the programme off with a new piece by the ensemble’s leader Tibor Ková?, based on traditional Jewish melodies and Mahler themes, “Yiddische Mame”.

Recorded live at Café Sperl in Vienna, 9 March 2011

BONUS: How Schoenberg came to arrange waltzes by Strauss

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles (Bonus): English, French
Running time: 64 mins (concert) + 10 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

R E V I E W:



J. STRAUSS II Emperor Waltz. Roses from the South. A Night in Venice: Lagunenwalzer. Wine, Women, and Song. The Gypsy Baron: Treasure Waltz. KREISLER Marche miniature viennoise. Schön Rosmarin. Caprice viennois. KOVÁC Yiddische Mame. GODOWSKY Alt-Wien • The Philharmonics • ACCENTUS ACC 10228 (Blu-ray: 64:20) Live: Vienna 3/9/2011

In 1921, as a fund-raiser for the Society for Private Musical Performances, Schoenberg and his two most famous disciples arranged four Strauss waltzes for piano, harmonium, and string quartet. Four years later, Schoenberg returned to the source, adapting the Emperor Waltz for a similar ensemble, with the harmonium replaced by flute and clarinet. (Richard Burke, in Fanfare 22:4, suggests that it was “supposedly for use as an encore” after Pierrot Lunaire .) I’d love to have been at the first performance of the original four, featuring Berg on harmonium, Schoenberg on second violin, and Webern on cello (not to mention Eduard Steuermann on piano and Rodolf Kolisch on first violin), but removed from that star-studded context, the arrangements don’t hold up especially well. In his review of a recording featuring the Berlin String Quartet and friends (one that, like many forays into this repertoire, left out the low-inspiration Lagunenwalzer ), James H. North insisted that the “awkward arrangements” were “of little interest.” And while Richard Burke found more to admire, I can’t agree with him that the distinctive personalities of the three arrangers can be heard in these workaday adaptations. Certainly, there’s nothing here to match the quirkiness of Webern’s take on the six-voice Ricerar from The Musical Offering —nor the full-throated romanticism surging through Schoenberg’s arrangements of Bach’s organ music or Brahms First Piano Quartet. Nor, despite the Second Vienna School’s supposed affection for the Waltz King, is there anything here as delectable as the fantasies and transcriptions penned by such turn-of-the-century piano virtuosos as Godowsky, Rosenthal, and Rachmaninoff.

Still, as background music, this repertoire has its virtues—and this Blu-ray, featuring The Philharmonics (an ensemble made up of members of the Vienna Philharmonic), treats it precisely in that manner, offering up whipped-cream live performances from Vienna’s Café Sperl, with an audience numbering a dozen or so people, most of whom are more involved in their books, magazines, gossip, and flirtations than in the music. Certainly, this low-key approach makes more sense than the cleaner, more modernist (but also stiffer) manner favored by the members of the Boston Symphony on what is probably the most familiar recording of this material (see 26:2).

The Philharmonics interleave the Strauss waltzes with other popular Viennese confections—as well as first violinist Tibor Ková?’s medley that mixes Mahler with familiar Jewish songs. They’re all played with the same congenial spirit. As for the production: The notes are confusing—especially with respect to responsibility for the Kreisler and Godowsky arrangements; the bonus track, a discussion by Dr. Christian Meyer, director of the Schoenberg Center, is illuminating, but completely disorganized; sound and video are clean, although you’re apt to wonder why you’d want to watch an event that even the original audience wasn’t paying much visual attention to. Still, if you’ve got a Blu-ray player in the right part of your house, this is a fine accompaniment to your Sunday brunch.

FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

BELLINI La sonnambula • Maurizio Benini, cond; Eglise Gutiérrez (Amina); Antonio Siragusa (Elvino); Simone Alaimo (Count Rodolfo); Sandra Pastrana (Lisa); Gabriella Colecchia (Teresa); Gabriele Nani (Alessio); Teatro Lirico di Cagliari O & Ch • DYNAMIC 55616 (Blu-ray: 141:00) Live: Cagliari 2008

For those of you who may hold the opinion that Vincenzo Bellini was rather a minor composer, you need to see and hear this opera, La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker), particularly the last 15 minutes or so. The music transcends the heavens, it surpasses anything written by Rossini, Donizetti, or even Verdi. Okay, I guess my enthusiasm is showing a bit, but I truly love this music, however it stacks up in the pantheon of consummate 19th-century Italian composers. The story is simple. The betrothed young village girl, Amina, is discovered in the bed of the local Count in his room at the village inn, he returning to his native environs for the first time in many years. Everyone is shocked, horrified, including the prospective groom, Elvino. Lisa, the young mistress of the inn, also smitten with Elvino, takes advantage to whisk the tenor hero away from his now disgraced intended. It turns out Amina sleepwalks, which the townsfolk and Elvino eventually discover, and after a ravishing double aria for the leading lady in the finale of act 2, all is set well again. The simple tale is charming and if you enjoy bel canto, it doesn’t get any better than this.

I was pleased to get this disc for review because I have been hearing the praises sung for young Cuban American coloratura Eglise Gutiérrez for a few years now, and have not had much opportunity to see or hear her. (She was the fairy godmother in Massenet’s Cendrillon, which I enjoyed, but that opera is hardly prime bel canto land.) I am here to report Gutiérrez is the real deal. Vocally she harkens back to the days of the true Bellini divas, to Giuditta Pasta and Maria Malibran. The young singer’s top range is incredible and solidly in place, everything is precisely on key, sung easily and cleanly. Vocal agility is excellent: Gutiérrez has not the slightest problem with Bellini’s pyrotechnics and she ornaments tastefully and often, like the best of bel canto songbirds. If her acting and stage presence are at times rather ordinary in this 2006 rendering, we should remember that La Sonnambula does not require the histrionics of a Tosca. The young soprano’s portrayal is very charming here, certainly a plus for the production.

Sets are kept simple and traditional, with rustic pastoral settings evoked by a grassy forestage and colorful painted backdrops. It is lovely to watch and far outshines its more famous Metropolitan Opera counterpart (to be seen again this April with Diana Damrau). The costumes, if anything, seem a bit too lavish and colorful for peasant wear, but sumptuous to the eye; I am not complaining. Staging is strictly traditional, as this little charmer of an opera almost necessarily requires. The visual realm is almost completely in service to the music here, and when La Sonnambula is performed in this fashion cannot fail to please even the most jaded opera goers.

Warning: now comes the caveat! Unfortunately, the tenor Elvino is disappointing. Antonio Siragusa sings well and with excellent pitch control, but has an annoying nasal vocal tone, especially when he pushes the voice, that quite spoils his part in the proceedings. It is something you can get used to when he sings alone, but next to the ravishing voice of Gutiérrez and the other fine voices on this set in duets and ensembles, it is continually noticeable and jarring. The Count Rodolfo is sung by veteran Simone Alaimo, who still brings plenty of rich baritone beauty to the role and just the right touch of innocent paternal concern for the beleaguered Amina. Another standout vocally is young Sandra Pastrana as Lisa, who also handles Bellini’s fioratura with delightful expertise and is a big asset to this production. Smaller roles are likewise filled with quite good singers, and the orchestra from the Teatro Lirico Cagliari gives us an impressive rendition of Bellini’s wonderful score. The chorus, a particularly integral part of La Sonnambula, also turns in a first-class performance. It really seems a shame to me that Gutiérrez could not have been paired with a tenor who could at least have gotten out of her way here, let alone the hopeless wish for a Juan Diego Flórez or Lawrence Brownlee in the role. If that had happened this would be a La Sonnambula for the ages; as it is, it’s still very good.

