The smash hit of Shakespeare’s early career, Titus Andronicus is one of the Bard’s most experimental works, a revenge tale of the utmost brutality that centers around the honored Roman general who fatally refuses to show mercy to the eldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whom he has defeated in war. Hailed as 'one of the darkest and most seminal productions in the Globe’s history' (Daily Telegraph), director Lucy Bailey’s staging of the Roman tragedy sees the great London theatre transformed into a temple of death, one in which swathes of black fabric coalesce with horrific violence and stand-out performances to create shatteringly powerful drama. Filmed in 2014, this revival of Lucy Bailey’s gory 2006 production of Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy had audiences fainting in the aisles. Shakespeare’s bloodiest play features scenes of rape, mutilation, murder and cannibalism.

REVIEWS:

"You leave the theatre feeling both harrowed to the marrow and disconcertingly elated." (The Daily Telegraph)

"Lucy Bailey's blackly comical production is the best I've seen." (The Times)

"Exceptional." (The Independent)

Recorded live at the Shakespeare’s Globe, June 2015.

Take one pair of estranged twin brothers (both called Antipholus), and one pair of estranged twin servants (both called Dromio), keep them in ignorance of each other and throw them into a city with a reputation for sorcery, and you have all the ingredients for theatrical chaos. One Antipholus is astonished by his foreign hospitality; the other enraged by the hostility of his home town. The Dromios, caught between the two, are soundly beaten for obeying all the wrong orders. Basing his plot on a farce by Plautus, Shakespeare caps the mayhem of his Roman original to build up a hectic tale of violent cross-purposes, furious slapstick and social nightmare. This sell-out production employs authentic Renaissance costumes and staging and has audiences roaring with laughter as it crams in “more hilarious anarchy than you can shake a fish, cat or identity-confused servant at.” (London Theatre Guide).

REVIEWS:

The sparkling cast serves a feast of fun and flying cabbages.

-- The Times (UK)

As enchanting a it is hilarious.

-- The Independent

Linda di Chamounix is a pretty country girl who is in love with Carlo, who she believes is a penniless artist. Her honor is threatened by the local squire and she escapes to Paris in search of fortune. This is a tale of courage and madness, in which we discover and experience the strength and suffering of a woman torn apart by estrangement from family and love. Donizetti reaped full and long-lasting success with Linda di Chamounix, and it became one of his most modern, appreciated and long-lived works. Jessica Pratt leads an all-star cast in this acclaimed production from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

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.

This new release features five outstanding operas from the legendary Teatro Alla Scala. The selections include Aida: “A perfect coup de theatre” (Giornale della Musica); I Due Foscari: “[Domingo’s performance] was sublime”; Die Zauberflote: “[Adam Fischer] gets the best out of the Academy Orchestra with delicate execution and humane phrasing” (Die Presse); Le Nozze Di Figaro: “… when Diana Damrau enters as the Countess, we get a performance of special gravitas. Even the orchestra, under Franz Welser- Most’s baton, melts to such grace” (Financial Times); and Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail: A “masterful use of light and silhouettes” (Milano Post)

Christian Räth’s inspired staging of Der Freischütz, Weber’s seminal Romantic opera, at the Haus am Ring stands out due to the bold set and costume design by Gary McCann. It was “a festival of singers, that the young conductor Tomas Netopil underscored with the State Opera Orchestra with warmth. Andreas Schager, the immense Heldentenor, as Max, Camilla Nylund as the touching Agathe - a magnificent pair. The other roles were also well cast … “ (Salzburger Nachrichten) The production was recorded live at the Wiener Staatsoper in June 2018.

Springtime in Amsterdam is a joyful feature film created by director Christof Loy, world renowned for his work in international opera houses. Meeting accidentally in Amsterdam, a group of four people experience a series of confusions that must be resolved in 48 hours. A richly varied musical score that includes Viennese operetta, Dutch and French chansons, and songs from the American song book, is performed by a renowned cast of singers and conducted by Marko Letonja, well versed in popular music. In a magical dream world, dilemmas are resolved in this enchanting fable.

REVIEWS:

It is enjoyable enough to watch, being well directed and slickly performed… All four are excellent: Annette Dasch, Theresa Kronthaler, Thomas Oliemans and Norman Reinhardt, plus Henk Poort for good luck as a series of characters. They emote as well as they warble.

