Also available on Blu-ray

What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lovers’ arias, show-stopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales.

W. A. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most often performed operas in the world. The 2013/2014 production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than twenty meters in height.

“David Pounty finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’.”-- Tagesspiegel

“The ‘play on the lake’ in Bregenz takes the audience into a fantasy world.” -- Salzburger Nachrichten

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

Sarastro – Alfred Reiter
Tamino – Norman Reinhardt
Königin der Nacht – Ana Durlovski
Pamina – Bernarda Bobro
Papageno – Daniel Schmutzhard
Papagena – Dénise Beck

Prague Philharmonic Chorus
Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Patrick Summers, conductor

David Pountney, stage director
Johan Engels, set designer
Marie-Jeanne Lecca, costume and puppet designer
Fabrice Kebour, lighting designer

Recorded live from the Bregenz Festival, July 2013

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Korean, Chinese
Running time: 150 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Part of the 200th anniversary series "Tutto Verdi," this admirable Ernani starring the likes of Marco Berti and Carlo Guelfi will become the first recording of this work available on Blu-ray. Staged by legendary director Pierluigi Pier'Alli of La Scala fame, this version from the Tetro Regio di Parma is sure to become legend itself!

On the occasion of the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, Teatro Regio de Parma and Unitel Classica have joined forces to create a truly unique project. All of the composer's 26 Operas, as well as the Requiem - which is closely related to the Operas - will be performed and audio visually recorded in and around Parma. For the first time ever, and just in time for the composer's 200th birthday, Verdi's Operatic oeuvre, which comprises the labor of more than 50 years, will be available in High Definition and Surround Sound and released on DVD and Blu-ray by C Major Entertainment. This unique project has been staged by Pier Alli and includes a 10 minute bonus feature with an introduction to the opera.

Lance Ryan, Jennifer Wilson, Juha Uusitalo, Gerhard Siegel, and Catherine Wyn-Rogers star in this production of the Wagner opera with Zubin Mehta conducting the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana.

Fiorenza Cedolins, Sonia Ganassi, Jose Bros, Mirco Palazzi, Marco Caria, and Pervin Chakar star in this Teatro La Fenice production of the Donizetti opera conducted by Fabrizio Maria Carminati.

Peter Seiffert, Matti Salminen, Juha Uusitalo, Petra Maria Schnitzer, Jennifer Wilson, Anna Larsson, Bernadette Flaitz, Helen House Ralston, Pilar Vazquez, Christa Mayer, Eugenia Bethencourt and Heike Groetzinger.

Szymanowski: King Roger

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

Also available on standard DVD


What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lovers’ arias, show-stopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales.

W. A. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most often performed operas in the world. The 2013/2014 production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than twenty meters in height.

“David Pounty finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’.”-- Tagesspiegel

“The ‘play on the lake’ in Bregenz takes the audience into a fantasy world.” -- Salzburger Nachrichten

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

Sarastro – Alfred Reiter
Tamino – Norman Reinhardt
Königin der Nacht – Ana Durlovski
Pamina – Bernarda Bobro
Papageno – Daniel Schmutzhard
Papagena – Dénise Beck

Prague Philharmonic Chorus
Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Patrick Summers, conductor

David Pountney, stage director
Johan Engels, set designer
Marie-Jeanne Lecca, costume and puppet designer
Fabrice Kebour, lighting designer

Recorded live from the Bregenz Festival, July 2013 Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Korean, Chinese
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 players.

Also available on standard DVD

“The Tutto Verdi series, in its goal of being complete, makes it possible to not only hear but see performances of works one seldom encounters outside of Parma, such as Oberto; Alzira (in a 2012 concert version in Dobbiaco)and Attila...

One does not have to be a Verdi completist like me to find a lot to enjoy in Tutto Verdi. The rarities are worth knowing to expand your sense of the composer’s output. The seven operas with Nucci are fascinating on so many levels, not the least of which is that his younger colleagues respond to his work not by being in awe but by allowing themselves to dig deeper and bring their performances to a higher plain than they imagined they were capable of. What would Peppino say?” – Fred Plotkin, WQXR

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On the occasion of the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, the Teatro Regio di Parma and Unitel ClassiCa have joined forces to realize a truly unique project. Up to the Verdi anniversary year 2013, all of the composer’s 26 operas, as well as the Requiem – which is closely related to the operas – will be performed and audiovisually recorded in and around Parma. For the first time ever, and on time for the composer’s anniversary, Verdi’s operatic oeuvre, which comprises the labor of more than 50 years, will be available in high definition and surround sound.

