The performance of Il turco in Italia at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro is presented as a totally renewed production. With references to films of the iconic film director Federico Fellini “Davide Livermore brought it all together adding the perfect physical comic schtick that matched up perfectly with the musical pace of Rossini’s masterpiece - it was spectacular” (Opera Today). “Obviously the brilliant outcome of the performance is also due to Speranza Scapucci’s conducting, well prepared and highly talented, …” (Il Resto del Carlino Pesaro). The cast featuring Erwin Schrott, “who manages the most intricate colloratura effortlessly with his agile, beautiful bass- baritone...” (General-Anzeiger) and Olga Peretyatko being “the ideal cast” (Das Opernglas) made it a marvellous performance.

Bianca e Fernando, commissioned for the inauguration of the Carlo Felice Theatre in 1828, was composed at the start of Bellini’s career as one of the most important opera composers of the 19th century. The superb music for this dramatic story of filial love, wicked intrigues and triumph over tyranny was received with the ‘jubilation and admiration of the citizens of Genoa’ and greatly admired by the likes of Donizetti, earning Bellini recognition throughout Italy and beyond. This acclaimed first modern performance brings to light precious lost pages of music, reviving the original ‘splendid celebration’ of its premiere.

This is one volume in a multi-volume set. Find the complete box set here.

On the occasion of the Bruckner bicentenary, the Wiener Philharmoniker recorded its first ever complete Bruckner cycle under the baton of Christian Thielemann. In addition to the well-known canon of nine symphonies, the two earliest Bruckner symphonies in F minor and D minor, which are a world premiere on DVD and Blu-ray, were also recorded for the first time in the orchestra's history. This uniquely complete edition from the Musikverein and Salzburg Festival, featuring 11 symphonies, also includes extensive conversations with Christian Thielemann about each symphony and insights into his rehearsal work.

“Two symphonies that document Bruckner's path to mastery quite excellently. (…) Conclusion: The next interesting Bruckner milestone in the cycle.” (Kurier) / “Masterly, kapellmeisterlike, dreamlike.” (Der Standard) / Beautiful to weep for and artistically accomplished. [...] The interpretation of the Fifth may be considered a milestone. The way the musicians realized this work was simply grand." (Kurier)

In 1986, the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who left his homeland 61 years ago, announced that he would return to the Soviet Union for the first time since 1925 to give recitals in Moscow and Leningrad. This sensational historic recital from Moscow includes works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, whom Horowitz knew both, Domenico Scarlatti, W.A. Mozart, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann and Moritz Moszkowski. The disc too contains additional documentary footage with Horowitz. “Horowitz, playing with a clarity and dynamic range that friends said he had not matched in many years“ (New York Times) made an outstanding performance of musical, as well as political, significance.

On this new release from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s classic tale is reimagined especially for the screen. King Leontes rips his family apart but grief opens his heart. Will he find the child he abandoned before it is too late? This production of Shakespeare’s play is staged for the screen by the RSC. Directed by Erica Whyman, the play is set across a 16-year span, from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to the moon landings. “The first ever televised Royal Shakespeare Company world premiere is solid.” (The Independent) “Autolycus can be a touchstone for personal taste and Anne Odeke was delicious here across the whole gamut, from singing voice through to cream-cake comedy.” (The Arts Desk)

Reviews

“Enchanting” – The Times ★★★★

“Engaging and high-spirited” – The Stage ★★★★

A parable for our times. -- Daily Telegraph

A searing central performance. -- The Guardian

In a world driven by greed, what do we truly value? Timon has it all – money, influence, friends. Surely it can’t last? When the money runs out, Timon soon finds her influence and friends have also gone. Left alone, she flees Athens to take refuge in the woods, cursing the city she once loved. Simon Godwin directs Kathryn Hunter as Timon in this dark satire, which forces us to question: where does happiness really lie?