-- Opera Now

Treading a tightrope between death, life and intense romance in the opulent world of 19th-century Habsburg royalty, Elisabeth tells the story of the beautiful Empress of Austria, from her wedding, to her tragic assassination by the hand of the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. Ongoing dark obsessions and inner turmoil are undercurrents as family schisms flare up amidst a crumbling empire. These powerful themes and a potent score brimming with fabulous music have combined to establish Elisabeth as the most successful German-language musical of all time. This spectacular open-air event presents Elisabeth at the fabled empress’s real-life home – Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Sergey Prokofiev’s operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel was never performed in the composer’s lifetime – the music’s brittle energy, drama and eloquent lyrical tenderness would re-emerge in his Third Symphony. The narrative focuses relentlessly on Renata, who is haunted by an angel who turns out to be the devil. Director Emma Dante describes the opera as an explosive mix of fantastical realism and endless confusion of nightmares, madness, sexual impulses and cultural clashes’, and this Teatro dell’Opera di Roma production was acclaimed as ‘a presentation of Prokofiev’s masterpiece which sparkles in all its grotesque glory’ (Operawire.com).

REVIEWS:

The Polish soprano Ewa Vesin tackles the hugely demanding role of Renata with complete conviction… In the pit Alejo Pérez gives a handsome account of Prokofiev’s score.

--BBC Music Magazine

This was a Recording of the Month for January. Prokofiev’s weird opera comes to life in this powerfully ghostly and colorful production which features excellent singing and fine orchestral playing under conductor Alejo Pérez. Actually, there isn’t weakness anywhere in the cast and Emma Dante’s production is imaginative and masterly.

--MusicWeb International

The Fiery Angel seems better than ever. [Supported] by intelligent video direction, this new production is gripping from first to last. Ewa Vesin is as strong a Renata as we’ve had...capable of riding over some very loud music without screaming, and capable of melting self-laceration; and her resistance to the church and patriarchy in the last act is astonishing. Special praise...is due to Goran Jurić as the Grand Inquisitor, huge of voice (and stature) in a way that heightens our appreciation of the forces arrayed against Renata.

The star of the show, though, may well be conductor Alejo Pérez. This is a performance in which every twist and turn, even if unexpected when it comes, makes sense in retrospect. The orchestra sounds as if they’d been playing this music all their lives. All in all, a discographic coup.

--Fanfare

Witness The Wedding of the Year, filmed at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland, New Zealand. Handel’s Baroque masterpiece Semele is an exciting mix of opera and oratorio. Unlike his much more famous Messiah, this work scandalized audiences when first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London in 1774. Drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the sensual story explores a love triangle between Jupiter, King of the Gods, his wife, the goddess Juno, and his lover, the mortal princess Semele. “A remarkable production... a brilliant theatrical phenomenon, surprising, amusing and utterly engrossing” (Opera Magazine)

Hindemith conceived Mathis der Maler, his ‘opera in seven tableaux’, as a reimagining of Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, a depiction of Christ’s intense suffering and crucifixion. Set during the turbulence of the German Peasants’ revolt in the early 16th century, the work’s focus is on artistic freedom of expression and human isolation during a time of plague, repression and violence. Hindemith wrote his own libretto finding in Grünewald a metaphor for his own times. Performances of the opera in Germany were duly banned by the Nazis.

REVIEW:

The singing and the acting are excellent throughout. Wolfgang Koch’s baritone might be considered a bit light for Mathis, but one quickly forgets that. Tenor Kurt Streit is ideal for Albrecht. Manuela Uhl’s Ursula is the star of the show; her pearly dramatic soprano unfurling for her big scene with Albrecht. There’s not a weak link in the cast. Bertrand de Billy keeps tempos moving at all times. The direction is clear and straightforward; only the Temptations of Saint Anthony scene is a bit confusing—as perhaps it was intended to be; one must be on one’s toes to follow every detail.

Superbly translated English subtitles make it clear what a magnificent libretto Hindemith wrote to match his finest music, often voicing concerns that continue to reverberate today, as when Ursula asks herself “What else am I in this men’s world but a tool or a toy?” The radical young composer turned slowly into the ageing conservative; at this crucial moment (c. 1934) in that arc, he was at the height of his powers. The Nazis felt its social implications and prohibited its performance in Germany, where it happily outlasted them.

Subtitles are in German, English, French, Japanese, and Korean. This is a long-awaited first video representation of Mathis der Maler, much welcomed for its overall quality, including superb audio and video.

