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

Also available on standard DVD

The Norwegian National Ballet’s Hedda Gabler is Henrik Ibsen’s drama retold in a way you’ve never seen it before. After the premiere in 2017, both Norwegian and international critics praised director Marit Moum Aune’s dance production, set to music by Nils Petter Molvær. Hedda is furious, on the verge of being consumed with disappointment. After a six-month honeymoon in Europe she has returned home to set up home with her husband, Jørgen – but nothing has turned out the way she intended. And when her former lover Eilert Løvborg enters the picture, she reacts in a way that proves perilous for everyone – including herself. Hedda Gabler is one of world theatre’s most well-known characters – an icon created by Henrik Ibsen. Is she cowardly or brave? Spoilt or stuck? Wicked or desperate? Our greatest actors have always found new ways to interpret this psychologically complex role. Now the talented dancers of the Norwegian National Ballet provide their own interpretation, adding another dimension to the drama. While the original play is an intense chamber play in which a lot is left unsaid, Moum Aune paints with a broad brush. Hedda’s world opens up as we delve deeper into her relationships and background. We get to see major scenes that are only hinted at in Ibsen’s text. The dancers in the eight central roles have all contributed to their own choreography, with each movement crucial in the telling of this intense story. Hedda Gabler is the follow-up to Moum Aune’s first success with Ibsen as dance, in which she directed and choreographed Ibsen’s Ghosts together with Cina Espejord. Both productions are among the Norwegian National Ballet’s greatest successes, and are in high demand around the world. BONUS : Hedda Gabler, The Other Side A 52 min. Documentary behind the scenes of the Norwegian National Opera

At Theater an der Wien Stanislaw Moniuszko’s Polish national opera Halka is performed by a superb cast including Corinne Winters (“devotedly”) , Piotr Beczala (“vocally outstanding”) and Tomasz Konieczny (“his acting is piercing”) (Der Standard). With libretto by young Polish poet Wlodzimierz Wolski, the opera is widely considered to be one of Moniuszko’s greatest operas, and in fact was described by noted musicologist Carl Dalhaus as “The Polish national opera.” The Polish leading team, above all stage director Mariusz Trelinski, puts the plot into a supercooled crime aesthetic. The ORF Radio Symphonie-Orchester Wien under the baton of Lukasz Borowicz plays with perceptible delight. “A gripping opera evening” (Wiener Zeitung).

REVIEW:

Luxury casting here outrivals previously recorded versions. With her bright, sumptuous soprano, Winters makes a powerful Halka, less obvious victim, more troubled woman struggling at the bottom of the social heap. Her acting skills are on full display as she takes us on one woman’s harrowing journey. Konieczny’s gritty baritone is perfect for Janusz, a love rat, but a guilty one from the start where he finds himself haunted by a vision of Halka’s bloated corpse. Jontek is usually played as a bit of a sympathetic best friend but here Beczala creates a far more interesting and conflicted character seething with thwarted passion and class resentment. His glorious tenor with ringing top notes is perfectly suited to what is some of the opera’s finest music, including the hit aria The Fir Trees Sigh on Mountain Peaks.

Moniusko specialist Łukasz Borowicz paces it all splendidly with fine playing by the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester and sturdy singing from the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. Tiziano Mancini’s video edit helps with both mood and dramatic pace making this good-looking video as fine a way as any to become acquainted with Poland’s national opera. 

-- Limelight

Love conquers all, ruthlessly and irresistibly, as Emperor Nero and his mistress Poppea remove the obstacles to their union. At Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu David Alden's visually sumptuous production, with it's suggestions of a giant game of chess, puts the opera's potent blend of sex and politics in a context that sets ancient against modern, just as the action juxtaposes scurrilous comedy and stark drama. Monteverdi's magnificent score, meanwhile, accommodates intrigue, wit, nobility, tragedy and sensuality, and, led by the intense Sarah Connolly and the delectable Miah Persson, the cast brings both drama and music startlingly to life.

... one of the most profoundly moving and emotionally compelling dance performances you are ever likely to see. (THE HERALD) The Mother is a powerful, narrative dance production choreographed and directed by Arthur Pita - a master storyteller. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's dark tale, The Story of a Mother, this sumptuously designed production stars international dance superstar Natalia Osipova and multi-award-winning dancer Jonathan Goddard. This is an inventive new production which conjures up a dangerous, kaleidoscopic world, combining narrative dance and drama. In setting out to save her sick child a young mother journeys into the unknown to face life and death. Will she succumb to the forces of evil, or will the power of motherhood prevail? "The Mother is a truly original piece that satisfies on all levels, from it's stunning visual imagery to the downright weirdness of it's characters and the eerie musical score." (DANCING TIMES)

During the past years, the DVD Audio D154 "More Power and Ideas - For Your Surround System" has helped countless listeners optimize their systems for maximum 5.1 enjoyment. + The concept of this project can be summed up in one sentence: Test your system without measuring devices - only by listening. + Re-issued on Blu-ray disc.