Giuseppe Verdi was born in the little village of Le Roncole in the vicinity of Parma and – even though he celebrated his greatest triumphs in Milan, Venice, Naples, and other cities – spent the longest period of his life in seclusion close to Parma, until his death in Milan in 1901. Today, the region of Parma honors its one-time fellow citizen with the internationally acclaimed Verdi Festival organized by the Teatro Regio di Parma. Every year, Verdi’s masterworks are performed in the historical theaters of Parma and neighboring Busseto over 28 days in the fall. Raising these productions to the level of highly coveted events is the participation of world stars of bel canto such as Leo Nucci, Marcelo Álvarez, Renato Bruson, and Daniela Dessì, and conductors such as Yuri Temirkanov and Gianluigi Gelmetti.

The Teatro Regio was opened during Verdi’s lifetime, in 1829, as the Nuovo Teatro Ducale. It is regarded as one of the most important theaters in italy. Its audiences, in particular, enjoy a very special reputation for being one of the most critical in the world. Many singers report about the fears that gripped them while on the stage, and others about moments of bliss when they were acclaimed there. It is said that tenors who fail on the stage of the Regio are punished even by the porters of the hotels, who refuse to carry their luggage.

A production of Unitel in cooperation with Fondazione Teatro Regio di Parma.Giuseppe Verdi

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TUTTO VERDI – The Operas, Vol. 1 (1839-1846)
(9-blu-ray Box Set)

Oberto (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2007)
Un Giorno di Regno (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)
Nabucco (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2009)
I Lombardi (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2009)
Ernani (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2005)
I Due Foscari (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2009)
Giovanna D’Arco (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2008)
Alzira (Alto Adige Festival, 2012)
Attila (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)

Bonus:
- Introduction to each opera

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 18 hours 41 mins (operas) + 1 hour 30 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 9

The composer's great-granddaughter was keen to stage Cord Garben's abridged version of the cycle at the Teatro Colin in Buenos Aires, but in the event things turned out rather differently. The present documentary provides a thrilling and visually memorable account of the long journey taken by this version from it's inception to the first night.

Classical Music

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

Also available on standard DVD

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer, Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Arabella (premiered 1933, Dresden) was the last of the half dozen Strauss works to feature a libretto by the great Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production, from the most recent Salzburg Easter Festival is, after Capriccio, the second of three Richard Strauss operas C Major is releasing in honor of the composer’s birth, life and work. The star-laden cast includes soprano Renèe Fleming, baritone Thomas Hampson, Albert Dohmen (Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, MET) and Gabriela Benacková (Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden). With Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, “the music of Richard Strauss is in the best of hands.” (ORF) “Thielemann gets the best out of the cast...especially Renée Fleming with her “luxurious” soprano …” FAZ

Richard Strauss
ARABELLA
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Graf Waldner - Albert Dohmen
Adelaide - Gabriela Be?a?ková
Arabella - Renée Fleming
Zdenka - Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Mandryka - Thomas Hampson
Matteo - Daniel Behle

Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden
(chorus master: Wolfram Tetzner)
Staatskapelle Dresden
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Florentine Klepper, stage director
Martina Segna, set designer
Anna Sofie Tuma, costume designer
Bernd Purkrabek, lighting designer
Volker Michl, choreographer

Recorded live at Salzburg Easter Festival, 2014

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 178 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

C Major continues it's Tutto Verdi edition with his Messa da Requiem. This film includes a 52-minute bonus documentary introducing US to Verdi's beautiful homeland, the region of Parma; from the little village where Verdi was born, to the estate close to Parma where Verdi always came back to and chose to spend most of his life.

Available for the first time on Blu-ray, the lesser known Verdi opera I due Foscari is ready for appreciation by a new generation. A great cast with the likes of Leo Nucci and Roberto de Biasio is assembled at the Teatro Regio di Parma as part of the 200th anniversary series "Tutto Verdi". FAZ notes "This is how Verdi should be played".

This fascinating release of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 stands apart from any other recording of the work. This is the first time that the magnificent piece has been recorded in HD and 5.0 surround sound, offering the most outstanding sound quality available today. Christian Thielemann leads the Wiener Philharmoniker in this moving interpretation. “Thielemann’s reading of the Beethoven symphonies stands heads and shoulders above the countless and mostly undistinguishable versions on offer.” (Die Presse) This performance is accompanied by an hour-long documentary featuring the conductor and Germany’s foremost music critic, Professor Joachim Kaiser. The film provides insights into Beethoven’s thinking, as well as interpretal comparisons from conductors like Karajan, Bernstein, and Jarvi.