-- Fanfare

Catalani’s masterpiece, first performed in 1892 at La Scala in Milan, is best known for its aria “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana”. With nuanced harmonies and colourful instrumentation, he pays great attention to the orchestra sound. He chose highly unusual material for his opera: the successful novel Die Geier-Wally by Wilhelmine von Hillern tells the story of a young woman who does not fit any of the gender clichés of the time. Unlike many earlier operatic heroines commanded to marry against their will, Wally does not look for a solution in society, but instead runs away to the mountains. Her husband must be her equal, someone unafraid to face both a bear and her father. “Izabela Matula - A Wagnerian hell of a woman with a great soprano.” (Kronenzeitung) / “Catalani’s highly dramatic music finds an intense advocate in Andrés Orozco-Estrada on the podium of the excellently disposed Wiener Symphoniker.” (Wiener Zeitung)

REVIEW

The career of the short-lived Catalani only really produced one opera of substance in the shape of his proto-verismo treatment of La Wally, based on a German play by Wilhelmine von Hillern...hailed by Toscanini as a work of genius[.] Competition with the slightly younger Puccini, no less than his early death, effectively condemned Catalani to near-eclipse outside his native Italy.

In the second Act, following the death of her father, Wally is able to let her real feelings show, only to find that she is treated as a figure of mockery not only by her supposed friends but also by the man she really loves, who only kisses her in order to win a bet with his mates. Her sudden transformation from suppressed romance to incandescent jealousy is superbly handled here, and the characterisation suddenly begins to assume a realism that one might have never expected from the more forthright interpretations featured on those old sound recordings. The working out of the jealousies over the next two Acts is sympathetically handled, until in the final scene the hero is overwhelmed and swept away by an avalanche (one of those operatic endings that will always assure La Wally a place in the more comic annals of theatrical history). The music here rises to real heights, with the extensive prelude to Act Four a magnificent evocation of the high peaks of the Alps and its cavernously wide-spaced woodwind octaves clearly providing a model for Prokofiev in the opening of his Alexander Nevsky over sixty years later.

As may be gathered from the foregoing, much of the responsibility for the impact of the opera lies with the singers; an insensitive performance can effectively reduce the music to simple ranting. And the cast here is very impressive indeed. In the title role Izabela Matula has the full Valkyrie metal for her big moments, but at the same time is able to fine down her voice to delicate half-tones which encompass much of the heroine’s more vulnerable emotions. Her singing of her big aria is steady as a rock, and she holds the audience in the palm of her hand to the extent that they do not ruin the transition into the closing scene of Act One by bursting in with unwanted applause. As her feckless lover (who cannot even be bothered to tell her that the woman of whom she is so jealous is actually his sister), Leonardo Capalbo looks every inch the charming playboy, and one can well believe both in his callous disregard for her feelings and then in his sudden realisation of love even when he is told that she planned to have him murdered. His singing is pretty special too, heartfelt and charming by turns.

Even better is Jacques Imbrailo as his rival, far from the cardboard villain that one finds in other performances, and singing in a manner that well suits his move into Italian repertory. He too finds plenty of dramatic meat in his part, and evokes pity as he degenerates into a shabby muddy wreck while still craving the affection that he understands he can never receive. Alastair Miles makes something sympathetic even of the blustering and bullying father, and Ilona Revolskaya is thoroughly believable as the scruffy boy who becomes the heroine’s only genuine friend. Sofia Vinnik makes much of little as Hagenbach’s misunderstood sister, and even Zoltán Nagy as the anonymous peasant creates a real character with sympathetic eyes staring out even through his alcoholic haze. The Arnold Schoenberg chorus assume their operatic roles with full-bodied and enthusiastic commitment, and they mix well and unobtrusively with the extras. And one must not overlook the contribution of Tiziano Mancini, who as always seems to appreciate when we need to see the singers in close-up and when it is best to draw back.

[The] direction of the singers themselves is superbly well handled by Barbora Horáková Joly, who gets the best results from her performers. The reputation of La Wally as a precursor of the later verismo style is well deserved, and the fact that the action here is updated to the present day disturbs me not one whit. Indeed the costumes serve to emphasise the very real nature of the characters in terms of modern psychology, and the singers are not afraid to get themselves believably grubby, dirty and blood-stained. Even the only slightly incongruous element, that of the stern father dictating precisely who his daughter shall marry, is unfortunately still with us today, although one might hope that the heroine’s reaction would be more rebellious nowadays.

I can earnestly recommend this video as – finally – a substitute for the Decca audio set that has perforce served us for half a century, and the best available performance of an opera that really does not deserve its almost total neglect outside Italy.

--MusicWeb International (Paul Corfield Godfrey)

 

Few musicians in the world are as intimately familiar with Beethoven’s piano sonatas as Daniel Barenboim, who has been exploring these works since the earliest days of his career - a musical novel in 32 chapters and an artistic cosmos in itself. Barenboim recorded the full cycle of Beethoven sonatas in the Pierre Boulez Saal in 2020 and presents these works in chronological order of their creation - providing an exciting look at the composer’s artistic development. With this sonata cycle, Barenboim has set himself a legacy!

