This opera, which had fallen into oblivion, was revived in 1973 in the Dutch city of Zaanstad (the Saardam of the libretto) and staged at Bergamo's Teatro Sociale as part of the Donizetti Festival in a new critical edition made for the Donizetti Foundation by Alberto Sonzogni. In the plot, the Tsar Peter the Great works incognito as a carpenter at the shipyard of Sardaam to acquire technical knowledge to carry back home. On the podium, the knowledgeable Roberto Rizzi Brignoli leads the orchestra of the Donizetti Opera, assisted by the internationally renowned cinema director Davide Ferrario. In the cast, Andrea Concetti (a successful artist who has sung throughout the world) is joined by singers who are emerging in the belcanto repertoire, such as Giorgio Caoduro, Juan Francisco Gatell, Irina Dubrovskaya and Aya Wakizono.

IL CROCIATO IN EGITTO

This comic opera tells the story of Geronimo, a wealthy citizen of Bologna, who is trying to arrange aristocratic marriages for his two daughters, Carolina and Elisetta. What he doesn�t know is that his youngest daughter Carolina is already secretly married to Paolino, his young secretary. Through a series of humorous situations the young couple confess their marriage and all ends well. Giovanni Antonini conducts the Wallonie Royal Opera Orchestra for this performance of Cimarosa's two-act comic opera 'Il Matrimonio Segreto' ('The Clandestine Wedding'), recorded live at Liege in February 2008. Soloists include Cinzia Forte, Priscille Laplace and Damiana Pinti. Directed by Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera. Starring Cinzia Forte, Alberto Rinaldi, Damiana Pinti. Language: Italian Subtitles: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish

Originally released in 2009. Starring Catia Pizzi, Carlo Torriani, Carina Isabel Calafiura.

Alessandro Scarlatti's Il trionfo dell'onore (The Triumph of Honour) - his only comic opera - was first performed in Naples in 1718. With it's distinctive recitatives and expressive arias, and a cast including four pairs of lovers, it can be considered one of the forerunners of opera buffa. The central character is the unrepentant seducer Riccardo Albenori, a Don Giovanni-like figure though without the villainous aura. In this opera, Scarlatti ensures not only perceptive psychology but a rich variety of arias, duets and quartets that generate the work's pathos as well as it's humour and eroticism.

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore, based on the eponymous play by Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez, takes us to 15th c. northern Spain to witness the tragic destiny of those under the control of Azucena, who is seeking to avenge the death of his mother. + The first percussion notes are solemn, setting the tone for Verdi’s masterpiece, whose main themes include abandonment, passion, power, love for one’s parents and vengeance. + This production marked the debut of Russian stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov at La Monnaie and the first Verdi interpretation by Marc Minkowski.

IL TROVATORE

Despite the tragedy that dogged him for most of his career, Chet delivered spellbinding performances to the very end, like this 1985 concert featuring Candy; Love for Sale; Tempus Fugit; Bye Bye Blackbird; My Romance and more.

With Montreal Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit. Mussourgsky: "Songs and Dances of Death", arias by Verdi, Rossini. 1998 concert.

The artist and New York City resident Art Spiegelman drew the comic board book in the Shadow of No Towers immediately after the September 11th attacks.

Joyce DiDonato: In War and Peace - Harmony Through Music (DVD) Recorded live in June 2017 at the magnificent Liceu Theatre in Barcelona, this DVD is the companion to Joyce DiDonato's award-winning album In War and Peace: Harmony through Music. Seeking answers to the existential question "In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?", it makes a compelling piece of music theatre as DiDonato journeys through arias by Handel, Purcell, Monteverdi, Leo and Jommelli with Il Pomo d'Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. On stage, In War and Peace: Harmony through Music makes a compelling piece of music theatre. In Barcelona, as on the European and North American tours she made in late 2016, DiDonato was joined by the baroque orchestra Il Pomo d'Oro and it's principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. May and June 2018 bring further performances in Portugal, France, Germany, Turkey and Hungary. Includes Bonuses: Joyce DiDonato presents "In War & Peace" project. Joyce DiDonato in Athens with el Sistema Greece directed by Josh Allott. Video Clip Lascia ch'io pianga directed by James Darrah

An outstanding recital by Ukrainian-Israeli-American pianist, live in Havana, Cuba

Richard Strauss described his two-act opera 'Intermezzo' as a 'bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes'. The soprano role of Christine with her shimmering cantilenas represents Strauss's wife Pauline, while the successful Court Conductor Robert Storch is Richard Strauss's alter ego in a reality drama that was avant-garde for it's time. This acclaimed production from director Tobias Kratzer brings 'Intermezzo' into the present day, highlighting Strauss's own clever switches between reality and fiction with stunning visual effects and a superbly characterful cast.