Pablo Picasso is one of the greatest artists of all time - and right up until his death in 1973 he was the most prolific of artists. Many films have dealt with these later years - the art, the affairs and the wide circle of friends. But where did this all begin? What made Picasso in the first place? Too long ignored, it is time to look at the early years of Picasso; the upbringing and the learning that led to his extraordinary achievements. Working closely with all three Picasso Museums in Malaga, Barcelona and Paris this film explains how he rose to such great heights.

Twins Sebastian and Viola are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, separated and believing each other to be dead. Beside herself with grief, Viola disguises herself as a boy and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. The Duke, madly in love with the Countess Olivia, sends Viola to woo on his behalf. What could possibly go wrong? Olivia falls in love with the cross-dressed page while Viola falls deep and fast for Orsino. Meanwhile, mischievous servants play painful pranks at each other’s expense. Heady chaos ensues as griefs, loves and deep human confusions collide, but fear not! Sweet resolution wins the day as friends, twins and lovers are reunited. Cross-dressing, hijinks and bittersweet hilarity as Emma Rice directs Shakespeare’s timeless, soulful and irrepressible comedy – in a production unlike any other, taking the spirit and frivolity of disco to the high seas!

Reviews

"Twelfth Night reserves its sharpest barbs for purists and puritans. The humiliation of Malvolio, with his rule-bound antipathy to everything the play celebrates – excesses of music and food and love – is its abiding image. Rarely can that theme have seemed as pointed as in Emma Rice’s life-loving production at the Globe. Rice finds in Twelfth Night a brilliant reminder that, set against love and life, melancholy can be a little overrated." (The Guardian ★★★★)

"I watched much of the show with a broad smile on my face, both for its audacity and downright cheek...the most entertaining, exciting Twelfth Night for years...wonderfully refreshing." (The Daily Mail ★★★★★)

"Twelfth Night is often seen as Shakespeare's "perfect comedy", and in the hands of Emma Rice and her cast this production certainly lives up to those expectations. It's entertaining, heartfelt and extremely uplifting." (Broadway World ★★★★★)

" ...this show is pretty much essential viewing." (The Daily Telegraph ★★★★)

"It boasts an exuberant cast – blessed with a widely lauded performance from Katy Owen as Malvolio – and even some of Rice’s staunchest opponents admit that it generates mountains of feel-good energy." (The Stage)

"Audiences should take note: drop your guard, forget 'proper Shakespeare blah blah' and just enjoy. This Twelfth Night's a delight: a cheek-ache from start to finish. Great art? Probably not. Great fun? You bet." (WhatsOnStage ★★★★)

The first installment of what is widely acknowledged to be Shakespeare’s greatest historical saga, Henry IV Part 1 is an epic tale of power, treachery and war, exploring the complexity of father-son relationships. Featuring an Olivier award-winning performance from Roger Allam as Falstaff, the comical mentor to Jamie Parker’s Prince Hal, this is a celebrated presentation of the English classic, expertly directed by Dominic Dromgoole.

REVIEWS:

"Henry IV is the Shakespeare play that's perfectly suited to the Globe. In Dominic Dromgoole's intelligent, faithful and entertaining new production, Sir John Falstaff, that 'sweet creature of bombast', might have stopped for a pint of sack in Southwark en route for a rendezvous with Doll Tearsheet at the Boar's Head." (The Guardian)

"It is the first time these wonderful plays have been staged at the reconstructed globe and it may be one of this theatres finest achievements." (The Daily Telegraph)

A colossal work that defies all boundaries: Prokofiev's monumental setting of Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. The story, set during Napoleon's Russian campaign between 1809 and 1812, is condensed by the composer into a powerful sequence of scenes in which the love story between Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky alternates in striking contrast with the depiction of the Russian army's battle against the French invasion-interwoven yet deeply connected. The music narrates how the aristocracy's rigid social hierarchy stands in the way of two young people's happiness, how seduction succeeds while an abduction fails, how some renounce their love while others fall as heroes-all while people, amidst the grandeur, search for true connection. With a wealth of magnificent themes and poignant moments, Prokofiev's operatic masterpiece merges social drama and historical chronicle into a sweeping panorama. Dmitri Tcherniakov's staging presents a gathering of people in a historically charged setting: the famous Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions in Moscow. Forced into an indefinite coexistence, they instinctively begin to embody characters, reenact conversations, scenes, and celebrations, as if drawing from a vast collective memory. What starts as an impromptu role-play soon turns into an emotional experience where the lines between assumed and genuine feelings blur. An outstanding ensemble performs under the musical direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski.