The box includes 234 minutes of bonus material: a 42-minute interview with Barenboim on Beethoven and 3 masterclasses with him as well, working with students of the Barenboim-Said Academy. This section of the program features Alexandre Kantorow (winner of the 1st price and gold medal at the Tschaikowsky Competition, working on Sonata No. 2), Nathalia Milstein on Sonata No. 15 “Pastoral” and Fabian Müller on Sonata No. 23 “Appassionata”). “No matter how many times you play them there are always fresh, personal perspectives waiting to be discovered.” (Daniel Barenboim)

Falstaff was composed to a libretto fashioned by Arrigo Boito largely from Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor. Superficially the work is an opera buffa in its depiction of the travails of the penniless knight, Sir John Falstaff, but goes beyond the operatic tradition of the time. The vocal line is integrated into the orchestral texture, and with self-quotations and parodic elements, the opera is saturated with as much irony as comedy, forming the fitting culmination of Verdi’s entire operatic life. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts this acclaimed staging of Verdi’s final masterpiece.

Reviews

I shall say straightaway that I am not a Verdi expert but I absolutely loved this performance, as I do this opera. The singing, the acting, the production, the conducting all seemed to me first rate. It is such a pleasure to find an opera DVD which does not fall down badly on at least one of these.

Falstaff is through-composed and largely lacks the big set-pieces characteristic of his earlier works. For this reason it took some time to make its way in the world, though Toscanini was an early champion and his support helped make it a repertory work. It is very fast moving and themes which might have been developed into whole arias in earlier works pass fleetingly by. The libretto does need to be followed in detail, which can now be achieved by surtitles in the opera house and subtitles on a DVD such as this.

The first thing about this production is that a faithful recreation of the time, space and action intended by the composer and librettist...I do need to add that the set and costumes are reminiscent of the sixteenth century rather than the fourteenth, but then Shakespeare took Falstaff from the Henry IV plays and in effect transplanted him into the sixteenth, thereby putting him into a contemporary context. The Garter Inn is nicely evoked by Julian Crouch, as is the oak tree in Windsor Forest in the last scene. The costumes, by Kevin Pollard, are all delightful and I particularly enjoyed Falstaff’s smart get-up for wooing Alice Ford.

Falstaff is an opera of ensembles and I was impressed by the way the cast not only sang their roles but also acted them. Nicola Alaimo in the title role was a new name to me, though he has a long career and a big repertoire. The part requires a wide emotional range from the singer, with at times light fast comic singing but also the synthetic indignation of the honour monologue. He also needs to be a minimally plausible lover but also cope with the farce of the laundry basket and the humour of the final Windsor Forest scene. I liked the way Alaimo not only carried all this off but also really interacted with the other characters. He also made us feel that, although Falstaff is an old rogue, there is something genuinely charming and attractive about him.

Of the other characters the most important is Alice, and Ailyn Pérez was charming and clever in this role, one she has also performed at Glyndebourne and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The other merry wife, Meg Page, is a smaller part but was nicely done by Caterina Piva. The young lovers, Fenton, sung by Matthew Swensen and Nanetta, sung by Francesca Boncompagni, were convincing and Nanetta gave us a lovely fairy song in the last scene. Sara Mingardo was an effective Mjistress Quickly with a powerful lower register when required. Simone Piazzola gave us a formidably jealous Ford and a smooth and well-controlled Master Brook, when in disguise. The smaller parts were all adequately taken.

The conductor was John Eliot Gardiner, who is an old hand at Falstaff, [who] brought out what seem to be occasional Wagnerian touches in the score, for example in Ford’s aria. The director was Sven-Eric Bechtolf whose obvious affection and respect for the work has given us a performance at once exuberant and touching. The sound and picture are fine and I know this will be going into my records of the year.

--MusicWeb International (Stephen Barber)

Wagner's immense imagination reveals itself in the composer's 16-hour Ring cycle, being able to fully captivate worldwide audiences since it's complete performance in 1876 in Bayreuth. Christian Thielemann's conducting of "Velvety sound of unmatched beauty" (The Guardian) leads an extremely sophisticated production, with Tcherniakov's stage that meets the highest technical standards, evolved in ever new, impressive spaces. "Gotterdammerung" is the concluding chapter of Wagner's monumental four-part opus, which he conceived in the light of the revolution of 1848/49 and completed in 1874 after numerous attempts and a long interruption. In many ways, the thematic and musical threads are intertwined in a highly artistic and complex manner. "Tcherniakov, as usual, manages details on a level rarely seen in opera." (The New York Times)