For the past several years, Isabelle Faust has been exploring Johann Sebastian Bach's music for the violin. First came her recording of the solo Sonatas and Partitas, which earned widespread acclaim. It was followed by the sonatas for violin and harpsichord, violin concertos and transcriptions, and the Brandenburg Concertos. Each reading was marked by equal freshness, an unfailing sense of rediscovery, precision, and generosity. Isabelle Faust here regales us with a treasure that reveals a thrilling story. A bonus DVD, recorded at the Leipzig Thomaskirche, next to it's most famous Cantor's tomb, completes this monumental tribute.

ITALIANS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF SINGING

MUSICAL JOURNEY - ITALY: A Musical Tour of the Southern Tyrol

The Places
The Southern Tyrol was in earlier times part of the Habsburg Empire, governed from Vienna, and ceded to Italy in 1919. The region remains largely German-speaking and enjoys a considerable degree of autonomy. Of particular interest are the rock-formations of the Dolomites and the many castles and fortified houses of the province. The tour shows two historic buildings, Scholss Velthurns and Schloss Runkelstein.

The Music Music for thebr> tour is by Mozart, born in Salzburg in 1756. With his father, Leopold Mozart, Vice-Kapellmeister in Salzburg, he made three notable visits to Italy, and on various occasions broke his journey at Bozen (Bolzano) and visited Brixen (Bressanone). The music heard here is the Posthorn Serenade, written in Salzburg in 1779, and the Notturno, another serenade, written there in the winter of 1776–77.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 59 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Siena, Pisa, and Villa Luxuro, Nervi.

The tale of a quick witted fox and her escape from confinement for a life in the forest that is by turns joyful and violent, The Cunning Little Vixen is an unsentimental parable of death and rebirth that lives through the instinctive and immediate world of nature, animal and human, which Janacek loved so much. Melly Stil's production for Glyndebourne find the "delicate balance between whimsy and mysticism" (Daily Telegraph) at the heart of the opera, which Vladimir Jurowski conducts "with lustrous style: you can hear the birds in the score, feel the sunshine and thrill to the starlit night sky in the final scene." (Opera Today)

Melly Still, stage director

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, June 2012

Bonus:
- Creating Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen

• Picture format: NTSC 16:9
• Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
• Region code: 0 (worldwide)
• Subtitles: English, French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Korean
• Running time: 119 mins
• No. of DVDs: 1
  

REVIEW:

The leading roles in this performance are sung by Lucy Crowe as the vixen (whose name is Sharp Ears), Sergei Leiferkus as the forester who tries to domesticate her, and Emma Bell as the fox that Sharp Ears meets after escaping back to her forest, marries (at a ceremony conducted by a grasshopper), and bears more children than she can count (only eight of which we see on stage). It is also important to observe that costume designer Dinah Collin chose to capture animals by a combination of suggestion and connotation. Both vixen and fox are identified primarily by their tails (which is also how we in the audience learn of Sharp Ears’ ultimate fate); but the rest of the costume tends to portray them as Gypsies, which is to say characters not quite at home in their own land.

The instrumental side of the score is provided by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, Music Director at Glyndebourne and Principal Conductor of the LPO. He conducts with a keen sense of how Janáček tends to direct the flow of his music through the modulation of energy levels. While Jurowski is Russian, he also seems to have informed himself of the extent to which Janáček evokes Czech folk idioms, allowing the score to establish its unique position between symphonic music and indigenous source material.

Most importantly, however, this is an opera that takes a fairy-tale-like narrative and serves it up as a visual and auditory feast; and this Glyndebourne production delivers exquisitely on both visual and auditory levels.

-- SF Examiner

Award-winning director Claus Guth’s acclaimed production of Jenůfa is a striking representation of an oppressed society ‘infused with heart-warming humanity’ (Evening Standard). Two courageous women struggle for fulfillment against the backdrop of a claustrophobic rural community. With music inspired by the traditional folk melodies of his native Moravia, Janáček’s score movingly captures Jenůfa’s progression from hope to despair to eventual radiant happiness, while her stepmother, the Kostelnicka, is one of opera’s most complex maternal figures. Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási conducts Asmik Grigorian in her much-anticipated Royal Opera House debut in the title role, alongside Karita Mattila as the Kostelnicka and a star cast.

