R E V I E W S of some of the recordings that make up this set:

It's always fascinating to go back to the early recordings of artists who are firmly ensconced in the classical music pantheon. Such is the case with this recording of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos made by Itzhak Perlman in the late 1960s.
The Tchaikovsky concerto was written for virtuoso violinist Leopold Auer who actually thought the work unplayable. The young Perlman brings passion and flash to the concerto; his playing is suitably poetic in its sentimental moments and fiery in its finale. Sibelius's concerto was written about the same time that he wrote his second symphony. Perlman grasps the concerto's romantic soul while standing up to its demanding modernist technical challenges. As an added bonus the recording includes Dvorák's Romance, a gentle idyll that displays Perlman's lovely legato playing. -- MUZE [review of RCA 63591]

This album continues the tribute to classic film music from John Williams and Itzhak Perlman's CINEMA SERENADE disc. It is an undeniably old-fashioned and romantic album, befitting the era the music is drawn from. On "As Time Goes By" from CASABLANCA, Perlman proves that he's still one of the world's premier concert violinists, playing the theme with palpable ache. Most of these compositions are by the classic film composers--Alfred Newman, Miklós Rózsa, Max Steiner--with one notable exception. William Walton's theme for HENRY V gets a suitably regal, yet restrained, treatment. Perlman sounds as if he's having a good time with the sprightly Irish motifs of "The Quiet Man." The orchestrations are rich and dramatic, and the recording quality is superb. This album is highly recommended to anyone who remembers when a soundtrack was more than just a bunch of flavor-of-the-month pop tunes. -- MUZE [review of SONY 60773]

Prokofiev's F minor Sonata—surely his greatest chamber work—opens bleakly, then flowers to harmonic richness before switching to a sharp-edged Allegro brusco, a deeply introspective Andante and a closing Allegrissimo that recalls (or anticipates, depending on its precise chronology in Prokofiev's thinking) the finale of the great Eighth Piano Sonata... Perlman's is an immensely assured, sweet-centred reading, delicate where needs be (the ''wind in a graveyard'' passages of the first movement, for example) and yet with a Heifetzian resilience that both sonatas willingly respond to... When it comes to the delightful Second Sonata—of rather less import, and a second-hand utterance (the original was for flute and piano)—Perlman and Ashkenazy play with astonishing virtuosity and here their visceral virtues win hands down, especially in the Scherzo... the playing has real class, the recording is clean and there's a substantial bonus in Perlman's accomplished 1966 version of the Second Violin Concerto, where Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony trace and characterize the score's every subtle detail—especially among the woodwind. That, for me, is the disc's most indelible interpretative feature. -- Gramophone [review of RCA 61454]

When Sony Classicals new complete Brahms cycle with Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic was first released, the Baltimore Sun reviewer referred to a marriage of passion performances fine enough to recommend to any listener who wants his Brahms in a single collection. The Symphony No. 1 receives a heroic, turbulent performance in which Mehta and the fine orchestra of which he was long ago appointed music-director-for-life keep raising the thermostat until in the final movement they all but blow the roof off. The Symphony No. 2, which receives a similarly passionate performance, may be even better. Nos. 3 and 4, the reviewer goes on to say, are also beautiful. This major new reissue also contains the Haydn Variations and Tragic Overture.

Beethoven's symphonic cycle is one of the most quintessential in the Western classical canon. They chart a course from the influence of Haydn and Classical models in the early symphonies; through works of startling innovation and the birth of Romanticism; to his monumental Ninth Symphony for soloists; chorus and orchestra. Zubin Mehta conducts the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in these live recordings from 2021/22.

Selections from the star tenor's early recital recordings, including music of Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, and more.