Premiered in 1951, ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’ was the first opera specifically composed for television, though Gian Carlo Menotti admitted that he had conceived it for the stage. The magical story tells of Amahl, a disabled boy who befriends the Three Kings when they stop at his house on their journey to see the newborn Jesus. Amahl decides to give his crutch to Jesus, at which point his leg is miraculously healed. Long a Christmas favourite, this new Viennese production, sung in German, boldly re-examines the story finding its key elements to be fantasy, empathy and the enduring power of love.

REVIEW:

...the cast under Magnus Loddgard’s baton is good. Boy soprano Tempu Ishijima is outstanding in the title role, incredibly touching but not mawkish, and as his mother, Dshamilja Kaiser has a strong mezzo.

-- Opera Now

Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo was premiered in 1600 in Rome. It was conceived to be performed in costume, bringing text and music together in a dramatic form, and is accepted as the first surviving opera, pre-dating works by Peri and Monteverdi. Its theme is the dialogue of Soul and Body, a pivotal concept of the Italian Counter-Reformation, presented in allegorical form. This production by the acclaimed director Robert Carsen was hailed as ‘an unmitigated, tremendous success’ and its ‘musical production was extraordinary’ (bachtrack.com).

Finnish opera star Camilla Nylund sings masterpieces from the Great American Songbook in this unique collaboration with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under their music director Marin Alsop. The classic songs in this film were specially arranged to suit Nylund's performance style, vocals and personality, as if they had been written for her. This special edition includes a Blu-ray of the concert film-project by Andr� Heller in black and white, plus an audio only recording.

The composition of Un ballo in maschera caused Verdi many problems. What began as an opera called Gustavo III was subject to censorship by the Neapolitan and Roman authorities, so its libretto, location and title all changed. The subject, however, is still the murder of Riccardo (Gustavo) at the masked ball, couched in a musical language in which the seriousness of Italian opera is infused with French vivacity. The opera’s structure is carefully symmetrical in the great terzets, and the themes of duty, pleasure, drama and humor are rendered with masterful clarity.

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe. One of the few luminaries of the ‘Neapolitan School’ to actually be born in Naples, Porpora wrote L’Angelica, a serenade for six voices and instruments, to a libretto by the young Pietro Metastasio in 1720. The work was composed for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christine, wife of Charles VI, and its plot is comedic, focusing on the travails of a couple in love. The opera’s success was immediate, resulting in the commissioning of further works that would lead to ever more glamorous successes for Porpora in Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna.

This is one volume in a multi-volume set. Find the complete box set here.

On the occasion of the Bruckner bicentenary, the Wiener Philharmoniker recorded its first ever complete Bruckner cycle under the baton of Christian Thielemann. In addition to the well-known canon of nine symphonies, the two earliest Bruckner symphonies in F minor and D minor, which are a world premiere on DVD and Blu-ray, were also recorded for the first time in the orchestra's history. This uniquely complete edition from the Musikverein and Salzburg Festival, featuring 11 symphonies, also includes extensive conversations with Christian Thielemann about each symphony and insights into his rehearsal work. “Orchestra and conductor impressed with Anton Bruckner's Second.” (Der Standard on Bruckner 2) “Only the highest musical perfection sounds like this.” (Die Presse)

Also available on Blu-ray

The eight Mahler symphonies contained in this box were all recorded live as part of the Leipzig Mahler cycle that began with the acclaimed Mahler Festival in 2011. They once again confirmed the Gewandhausorchester's reputation as a Mahler reference orchestra, which was consolidated in particular thanks to the intensive examination of Mahler's work under the direction of former Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Riccardo Chailly, who emphasized the compositional qualities of the works, traced the origins of their interpretive history and avoided false pathos and sentimentality despite all the drama and urgency. This becomes clear especially in the more than two hours of documentation material which supplements these exceptional Mahler recordings. In addition to Riccardo Chailly, leading Mahler experts such as Henry-Louis de la Grange and Reinhold Kubik give an insight into Mahler's works and their interpretation. In addition to its musical excellence, the Leipzig Mahler cycle impresses with its graphic design. Each cover of the cycle is adorned with a work by the Leipzig painter Neo Rauch that was inspired by Mahler's music and painted specifically for this cycle.