When we think of the quintessential Western movie, what music do we imagine hearing as the heroes face off in the sun and sand? Even those of us who have never seen a Western will certainly conjure up the music of the legendary Ennio Morricone. Perhaps chiefly known for his scores of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns-notably The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West-Morricone also provided the music for comedies like La Cage aux Folles, dramas like Cinema Paradiso, and action films like Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, for which Morricone won his first competitive Oscar in 2016 at the age of 87. His influence on contemporaries and successors is immeasurable, ranging from cinema and classical to pop, rock, and world music. Few silver screen composers have made so indelible a mark; his work is powerful enough to make good films great and great films greater. In this 2005 concert from Munich, Morricone conducts his own works, many even more iconic than the films they soundtracked.

The Wild West meets the soulful sound of Italy. Fearless New York gangsters meet cowboys from the dusty prairie. Godfather meets Taxi Driver. And the magic of cinema meets the rich sound of a first-class symphony orchestra. This exclusive live concert production presents a unique selection of movie classics - from Sergio Leone's iconic Spaghetti Westerns to modern mafia masterpieces by Francis Ford Coppola and the cult movies of Tarantino. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Sarah Hicks and joined by a fistful of strong guest artists for this premiere performance of the authentic soundtracks by composer legends Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Sonny Bono and Bernard Herrmann. Blu-ray

Laura Aikin, Edgaras Montvidas, Kurt Rydl, Mojca Erdmann, Michael Smallwood, and Steven Van Watermeulen star in this de Nederlandse Opera production of the Mozart opera conducted by Constantinos Carydis.

The focus of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto for Così fan tutte is on female infidelity, two partner-swapping couples and a wager. Its enigmatic ambiguity and lightness of touch, its razor’s edge balance between irony and empathy, detachment and involvement, and on-stage reality and illusion is structured with perfect Classical symmetry. More than any other opera it explores the depths and darker impulses of the experience of love. This production by director Sven-Eric Bechtolf was given in Florence with a staging that ‘holds a balance between philosophy and humour’ (bachtrack.com).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
COSÌ FAN TUTTE

Ferrando - Topi Lehtipuu
Guglielmo - Luca Pisaroni
Don Alfonso - Nicolas Rivenq
Fiordiligi - Miah Persson
Dorabella - Anke Vondung
Despina - Ainhoa Garmendia

The Glyndebourne Chorus
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Iván Fischer, Conductor

Nicholas Hytner, Stage Director

Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in June and July 2006

Bonus Material:
- Insights - with Ivan Fischer, Nicholas Hytner and members of the cast
- Illustrated Synopsis and Cast Gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition, 16:9
Sound format: 2.0 and 5.0 True HD
Region code: 0 (All Regions)
Menu Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian
Running time: 210 minutes
No. of Discs: 1 (BD50)

A classic story of love under the microscope is given a contemporary perspective in this performance of Mozart’s “school for lovers”. Così fan tutte is a compassionate examination of young love, full of wit and wonderful music which ensure its lasting popularity. Così fan tutte was Mozart’s final collaboration with the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, and Jonathan Miller’s production, created for The Royal Opera, brings out the timelessness of this exploration of the human condition. Jonathan Miller’s Royal Opera production of Cosi fan tutte was a staple of the repertory for nearly twenty years. He died in 2019.

“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had to offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)

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

Also available on standard DVD

Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) is a three act opera Singspiel by W. A. Mozart. With libretto by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner, the plot follows the attempt of Belmonte and his servant Pedrillo to rescue his Konstanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. This production comes from the Glyndebourne Chorus, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenmnent conducted by Robin Ticciati. Director David McVicar has strived in this production to give an original-period version of the opera. The costuming from Vicki Mortimer and the sets add to the dazzling performance. “Mesmerising, sensitive, at times troublingly erotic, the whole thing forces us to rethink a remarkable work. Outstanding.” (The Guardian)

Accompanied by a luxurious team of professionals, consisting of the renowned stage director Peter Stein, his stage designer Ferdinand Wöger and conductor Ádám Fischer, Teatro alla Scala presents with Mozart’s Zauberflöte a production where orchestra, chorus, soloists as well as outfitters all consisted of students of the Academia Teatro alla Scala, the educational institution aimed to train the young talents, founded by the Teatro alla Scala in 2001. The result was more than stunning and an instant success with the audience of the ten sold out performances at La Scala, which is famous for its more than critical loggionisti. According to Die Presse, Fischer “gets the best out of the Academy Orchestra with delicate execution and humane phrasing” while the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praises Fatma Said as ''Pamina'' and Yasmin Özkan as ''Queen of the Night''.