This very special release includes the legendary concert of the Original Three Tenors - José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, conducted by Zubin Mehta at the Terme di Caracalla, Rome 1990 on the eve of the Football World Cup in Italy, watched by 1.6 billion spectators worldwide. For the first time available on Blu-ray, digitally remastered! This edition includes the new documentary The Three Tenors - From Caracalla to the World featuring recent interviews with José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Zubin Mehta, Pavarotti‘s widow Nicoletta Mantovani, Lalo Shifrin, Brian Large, Mario Dradi, Paul Potts, Sir Bryn Terfel, Norman Lebrecht, Didier de Cottignies and many more. Previously unpublished backstage material shows the tenors unadorned and offers a fascinating insight into what takes place beyond the spotlight in Rome, 1990 and the sequel in Los Angeles, 1994. The film takes a completely new look at the concert legends. For the first time, they talk about José Carreras‘ struggles with leukemia, their rivalries and friendships, their spectacular contract poker and life as an opera star.

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)

Giuseppe Verdi was well on the way towards renown and prosperity when he took up the story of Violetta, a famed courtesan whose intensely romantic and colorful but tragically brief life marked the emergence of realism into Italian opera. Verdi and Alexandre Dumas intended this melodrama to have a contemporary setting, and David Livermore’s stunning production maintains this wish by placing his elegant and powerful cast firmly into the 20th century. This alchemy of masterful acting, vivid bel canto voices and the vitality of Zubin Mehta’s conducting results in a triumphant and unforgettably poignant operatic experience.

Sony Classical announces a further batch of complete recordings from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor catalogues. The newest installment of this popular series features some unusual repertoire as well as documents of the New York Metropolitan Opera in its postwar heyday. Mozart’s Figaro is here too, sung by “a delightfully fresh-sounding” Michele Pertusi (BBC Music Magazine) in Zubin Mehta’s 1992 recording of Le nozze di Figaro with the Maggio Musicale of Florence. The BBC reviewer lauded “Mehta’s energising sense of pace and colour [and] consistently good orchestral playing,” and Gramophone was also highly enthusiastic, writing that it “sounds like the performers were enjoying themselves. Save the Countess and Susanna, they’re all Italians (oddly rare on disc). This lends bubbling virtuosity to the Italian librettist’s exchanges for Lucio Gallo’s Count and Michele Pertusi’s Figaro…And both Karita Mattila [the Countess] and Marie McLaughlin [Susanna] are so at home with their mistress/servant roles.”

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REVIEW:

Zubin Mehta leads this modern-instrument performance that features characterful individual performances and an unusual variant of the Count’s aria for the vivid Lucio Gallo.

– BBC Music Magazine

This box contains one of the most famous complete recording of Aida as well as one of the few testimony of Franco Corelli performing a complete Verdian opera, in the modern interpretation by Zubin Mehta. Zubin Mehta received his first musical education under his father’s guidance, who was a noted concert violinist and the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of pre-medical studies in Bombay, he left for Vienna in 1954 where he eventually entered the conducting program under Hans Swarowsky at the Akademie für Musik. Zubin Mehta won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition in 1958 and was also a prize-winner of the summer academy at Tanglewood. By 1961 he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and has recently celebrated 50 years of musical collaboration with all three ensembles. The present recording was made in 1966.

Inspired by hearing performances of Handel’s oratorios during his visits to London, Haydn composed Die Schöpfung (‘The Creation’) in 1798. Through a series of accompanied recitatives, arias, duets and choruses, the music depicts the creation of the universe and the carefree existence of Adam and Eve. Haydn drew on the full complement of his symphonic and vocal prowess which reach peaks of almost operatic intensity. With rich harmonies and sonic magnificence in abundance, Die Schöpfung represents the apex of the Viennese oratorio tradition.

Also available on Blu-ray

“The cast is a dream team,” wrote the Financial Times after the premiere of this production of Verdi’s La forza del destino at the Wiener Staatsoper. Verdi’s 1862 opera is regularly performed and the overture is part of the standard repertoire for orchestras, but this production stands apart from the rest. Powerful performances by Nina Stemme, who gives a fullblooded portrayal of Leonora, Alastair Miles as her father, Salvatore Licitra as Alvaro, Carlos Álvarez as Don Carlo and Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla resulted in one of the Viennese ensemble’s most celebrated achievements of recent years. Zubin Mehta leads the Staatsoper Orchestra with agility, subtleness and relaxed mastery, and right from the start David Pountney establishes an atmosphere of entrapment by fate. “A perfect utopia.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

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REVIEW:

Tenor Salvatore Licitra as Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, captured in Vienna 10 years ago - his singing is admirably clean, his tone noble. Alongside him, Nina Stemme is a gutsy Leonora, assiduously following the score’s markings, Carlos Álvarez an outstanding Don Carlo, Alistair Miles a firm and cleanly- sung Padre Guardiano.