REVIEW:

The first wave of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s great operas centered on tragic heroines: together with Káťa Kabanová and The Makropulos Case, which followed it, Jenůfa is a triumphant and insightful music drama, as Oliver Mears’ 2021 staging at London’s Royal Opera House shows. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian plays the demanding title role sensitively and intelligently, the great Finnish soprano Karita Matilla is just as powerful as Kostelnicka, her stepmother, and conductor Henrik Nánási leads the orchestra and chorus in a gripping account of Janáček’s intense score. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

-- The Flip Side (Kevin Filpski)

Janáček’s opera Káta Kabanová is set in a small Russian town and is based on the play The Storm by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The story revolves around the central character, Káťa – sung by “the phenomenal Corinne Winters” (Neue Musikzeitung) – who is trapped in a loveless marriage to an abusive man named Boris. Despite her unhappiness, she is bound by the strict societal norms of her time and is unable to escape the situation. However, when she meets and falls in love with a young man named Vána Kudrjáš, she finally experiences happiness and passion. But their relationship is short-lived, as Boris finds out and forces Káta to confess her infidelity in front of the entire town.

Overwhelmed by the shame and guilt, she drowns herself in the nearby river. The opera explores themes of social conformity, oppression, and the consequences of forbidden love. Janáček’s use of musical leitmotifs and repetitive themes reflect the characters’ emotions and psychological states, adding depth and nuance to the story. Stage director Barrie Kosky managed to create an intimate but impressive setting in the magnificent Felsenreitschule. “Jittery and balletic, ecstatic and anxious, Winters has a child’s volatile presence, and her livewire voice conveys Kát'a’s wonder and vulnerability.” (The New York Times) “Corinne Winters is “Kát'a Kabanova”: a great, luminous longing from head to toe. With director Barrie Kosky and conductor Jakub Hruša, she makes the opera in Salzburg a triumph.” (Der Tagesspiegel)

La Scala Ballet’s new, modern-dress staging of the classic Roland Petit ballet on Victor Hugo’s timeless tale of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Two world superstars take the lead roles–Natalia Osipova (Bolshoi Ballet, now Royal Ballet) and Roberto Bolle (La Scala Ballet). Music is by the great film composer, Maurice Jarre, with costumes from international designer, Yves Saint-Laurent. This was a major worldwide live cinema relay from La Scala in spring 2013.

Directed by Carmen Lundy. Starring Carmen Lundy.

This precursor to Monterey Pop and Woodstock is the granddaddy of all concert films, a chronicle of the 1958 Newport, Rhode Island Jazz Fest where music greats like Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Anita O'Day, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, and Dinah Washington gave electrifying performances. Songs include "Blue Monk," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Catch as Catch Can," "Tiger Rag," and more. 84 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English; audio commentary; bonus documentary "Bert Stern: Original Madman" (2011); more.

Also available on Blu-ray

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins is the most performed work by any living composer. This performance is the largest ever staged and was uniquely performed in synchronisation with a specially commissioned war-archive film reinforcing the narrative of the work – the build up to war, war itself and the consequences of war. Projected onto five giant screens, the film delivers a poignant backdrop to the moving musical narration providing the audience with a powerful and emotional multimedia experience. In this truly unique historic occasion Sir Karl Jenkins conducts The World Orchestra for Peace and around 2,000 singers from nearly 30 countries who joined together to Sing for Peace in Berlin.

JOANA MALLWITZ MOMENTUM A film by Gunter Atteln Joana Mallwitz is a conductor. This profession is still seen by many people as predominantly male. Recognized early on for her exceptional talent, Mallwitz was Europe's youngest general music director before becoming chief conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, one of Germany's leading classical orchestras, in August 2023. Over two years, the film follows her as she embarks on a decisive phase of her international career - with debuts in Munich, Paris, Salzburg, and Amsterdam. At the same time, she and her husband have to reorganize their lives after the birth of their first child. JOANA MALLWITZ - MOMENTUM offers a candid and detailed portrait of the musician. We experience Mallwitz as a perfectionist who works hard, as a music mediator, and an energetic orchestra leader. Despite all her success, we feel the enormous pressure that the conducting profession brings with it, which, like a musical crescendo, steadily increases until her inaugural concert in Berlin. Opening film of FIPADOC Biarritz 2025 DOK. Fest Munchen 2024, Official Selection Krakow Film Festival 2024, DocFilmMusic Competition