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

Also available on standard DVD

From the Queen of the Night’s vocal pyrotechnics to Papageno’s chirpy birdsongs, The Magic Flute is one of Mozart’s most charming and engaging operas. However, its fairytale surface conceals the mysteries of an initiation ritual and a multi-layered plot, packed with allegories to fire up the imagination. This celebrated production by artist William Kentridge joyfully bursts onto the stage of Teatro alla Scala in Milan, featuring the dazzling Russian coloratura Albina Shagimuratova as the Queen of the Night, and Italian bass Alex Esposito as Papageno, one of the most sought after artists of his generation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (Blu-ray Disc Version)

Sarastro – Günther Groissböck
Tamino – Saimir Pirgu
Queen of the Night – Albina Shagimuratova
Pamina – Genia Kühmeier
Papagena – Ailish Tynan
Papageno – Alex Esposito
Monostatos – Peter Bronder


Milan La Scala Chorus and Orchestra
Roland Böer, conductor

William Kentridge, stage director

Recorded live at La Teatro alla Scala, 20 March 2011

Bonus:
- Overview of The Magic Flute
- Illustrated synopsis

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Running time: 150 mins
No. of Discs: 1

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

David McVicar’s classic production embraces both the seriousness and comedy of Mozart’s work. The audience is transported to a fantastical world of dancing animals, flying machines and dazzlingly starry skies. The setting provides a wonderful backdrop for Mozart’s kaleidoscopic score, from the Queen of the Night’s coloratura fireworks to Tamino and Pamina’s lyrical love duets and Papageno’s hearty, folksong-like arias. Prince Tamino promises the Queen of the Night that he will rescue her daughter Pamina from the enchanter Sarastro. He begins his quest, accompanied by the bird-catcher Papageno – but all is not as it seems…

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

Also available on standard DVD

Mozart’s Singspiel Die Zauberflöte seamlessly alternates seriousness and jollity, and combines philosophical ideas with a fairytale world of wondrous animals and magical musical instruments. Fusing music, technology and stagecraft, this exciting production gives Die Zauberflöte a refreshing treatment both thrilling and simple. Following overwhelming stage success, McBurney’s unique production received five-star reviews in the Dutch press: ‘a feast for the eyes and ears’ (Het Parool) and ‘Delicious!’ (Trouw) ‘‘...inventively staged...’’ (Daily Telegraph)

Running time: 156 minutes
Subtitles: English/German/French/Dutch/Japanese/Korean
Picture Format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

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

Also available on standard DVD

“Visually, it’s a theatrical feast of eccentricity … witty, irrepressible, unforgettable ...” (The Guardian) One of Mozart’s most enchanting works, Die Zauberflöte is a fairytale that uses familiar archetypes to ask provocative and difficult questions about religion, the nature of power, the bonds of family, and of course love. Premiered just months before Mozart’s death, Die Zauberflöte in many ways represents a new departure for the composer. Catching the spirit of revolution in the air, Mozart turned his attention for the first time from court opera to popular opera, writing this singspiel (‘sung-play’) for a new and much broader audience. Celebrated Canadian directing duo Barbe & Doucet make both their British and Glyndebourne debuts here with their new Die Zauberflöte, a veritable “theatrical feast of eccentricity.” (The Guardian). Ryan Wiggleworth conducts an outstanding cast including Russian soprano Sofia Fomina as Pamina, David Portillo as her beloved Tamino, Brindley Sherratt as Sarastro, and the ebullient Björn Bürger as Papageno.

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

Also available on standard DVD

“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – “A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)

When Herbert von Karajan conducted Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival in 1987 featuring an outstanding cast of singers, the fantastic Wiener Philharmoniker and staged by Michael Hampe, it became a legendary performance of the highest artistic level. Samuel Ramey stars as the title character Don Giovanni, alongside Gosta Winbergh as Don Ottavio and Anna Tomowa-Sintow as Donna Anna. This dream of artistic collaboration made it one of the best opera performances, which now is available for the first time on Blu-ray.