– Opera Now

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DETAILS:

Subtitles: Italian, Eng., Ger., Ff., Sp., Kr,Cn
Booklet: English, German, French
Run time: 161 minutes
Disc Format: DVD9
Picture: NTSC 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

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.

One of our day’s most legendary performers, pianist Rudolph Buchbinder has been appearing on stages all over the globe for the last fifty years. Later this year, in celebration of his 70th birthday, he will be honored in numerous concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, Suntory hall, and the Berliner Philharmonie. The Kurier newspaper described this performance with rave reviews. “It is not every day that Brahms sounds so perfect as this.” (Kurier) They also praised Buchbinder as a “phenomenal piano virtuoso.” In the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta, Buchbinder performs for this release the First and Second Piano Concertos of Johannes Brahms. These works demand a soloist with a wide range of both interpretal refinement and technical skill, both of which Buchbinder brings to the table. “What Rudolph Buchbinder, the Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Zubin Mehta delivered at the Musikverein easily deserves the accolade ‘milestone’.” (Kurier)

"This is a production to cherish, brilliantly realised for DVD, which should be in the collections of all serious Wagnerians. I suspect the Valencia Ring may well turn out to be the classical DVD event of the year." -- MusicWeb International

Richard Wagner
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN

DAS RHEINGOLD

Wotan – Juha Uusitalo
Donner – Ilya Bannik
Froh – Germán Villar
Loge – John Daszak
Alberich – Franz-Josef Kapellmann
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Fasolt – Matti Salminen
Fafner – Stephen Milling
Fricka – Anna Larsson
Freia – Sabina von Walther
Erda – Christa Mayer
Woglinde – Silvia Vázquez
Wellgunde – Ann-Katrin Naidu
Flosshilde – Hanna Esther Minutillo

DIE WALKÜRE

Siegmund – Peter Seiffert
Hunding – Matti Salminen
Wotan – Juha Uusitalo
Sieglinde – Petra-Maria Schnitzer
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Fricka – Anna Larsson
Gerhilde – Bernadette Flaitz
Ortlinde – Helen Huse Ralston
Waltraute – Pilar Vázquez
Schwertleite – Christa Mayer
Helmwige – Eugenia Bethencourt
Siegrune – Heike Grötzinger
Grimgerde – Manuela Bress
Rossweisse – Hannah Ester Minutillo

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2008.

SIEGFRIED

Siegfried – Lance Ryan
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Der Wanderer – Juha Uusitalo
Alberich – Franz-Joseph Kapellmann
Fafner – Stephen Milling
Erda – Catherine Wyn-Rogers
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Waldvogel – Marina Zyatkova

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2008.

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

Siegfried – Lance Ryan
Gunther – Ralf Lukas
Alberich – Franz-Josef Kapellmann
Hagen – Mattil Salminen
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Gutrune – Elisabete Matos
Waltraute – Catherine Wyn-Rogers
First Norn – Daniela Denschlag
Second Norn – Pilar Vázquez
Third Norn – Eugenia Bethencourt
Woglinde- Silvia Vázquez
Wellgunde – Ann-Katrin Naidu
Flosshilde – Marina Prudenskaja

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2009.

Valencia Regional Government Choir (Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana)
Valencian Community Orchestra (Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana)
Zubin Mehta, conductor

La Fura del Baus, staging
Carlus Padrissa, stage director

Bonus:
- The Making of the Ring

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 (opera) / Dolby Digital 2.0 (bonus)
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, French, English, Spanish (opera) / English (bonus) Booklet notes: German, French, English
Running time: 15 hours 52 mins (opera) + 1 hour 48 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 8 (DVD 9)

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2007.