As is to be expected these days, the Dynamic Blu-ray is quite sharply detailed and in exceptionally vivid colors, with state of the art audio formats providing excellent sound. The only current Blu-ray competitor is a recent release to be found on the C Major label. I have not seen it, but soprano Jessica Pratt is also a rising young coloratura star and from what I have heard on YouTube, is very, very good as Amina. The tenor is also promising. Also worth your attention is the VAI DVD issue with Anna Moffo from 1956. Moffo doesn’t have a clue about bel canto style but her young voice is ravishing, the production charming, and she is very lovely to watch, even before her famous nose job. Check out what all the furor was about! The Mary Zimmerman-directed production from the Met has a great cast, but archly ridicules the original story while failing to make much sense itself. As for this disc, it could have been a world beater, but if you can get used to the nasal tenor, it is still very enjoyable. Recommended.

FANFARE: Bill White

800 liters of water, two sails, thirty pulleys, sixty hammocks : for the Bicentenary of the Teatro Real of Madrid, Deborah Warner coined a colossal production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd. “Oh, what have I done?” Captain Edward Fairfax Vere, former commander of the H.M.S. Indomitable asks himself with horror at the beginning of the opera, before recounting the tragic events that took place aboard his ship in 1797. The story revolves around a young model sailor, Billy Budd, and John Claggart, the unscrupulous master-at-arms obsessed and crazed by Billy’s angelic beauty; and follows the characters in their fall down to the most infernal depths of perversion and psychosis, exploring the themes of innocence, culpability, individual responsibility and justice. In this ambiguous and symbolic tale, drawn from Herman Melville’s last masterpiece, the composer Benjamin Britten, who returns for the occasion to symphonic opera and its infinite possibilities, unsettles and disturbs us by revealing the complexity and universality of human experience. Far from writing the characters as allegories of Good and Evil, the opera shows us instead the remorseless logic followed by the surge of one’s darkest desires. But in this opera dominated by masculinity, Deborah Warner goes beyond the story of violence, jealousy and hatred and chooses to focus instead on the collateral beauty produced by comradeship, friendship and forgiveness. Tenor Jacques Imbrailo, who knows the title role perfectly, delivers a stunning rendition of the young sailor’s part, while British singers Toby Spence and Brindley Sherratt provide solid interpretations of Captain “Starry” Vere and of John Claggart. In the pit, Ivor Bolton masterfully deploys, along with the Orchestra of the Teatro Real, all the energy and power of Britten’s fifth opera.

Also available on Blu-ray

Recorded live at the Gwandhaus in 2018, this excellent program from the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and their conductor Andris Nelsons features Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6, as well as works by Mozart, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, and Weinberg, making for a thrilling and well-rounded programme. Andris Nelsons is Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. These two positions, in addition to his leadership of a pioneering alliance between both institutions, have firmly established Grammy Award-winning Nelsons as one of the most renowned and innovative conductors on the international scene today. “Andris Nelsons conducted with concise focus and vigor and elicited the orchestra both tonal beauty and technical precision and visible enthusiasm.” (THE BOSTON GLOBE)

 

REVIEW:

 

Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” shows a dynamic use of tempo: In general, the fast music is very fast, the slow music quite slow, and Nelsons speeds up and slows down as the mood of the music changes. The first movement has lovely woodwind solos, particularly the important ones for clarinet. There is fine attention to dynamics, particularly in the second and fourth movements. The ending disappears into silence, and the hall remains silent for what seems like an impossible length of time before finally erupting into applause.

 

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is a fairly standard reading, although there is lots of rubato and expressive use of tempo modifications. The first movement is exciting; the second-movement horn solo is excellent.

 

This all-Russian concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Nelsons’s approach is similar to the way he conducts the Fifth: standard tempos which are modified according to the nature of the passage; rhythmic precision, notably in the difficult development section of the first movement; and, no funny business like a huge ritardando or unwritten pause in the coda. The second movement is effective at a rather slow tempo, with excellent dynamics. The Scherzo is fast and virtuosic, the Finale energetic.