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

Also available on standard DVD

Don Giovanni, Mozart’s sublime tragic comedy, offers boundless scope for directors. Kasper Holten shifts the emphasis from Don Giovanni’s sex life into a darker place, showing Giovanni’s womanizing as an attempt to stave off his own mortality. Each woman he seduces represents a life he could have had. Though it is a dark piece, Holten handles it all with a light touch. Led by conductor Nicola Luisotti, the superb cast features Mariusz Kwiecien as Don Giovanni, Alex Esposito and French soprano Véronique Gens. ‘‘…a cast that can’t be bettered today…demands to be seen.’’ Seen and Heard Int’l

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
DON GIOVANNI
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Don Giovanni - Mariusz Kwiecie?
Leporello - Alex Esposito
Donna Anna - Malin Byström
Commendatore - Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Don Ottavio - Antonio Poli
Donna Elvira - Véronique Gens
Zerlina - Elizabeth Watts
Masetto - Dawid Kimberg
Donna Elvira’s Maid - Josephine Arden

Royal Opera Chorus
(chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Nicola Luisotti, conductor

Kasper Holten, stage director
Es Devlin, set designer
Anja Vang Kragh, costume designer
Bruno Poet, lighting designer
Signe Fabricius, choreographer

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, February 2014

Bonus:
- Introductions: Don Giovanni’s Women
- Director’s Commentary

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 187 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

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

Also available on standard DVD

Mozart’s third venture into the “opera seria” genre, demolished its traditional boundaries to open the way to lyric drama. Blending youthful earnestness with mature mastery, Mozart uses - while profoundly changing - the elements of a genre based on arias that come one after another with no real concern for dramatic progression. The importance and expressive power of the choruses, influenced by the operatic reforms of Gluck, foreshadows The Magic Flute. Idomeneo is often regarded as Mozart’s first masterpiece for the opera house. After the fall of Troy, King Idomeneo can finally dream of returning to his homeland after a long absence, during which his son Idamante ensured the continuity of his reign and guarded Trojan prisoners, including Ilia, King Priam’s daughter. To escape from a terrible storm that is keeping him from reaching Crete, Idomeneo promises Neptune to sacrifice the first living being he encounters upon landing. Unfortunately, it is his own son who greets him in his native land. By offering her own life in exchange for that of Idamante, whom she loves and who loves her, Illia manages to get Neptune to yield and to deliver Idomeneo from his fateful vow. Robert Carsen’s “politically poetic staging” (Opera News), set in present-day Crete, features a first-rate cast including Eric Cutler as Idomeneo, David Portillo as Idamante, Anett Fritsch, as Ilia, Eleonora Buratto, as Elettra, and Benjamin Hulett as Arbace.

Le nozze di Figaro is Lorenzo Da Ponte's and Mozart's first of their three jointly created operas about attempts at interpersonal relationships: a turbulent comedy with erotic entanglements, which was not a harmless comedy even in Mozart's day. Director Martin Kusej moves the drama of love and jealousy to a mafia-like urban milieu where conflicts are fought out with pistols. Young French conductor Raphael Pichon, "original sound expert" (Der Tagesspiegel) and for the first time on the podium of the Wiener Philharmoniker, leads a young ensemble of singers around clan boss Almaviva ("vocally flawlessly brilliant: Andre Schuen", Hamburger Abendblatt). "Kusej's staging is musical, Pichon's conducting theatrical; the two work together to a degree that is far more rare than it should be. Every detail has been carefully thought through, and the symbiosis is breathtaking." (Financial Times) "Martin Kusej's new Figaro is slick, dark and grimly entertaining." (Financial Times) "One will rarely, if ever, hear 'Le nozze di Figaro' so well balanced on stage, with such a homogeneous ensemble of such class, with such a precise Mozart sound." (Frankfurter Rundschau)

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

Also available on standard DVD

“Nothing is harder to put on stage than lightness. And humor is the sharpest weapon of the desperate. That is why it is an obligation, indeed a must, to enjoy this Figaro by Jürgen Flimm at the Staatsoper to the fullest.“ (ARD Radio) This production of “Le nozze di Figaro” is directed by the former artistic director of the Staatsoper Berlin, Jürgen Flimm, who characterizes it as follows: “Figaro is by far the best work ever devised for the stage; it combines everything that moves the human heart and mind – forlorn hope, pleasantry, satire, profound significance, also much ado about nothing and vain amours.” This production with a star-studded ensemble of soloists was Flimm’s third staging of this musical masterpiece, and this time he places the plot in Count Almaviva‘s summer residence – a place where the count spent his childhood, a place full of memories where time has left its marks. It is in this hot atmosphere of summer that the great day unfolds: holidays, sun, sea, pretty women take a fancy to pretty men and pretty men take a fancy to pretty women. A midsummer night‘s dream full of tangled paths and futile longing where the women pull the strings of intrigue with their gentle hands.