Also available on Blu-ray

Also available on Blu-ray

“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...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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Giuseppe Verdi
TUTTO VERDI – The Operas, Vol. 3 (1855–1893)
(11-DVD Box Disc Set)

I Vespri Siciliani (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)
Simon Boccanegra (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2010)
Un Ballo in Maschera (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)
La Forza del Destino (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)
Don Carlo (Teatro Comunale di Modena, 2012)
Aida (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2012)
Otello (Salzburg Festival, 2008)
Falstaff (Teatro Regio di Parma, 2011)

Bonus:
- Introduction to each opera

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 20 hours 41 mins (operas) + 1 hour 27 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 11 (DVD 9)

Drawn from the worldwide holdings of Sony Classical Music and re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio, these smart, desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import multi-disc editions, replete with legendary artists, offer many of the finest, most sought-after recordings in the classical discography.The slender, shelf-friendly box frontages feature large, prominently displayed photos of the edition’s featured artist, work listings at the back, with the CDs themselves housed in protective sleeves that divulge the recording specifics for each performance.

This CD contains both analogue and digital recordings.

It is good to have Pinchas Zukerman returning to the Beethoven Violin Concerto. It was in the late 1970s that he made his earlier DG recording with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a fine spacious reading, which I have unfortunately not had a chance to hear on CD format. The comparison with the LP brings home an extra depth in the new reading. If in the earlier version the characteristic warmth of Zukerman's tone marked the whole performance, this one brings greater emphasis on purity and refinement. The violin sound has less fat on it, and in this work that helps to convey an extra inner intensity. Such passages as the coda of the first movement are the more poignant in their seeming simplicity of expression, hushed to an extreme pianissimo. Zukerman is also stricter with himself over maintaining steady speeds, again purifying his concept. The result may be more disciplined, but it is never too rigid, with even the opening of the finale on the main rondo theme given a sense of gentle communing, not as outward-going as before. The recording helps, with the solo violin less forwardly balanced, and though the playing of the tuttis fails to match the soloist in intensity, the orchestra comes alive the moment he enters.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [11/1992]
reviewing the Violin Concerto, originally released as RCA 61219

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Collegium Aureum records are valuable as practical musicology, and it is irrelevant to say you prefer your Beethoven on modern instruments; this disc is a supplement, not a takeover bid. Badura-Skoda, who presumably directs the small band from the keyboard, plays a Broadwood Grand of 1816 and you soon get used to its tinny quality. Franzjosef Maier has his marvellous unmodernized Guarnerius of 1726, and like the excellent cellist he eschews vibrato. It is sometimes thought that when the balance fails in Beethoven the fault lies with our modern instruments but as this record shows this is not necessarily the case. Semiquavers in the bass of orchestral tuttis are still inaudible (as in the first climax of the first movement) and in the development when the soloists are all playing loud triplet quavers you can't hear the thematic fragments on the woodwind; you never can, and I suppose Beethoven is to blame. Old instruments can create as many problems as hey solve. This Broadwood Grand does not smother as much detail on other instruments as a modern piano, but it does not impinge on our consciousness as it should in its very first entry. One bonus is the sot/a race effect Beethoven asks for in the finale (modern instruments are never so self-effacing) and another is the proper sound of a Beethoven-period sustaining pedal being held through the last three bars. There is some very good playing from all three soloists in this finale. I suspected a slightly closer microphone was being used in the cadenza, but in general they have been under-emphasized by the recording engineers to help produce an early nineteenth-century sound. The whole disc provides a most rewarding experience.

-- Gramophone [8/1978]
reviewing the original LP release of the Triple Concerto

This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.

Inspired by hearing performances of Handel’s oratorios during his visits to London, Haydn composed Die Schöpfung (‘The Creation’) in 1798. Through a series of accompanied recitatives, arias, duets and choruses, the music depicts the creation of the universe and the carefree existence of Adam and Eve. Haydn drew on the full complement of his symphonic and vocal prowess which reach peaks of almost operatic intensity. With rich harmonies and sonic magnificence in abundance, Die Schöpfung represents the apex of the Viennese oratorio tradition.