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes in this set:

Mahler: Symphony No. 7 / Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig

The Leipzig players do Chailly proud. There are so many stunning solos, from tenor horn at the start to the first trumpet who never splits brilliant top notes in the finale. This of all symphonies requires a terrifying amount of preparation - there's none better than this one.

– BBC Music Magazine

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 / Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig

Chailly is a pleasure to watch, being neither over-demonstrative nor affectedly matter-of-fact. If the rest of this projected second Chailly Mahler cycle is as good as this, then I suspect we have treats aplenty in store.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, November 2014)

Chailly's latest Mahler Five surely has the best of all possible worlds for this comprehensive darkness-to-light epic. It's rewarding to see the Leipzig Gewandhaus strings articulating with such mobile engagement.

– BBC Music Magazine

Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig

Here we have something very special, and a good deal more than 'just another Mahler Ninth. This Leipzig Ninth is Chailly off the leash, liberating the music in a way that is impassioned, positive, fitfully fractured and often ethereal. He flicks the Symphony's heartbeat opening into action with the most economical of gestures.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, November February 2015)

Four runaway lovers find themselves smack bang in the middle of a dispute between the King and Queen of the fairies, and, if that wasn’t enough, a troupe of amateur actors are trying to rehearse a play. Between these unlikely groups flies Puck, armed only with a wicked sense of humour and a love potion capable of making anyone fall for the first person they set eyes upon. What could possibly go wrong Fusing music dance and some serious comedy, Emma Rice’s first production as Artistic Director brings the Dream crashing into the Globe’s magical setting. Naughty, tender, transgressive and surprising, it is truly a festival of theatre. Internationally acclaimed actor, singer and Performance Diva Meow Meow plays the mischievous fairy queen Titania. Let the joy begin!

REVIEWS:

"The Globe certainly rocks with laughter in an irreverent evening in which the jokes come fast and furious...an entertaining and rowdy night out..." (The Guardian)

"This is living theatre, hot-blooded and hot-bodied, a production that feels utterly at home in the space while also challenging people’s perceptions of what the Globe is for...this is joyful stuff." (The Stage)

"...A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a vibrant score of toe-tapping music that offers a knowing commentary on the text. There are bursts of Bowie and Beyoncé, and snatches of George Formby and Marilyn Monroe, which add delicious feather-light suggestions and illuminations that link our culture with the Elizabethan age. It’s wonderful stuff. The ensemble work, the visual exuberance, and the fun-loving spirit of the piece are astoundingly good. What an extraordinary debut for Emma Rice." (The Spectator)

Since the death of Herbert von Karajan in 1989, the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerts around Ascension Day (15 August) have firmly been in the hands of Riccardo Muti. Always sold out, they are among the highlights of every festival summer. For this year’s concert and on occasion of his 80th birthday, the maestro was acclaimed for his interpretation of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, a piece he has never conducted before. “Muti is a master in conveying extremes: monumentality, where it is compositionally intended, and highest internalization alternate with each other in a dense interplay.” (FAZ) “Muti mastered the work and presented it as stringently as perhaps no one else can do it today.” (Die Presse)

Find Grimaud's previous DVD release from the Elbphilharmonie on Arkiv as well!

Hélène Grimaud headlines a spectacular evening with the illustrious Camerata Salzburg, directed from the front desk by concertmaster Giovanni Guzzo, at one of the world's most famous contemporary concert halls, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. She selected pieces that are all in minor keys, yet composed during intensely creative periods in both Mozart’s and Robert Schumann’s careers.