– Fanfare

Also available on Blu-ray

“I‘m a pukka Indian. Mumbai is my home,“ says Zubin Mehta about his birthplace. The Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra traveled to India in 2016 with his inspiring 110-member orchestra where together they celebrated Maestro Mehta‘s 80th birthday with two fantastic concerts at the National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai. The concert programs featured works of some of Mehta‘s favorite composers, performed together with three of his closest musical friends: Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth, and Denis Matsuev. This live recording features those April 2016 concerts in all their glory, featuring works from Strauss, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Beethoven, and Ravel, all in stunning high definition.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD
Recorded live at the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig in May 2017, this release features a delightful concert by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and conductor Andris Nelsons. For the program, the conductor has chosen works by Antonin Dvorak, including the Othello Concert Overture, and his famous Symphony No. 9 in E minor- “From the New World.” Also featured in this concert is young soprano Kristine Opolais. Acknowledged as one of the most exciting sopranos before the public today, she made her debut in October 2010 at the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich in the title role of the new production of Dvorak’s Rusalka directed by Martin Kusej. It seems only fitting that she return to Dvorak for this performance. This recording was made during Andris Nelsons first season as Gewandhauskapellmeister.

Also available on DVD

A Blu-ray video of a stunning 2014 performance choreographed by Belgian modern great Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, performed by members of the Paris Opera Ballet and set to Music for Eighteen Musicians, Steve Reich's major score composed in 1976. In tandem with the score rendered here by Ensemble Ictus and the Synergy Vocals ensemble, ‘Rain’ draws its spatial polyphony which manifests on the stage in a glorious pastiche of dancers and rhythm. Created by De Keersmaeker’s company, Rosas in 2001, “Rain” entered the Paris Opera Ballet's repertoire ten years later and reinforces her key role not just in the world of modern dance but in the worlds of contemporary art.

Hector Sandoval, Norma Fantini, Scott Hendricks, Tania Kross, and Rosalind Plowright star in this production of the Giordano opera performed by the Vienna Symphony, Bregenz Festival Chorus, and Prague Philharmonic Choir conducted by Ulf Schirmer.

Also available on Blu-ray

Jacques Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène (1864) has always been one of its composer’s most successful works.

• Its first, slightly scandalizing performance in Paris was quickly followed by productions in Vienna, Berlin, London, Milan and New York.

• A satire of middle-class values, this opéra bouffe – told through the story of Paris and Helen, and her abduction by the Trojan prince disguised as a shepherd – pillories narrow-mindedness in society.

• Adopting a pro-active stance, director Renaud Doucet and designer André Barbe treat the piece as a “great show” with numerous choreographic elements, relocating the action of Offenbach's classical spoof and setting it on a cruise ship in the 1960s, when Flower Power, love and drugs were all the rage.

• “La Belle Hélène is a firework display for ears and eyes...” (Hamburger Morgenpost), “opulent and amusing” (Bild), and, in the title role, Jennifer Larmore convinces with her “fantastic vocal performance.” (Das Opernglas)

Subtitles: French (orig.), English, German, Spanish, Chinese Korean
Booklet: English, German, French
No. of Discs: 1
Run time: 117 minutes
Picture Format: NTSC, 16:9
Audio Format: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

To this day, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of the most popular pieces of classical music in the world. But what is it about this global hit? The film charts the success of the symphony around the globe and encounters passionate amateur musicians and musical personalities. Watch as Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis works on Beethoven’s Ninth with his ensemble, MusicAeterna. Follow Chinese composer and Oscar winner Tan Dun as he creates a new composition inspired by the great Beethoven symphony. Experience the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as they play the Ninth. Visit a favela in Brazil, where Beethovens’s music helps people get off the streets. Be amazed as a choir of 10,000 in Japan sings the final chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with great enthusiasm. Learn how Paul Whittaker helps make Beethoven accessible for deaf people. And find out how British DJ Gabriel Prokofiev performs a symphonic remix of Beethoven’s Ninth.