What poses the greater danger for a young violinist? Recording unusual repertoire that will appeal only to a few (unfamiliar showpieces by obscure composers, avant-garde repertoire, manuscript Baroque works, and on and on) or taking the plunge and recording the 198th and 206th (not actual numbers) versions of war-horses committed to disc in this decade alone that will, again, appeal to only a few? What?s a young man to do? Nicolaj Znaider has chosen to record Beethoven?s Violin Concerto and to couple it with Mendelssohn?s. The two concertos, he contends (in snippets from an interview that Eric Wen included in the booklet) call forth the essential qualities a violinist must possess. At one time, critics?reserving judgment to find out how they later met more substantive challenges?tended to give short shrift to violinists who initially recorded less than significant repertoire. Of course, the bold and the brave would then be mercilessly compared with Heifetz, Szigeti, Oistrakh, Milstein, Francescatti, and others. Znaider has strong partners in Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, who play with abundant nuance in Mendelssohn?s Concerto and with powerful solidity to Beethoven?s. Occasionally, even seemingly ordinary phrases in Mendelssohn?s Concerto benefit from their attention, which consistently sets Znaider in a warmly nurturing context. And the monumental opening tutti (as Mehta and the Orchestra make it) throws a strong spotlight on the soloist in its equally prepossessing entry. The engineers? balance of soloist and orchestra (Znaider?s far enough forward to be clearly prominent yet not unnaturally dominant) provides an ideal. Znaider plays the 1704 ex-Liebig Stradivari, on loan to him, with sleek elegance, producing an even response in all registers. His sound?s never quite lush, but it?s commanding and appropriately subtle. When he?s unaccompanied in Beethoven?s first movement, his flexible tone production doesn?t require an underlying blanket to convey harmonic meaning. If he doesn?t sound sprightly in Mendelssohn?s Concerto, he never forces the piece into the Procrustean bed of late-Romantic expressivity, either. His playing?s never supercharged, like Maxim Vengerov?s (which, of course, risks mannerism), and it just as seldom flows so naturally as did Anne-Sophie Mutter?s early interpretations. But his technique shows itself to advantage in Kreisler?s first-movement cadenza, which he strops to a keen technical edge but also graces with penetrating musical insight. Has he solved the problem he explicitly set himself in Beethoven?s Concerto?making the omnipresent scales and arpeggios assigned to the violinist serve structural ends? In collaboration with Mehta and the orchestra, he?s made a good stab at it. These readings seem undergirded by a strong partnership and, in themselves, display all the virtues. What could be missing? My grandmother told my father about how easily recognizable Kreisler?s manner had been. Vengerov and Mutter, though not so individual as Heifetz or Oistrakh, can still be picked out after careful listening. Some violinists seek to solve musical problems, believing that in their solution they will find the Holy Grail. Breughel?s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus portrays the small figure of Icarus falling in a vast landscape, with all the countryside simply going about its own business. Of course, Icarus hadn?t solved his technical problems; but if he had, and had continued to soar, would the folk be portrayed watching him? Heifetz could bolt everybody to attention with a few notes, and I?m not sure that he did so by dint of having solved intellectual problems. What will my son tell his children about Nicolaj Znaider?


For anyone seeking this particular partnership of great violin concertos (and it?s not the most common coupling?the last Schwann Opus lists only several examples, some of these in sets) Znaider?s offers such a wealth of musical and violinistic virtues, that nobody could withhold a recommendation. But still, some unfulfilled desire to discern a personality, a human face with recognizable features, prompts me to issue that recommendation with less enthusiasm than the musical merits of the performances might otherwise deserve.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Beethoven: The 5 Piano Concertos & Choral Fantasy

Richard Wagner
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

Siegfried – Lance Ryan
Gunther – Ralf Lukas
Alberich – Franz-Josef Kapellmann
Hagen – Mattil Salminen
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Gutrune – Elisabete Matos
Waltraute – Catherine Wyn-Rogers
First Norn – Daniela Denschlag
Second Norn – Pilar Vázquez
Third Norn – Eugenia Bethencourt
Woglinde- Silvia Vázquez
Wellgunde – Ann-Katrin Naidu
Flosshilde – Marina Prudenskaja

Valencia Regional Government Choir (Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana)
Valencian Community Orchestra (Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana)
Zubin Mehta, conductor

La Fura del Baus, staging
Carlus Padrissa, stage director

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2009.