Mozart did not write many works in minor tonalities but Grimaud chose to emphasize the minor mode because it “provides a glimpse behind the mask of jollity that surrounds many of his famous works.“ As an encore: a work by a living Ukrainian composer whose music has accompanied Grimaud through much of her career, Valentin Silvestrov.

“Hélène Grimaud and the Salzburg Camerata hypnotise the audience in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie on this unforgettable evening, with piano concertos of the early Romantic era of Mozart and Schumann that are unique in sound.“ (operaversum.de)

Excellent…a rolling mass of desire, repression and duplicity FINANCIAL TIMES "This fresh, insightful version of a morally murky play finds the RSC on flying form" MAIL ON SUNDAY When a young novice nun is compromised by a corrupt official, who offers to save her brother from execution in return for sex, she has no idea where to turn for help. When she threatens to expose him, he tells her that no one would believe her. Shakespeare wrote this play in the early 1600s, yet it remains astonishingly resonant today. Artistic Director Gregory Doran directs this new production of Shakespeare’s astonishingly resonant work.

Virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie collaborates with RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran to create a satirical futuristic vision of a world resounding with the rhythm of battle, a form of incidental music suited to this Shakespearean rarity.

“Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion.” Love, rivalry and war are a-plenty in this new production. Troilus and Cressida swear they will always be true to one another. But in the seventh year of the siege of Troy their innocence is tested, and exposed to the savage corrupting influence of war, with tragic consequences. “Sweeping and confident production of Shakespeare’s rarely performed tragedy.” (The Standard)

REVIEWS:

Adjoa Andoh memorably brings out the manipulative monstrosity behind Ulysses’s beguiling rhetoric, literally loading the dice when it comes to the choice of a Greek champion to fight Hector. Oliver Ford Davies is a classic Pandarus, brimming over with senile prurience so that even a line such as “I’ll go get a fire” gains a lurking suggestiveness. The central lovers are also well played, with Amber James’s spryly intelligent Cressida provoked beyond endurance by the naive insistence of Gavin Fowler’s Troilus on her fidelity.

-- The Guardian

This release contains the international acclaimed Bruckner cycle of Christian Thielemann, a “magician of the Bruckner sound”(Kurier on Symphony No. 5) and the Staatskapelle Dresden, whose own Bruckner tradition dates back more than a century. Outstanding reviews emphasize the exceptionally high artistic quality of the concerts: “Once again Thielemann proved to be the unrestricted ruler on his ancestral territory, German Romantic repertoire” (Hamburger Abendblatt on Symphony No. 2). Christian Thielemann “displays the full musical maelstrom of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3” (Münchner Merkur). “Another Bruckner triumph for Dresden” (Sächsische Zeitung on Symphony No. 6). “… one would have to be hard-hearted not to be touched by this heartfelt music” (Der Tagesspiegel on Symphony No. 8).

Thomas Mann once named Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina "the greatest social novel of world literature." When reading the novel, John Neumeier was deeply fascinated by Tolstoy's work: not only by the main characters and the plot, but also by the extraordinary variety of thematic connections. It is a story of three families. John Neumeier states: “Tolstoy himself wrote and published ‘Anna Karenina’ as a serial story over a number of years. The feeling in the novel of a developing contemporary narrative – similar to a television series of today – is underlined by the fact that the novel does not end with the death of the title character. My challenge was therefore to give true life and relevance to the story by selecting key emotional situations and essential characters to fit within the framework of an evening-long ballet.“

BONUS: Masterclass with John Neumeier

La Perricholi – in reality, Micaela Villegas – was Lima’s leading theatrical lady in the 1770s, when Peru was a Spanish colony. Her life was fictionalised in a one-act play by Prosper Mérimée and a libretto was fashioned on which Offenbach created his opéra bouffe La Périchole, reflecting the creative mania in Paris at the time for Spanish life and art. La Périchole and Piquillo, her lover and companion in misfortune, are impoverished street singers. Meanwhile the Viceroy Don Andrès de Ribeira wishes to make her his lover. In music of vivacious rhythms including boleros, seguidillas and rich arias, Offenbach plays out their love against a broader social canvas.