Bonus feature:
- The making of Götterdämmerung

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 (opera) / Dolby Digital 2.0 (bonus)
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, French, English, Spanish (opera) / English (bonus)
Booklet notes: German, French, English
Running time: 280 mins (opera) + 27 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 2 (DVD 9)

Richard Wagner 
DIE WALKÜRE

Siegmund – Peter Seiffert
Hunding – Matti Salminen
Wotan – Juha Uusitalo
Sieglinde – Petra-Maria Schnitzer
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Fricka – Anna Larsson
Gerhilde – Bernadette Flaitz
Ortlinde – Helen Huse Ralston
Waltraute – Pilar Vázquez
Schwertleite – Christa Mayer
Helmwige – Eugenia Bethencourt
Siegrune – Heike Grötzinger
Grimgerde – Manuela Bress
Rossweisse – Hannah Ester Minutillo

Valencian Community Orchestra (Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana)
Zubin Mehta, conductor

La Fura del Baus, staging
Carlus Padrissa, stage director

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2008.

Bonus feature:
- The making of Die Walküre

Picture format: 1080i Full HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (opera) / Dolby Digital 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, French, English, Spanish (opera) / English (bonus)
Booklet notes: German, French, English
Running time: 245 mins (opera) + 27 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

Richard Wagner 
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN
(Highlights)

Wotan / Der Wanderer – Juha Uusitalo
Loge – John Daszak
Alberich – Franz-Josef Kapellmann
Fasolt / Hunding – Matti Salminen
Fafner – Stephen Milling
Fricka – Anna Larsson
Erda / Schwertleite – Christa Mayer
Siegmund – Peter Seiffert
Sieglinde – Petra-Maria Schnitzer
Brünnhilde – Jennifer Wilson
Siegfried – Lance Ryan
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Waltraute / Erda – Catherine Wyn-Rogers

Valencia Regional Government Choir (Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana) Valencian Community Orchestra (Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana) Zubin Mehta, conductor

La Fura del Baus, staging
Carlus Padrissa, stage director

Recorded live from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofia", Valencia, Spain, 2007-2009.

Special budget-priced DVD
100 minutes of the most stunning visual and musical highlights of this production by La Fura dels Baus, including two new documentaries about Franc Aleu and Carlus Padrissa.

Bonus:
- Portraits of Carlus Pardissa and Franc Aleu

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: DTS 5.1 (highlights) / PCM Stereo (bonus)
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, French, English, Spanish (highlights) / English (bonus)
Running time: 100 mins (highlights) + 30 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

It might seem I am about to trash this issue but I am actually very impressed by the Valencia Ring so do please read on.

The DVD menu and title sequence is accompanied by music, which is to be deplored. Please can we have silence in these places on concert and opera videos. No one wants to hear the same truncated chunks over and over again whilst trying to work through the labyrinth to get DTS5.1 instead of stereo and subtitles in the right language. The sound is only in PCM stereo anyway on this section just to add to the confusion. The transitions between sections are handled by simple fade-outs; disruptive if you know the music well but what else can one do in The Ring? The length of pauses is variable from almost nothing to several seconds. Though the extracts are in dramatic order there is no indication of where you are in the operas nor is there any hint that one has changed opera, just randomly timed fades in and out. The worst example is the end of Act 1 of The Valkyrie which stops barely a couple of seconds before a chunk of Act 2. I suspect the tea-boy was in charge of post production. I am relieved to say all is well apart from these technical blots and since the music and production are so entertaining, and the sound and picture is so good, one can forgive Unitel these flaws. Do keep the booklet to hand whilst viewing and don't even bother with this DVD if you don't have another complete recording in your collection because you will get hopelessly lost without a plot summary.

Most opera productions are characterised by their appearance rather than by the performance. It is almost impossible to ignore what you are seeing and it often clashes with what you are hearing. To my knowledge only Bruckner managed to get through The Ring without noticing that there were costumes and scenery involved! The Valencia production is no different. It is dominated by huge video projections throughout and the DVD production often takes advantage of these to add its own layers of image for dramatic effect. Stage lighting is extremely dramatic which enhances the startling images still more. If you like to see people standing and singing against a plain background à la Bayreuth 1960s then you will hate it because this one really grasps the technical challenge and goes with it. The singing is of uniformly high quality and the conducting of Zubin Mehta is fine so long as you do not expect Solti's fierce drive. The orchestra are excellent and even get a scene for themselves in the prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried. Since you will only buy this to check if it is to be love or hate so far as you are concerned before either ignoring it forever, or ordering the entire cycle on Blu-ray, these are some of the delights in store.

Loge has a great little motor scooter with which to run rings around the rest of the cast literally as well as figuratively. The costumes are complicated and often look very heavy which makes the little cranes used on and off through the cycle to carry characters around the stage very understandable. Act 1 of The Valkyrie has a wonderfully effective and very subtle tree which bears careful study. This creation looms over a decidedly stone-age looking Sieglinde and a very tough Siegmund. These two Walsungs look highly dangerous to me and must have posed a serious problem for Hunding. Since we don't see him at all in these extracts we have no idea how he handles them. The Ride of the Valkyries looks fantastic and is well performed against huge and effective video backdrops. Lots of work for the cranes here! The ring of fire which Wotan places around Brunnhilde is a proper inferno as is the fire for Siegfried's forge which looks positively dangerous. Siegfried by the way can sing well but is a patchy actor as seen here. The forge is animated by many stage hands so that Notung appears to be a product of a busy factory rather than one superman. So much for Siegfried facing down Wotan's plans single-handed but since the helpers look like the Nibelung slaves in The Rhinegold it can be seen as logical. I wasn't so taken by Fafner who looks more like an articulated ventilation duct than anything supernatural but some productions even leave him out, such are the challenges of staging this part. Bayreuth once had the entire stage start to writhe, an effect of such impact that all others pall. The prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried has a massive back-projection of snow-covered mountains and eventually of the whole Earth from which Erda emerges in a moment of highly consequent majesty. Siegfried travels down the Rhine on a river of plastic drinks bottles which is utterly bizarre but does actually work - just believe me! The closing scene also manages to be consequent and we see Brunnhilde, on a crane, returning the Ring to the Rhine maidens before disappearing into the conflagration. The producers use lots of gymnasts in this and other scenes to great dramatic effect and the end here is close to awe-inspiring.

The 100 minutes of opera on the DVD is joined by 30 minutes of supporting documentary material. After some preliminary tele-visual nonsense one film describes the way the directorial team worked up their ideas to fulfil Wagner's intentions and sometimes his explicit instructions - now there's a novel idea - to do what the composer says. Others take note! The other film is about the important lighting design. Both are worth one's time.

A superb marketing tool for the entire cycle available on DVD and on Blu-ray. This performance and production is a great success overall and this DVD needs watching just once before you go out and buy the whole thing.

-- Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

Also available on Blu-ray

Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece Aida at La Scala in Milan is an experience in itself. Consequently, this new production is an event barely to be surpassed, especially when played before La Scala's notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public.

Giuseppe Verdi
AIDA

Il Re - Carlo Colombara
Amneris - Anita Rachvelishvili
Aida - Kristin Lewis
Radamès - Fabio Sartori
Ramfis - Matti Salminen
Amonasro - George Gagnidze
Messaggero - Azer Rza-Zada
La Gran Sacerdotessa - Chiara Isotton

Milan La Scala Ballet
Milan La Scala Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Bruno Casoni)
Zubin Mehta, conductor

Peter Stein, stage director
Ferdinand Wögerbauer, set designer
Nanà Cecchi, costumer designer
Joachim Barth, lightning designer
Massimiliano Volpini, choreographer

Recorded from Teatro alla Scala, 2015

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, German, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 151 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

This DVD box include some of the most operas popular Italian operas as Aida from Bregenz Festival, Madama Butterfly, Turandot staged by Chen Kaige, La Traviata and Rigoletto