Naxos AudioVisual
NAXOS Audiovisual offers a catalogue of more than 3,000 productions of high-profile opera, ballet, concert and documentary programmes. We exclusively distribute the productions of the Royal Opera House and from distinguished producers like Bel Air, Idéale Audience, François Roussillon et Associés, PARS Media and Dynamic. The greatest artists of our time are captured in high-end recordings of acclaimed productions from top venues like Covent Garden, the Bolshoi Theatre, Teatro Real, Opéra Comique, Bavarian State Opera, Verbier Festival and many more.
269 products
A Musical Journey - Norway
The Places
The legendary Norwegian figure Peer Gynt is widely known through Henrik Ibsen’s play that follows Peer’s unscrupulous adventures, a work that enjoys still further fame through the incidental music written for it by Edvard Grieg. Parts of the Norwegian countryside are identified with some of Peer Gynt’s adventures.
The Music
Greig collaborated with the greatest of Norwegian dramatists, Henrik Ibsen, in his music for the play Peer Gynt, from which he drew two orchestral suites. Grieg also worked with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, providing incidental music for the historical play Sigurd Jorsalfar.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 54 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
A Musical Journey - Italy: A Musical Tour of Tuscany, Umbria
A Musical Journey - Summer Palaces of the Tsars - Russia, Ukraine
A Musical Journey - Southern Tyrol & Ticino
SOUTHERN TYROL – TICINO
The Places
Northern Italy has been ruled by various powers over the centuries. The Southern Tyrol, seen here, retains much of its Austrian past, with some regions predominantly German-speaking and others Italian. Scenes are shown of the Dolomites, the strangely shaped rock formations, a typical castle and mountain lakes. There are also views of the neighbouring Swiss-Italian canton of Ticino.
The Music
Music for the tour is by Beethoven, with his Violin Concerto, written and first performed in Vienna, and one of his two Romances for solo violin and orchestra, independent pieces perhaps intended as slow movements for another concerto that was never completed.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 58 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 - The Year 1941
Korngold: Das Wunder der Heliane / Jakubiak, Jagde, Albrecht, Berlin German Opera
Also available on Blu-ray
Erich Wolfgang Korngold regarded Das Wunder der Heliane as his greatest work, but the opera has been neglected since its premiere in 1927. This 2018 production from the Deutsche Oper Berlin features the American soprano Sara Jakubiak as Heliane, and the American tenor Brian Jagde as The Stranger in the award-winning director Christof Loy’s acclaimed staging. The Orchestra and Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin deliver the large forces required for this hyper-Romantic opera, under the baton of Dutch National Opera’s chief conductor Marc Albrecht.
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REVIEWS:
Das Wunder der Heliane is Korngold’s most extravagant stage work and one that he considered to be his greatest score. Written for a huge ensemble, masterfully used, the music possesses voluptuous sweep and hyper-Romanticism. Its intensity is emphasised through an intoxicating array of effects, propulsive rhythms and glorious vocal lyricism, its arc of climaxes building from one act to another. This revelatory new Berlin staging in 2018 enjoyed an unprecedented 20-minute ovation at its premiere.
– Opera Lounge
The performance is conducted with all the necessary full-blooded fervour by Marc Albrecht, and Korngold’s score emerges in all its richly chromatic, glittering tonality and overheated intensity.
– Telegraph (UK)
Switzerland: Tour of the Graubunden
Mstislav Rostropovich - The Indomitable Bow
The Indomitable Bow is a unique portrait of Mstislav Rostropovich, a formidable personality as well as a complex, deeply political musician constantly engaged in a whirlwind of activities. Including unreleased documents, archive films, interviews and concert performances from this key figure of the 20th century, The Indomitable Bow is a remarkable testimony of the life and work of the legendary ‘Slava’. Mstislav Rostropovich remains one of the greatest cellists of the twentieth century. In addition to his lauded interpretations and impeccable technique, he was well known for inspiring and commissioning new works, which grew the cello repertoire more than any other cellist before or since. In fact, he inspired and premiered more than one hundred pieces, and formed long-standing partnerships with composers including Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Messiaen, Penderecki, Bernstein, and Britten, to name a few.
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REVIEW:
“Your Indomitable Bow” is a phrase addressed to Mstislav Rostropovich by Alexander Solzhenitysn, in reference to the help and shelter given in dark times to the writer, at some risk, by the musician. It is a reminder that Rostropovich – or Slava as he was affectionately known – had public and political roles during the cold war, and that he used his eminence in Soviet artistic life for selfless aims, which led to his eventual expulsion. Bruno Monsaingeon’s outstanding film deals with this theme alongside the remarkable musical career. It is thus a comprehensive portrait of Rostropovich, whose large and generous personality comes across in each of his many roles – cellist, piano accompanist, conductor, teacher, and collaborator with the great composers of his era. He emerges as a key cultural figure of the 20th century.
The research behind this production was doubtless exemplary, but it also benefitted from some good fortune, as we learn from the filmmaker’s booklet notes. Bruno Monsaingeon knew the cellist, who in 2000 gave him “a whole trunkful of film material about him…containing a number of treasures”. From that and other sources, such as unreleased documents, archive films, new interviews, and filmed concert performances, a compelling narrative has been put together. One element of almost any documentary though is completely absent. There is no commentary or narration by the director or anyone else. Every scene throughout the film is simply left to speak for itself, but so skilful is the editing that we do not miss the customary unseen narrator. Perhaps a viewer who barely knew who the subject would get a bit lost at points, but that is hardly a typical viewer of such a film. The voice of an unseen Sviatoslav Richter contributes a couple of sentences about his (ambiguous) relationship to the cellist, but it is clear that that is just a small part of building the picture.
The composers we see and hear, and from whom Rostropovich inspired or commissioned major works, are mainly Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Dutilleux. Britten, though seen conducting a couple of times, does not get much of a look-in despite the five substantial works he wrote for the cellist, which made England Rostropovich’s most productive foreign destination musically, and the main omission from the story line in the film. But there is so much here to be grateful for. Solzhenitsyn’s widow, and the next generation, Solzhenitysn’s son and Rostropovich’s daughters, offer important insights in interview – and there is a 40-minute extra film, which expands on their recollections of the experiences of those two giant artists. There is also some gripping detail about life under the regime.
Rostropovich’s wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, is seen in archive interviews and in filmed recitals, with Rostropovich accompanying. She is the butt of one of Slava’s better jokes. When asked what voice type his wife’s soprano is, lyric or dramatic, he replies, “In the theatre, lyric; at home, dramatic.” She in turn is no shrinking violet and has some amusing things to say about their domestic and musical arguments. Whether quarrelling at home, or taking on the Soviet state, it is the artist himself who comes across as indomitable as much as his bow. There is always the famous charm and wit. The overwhelming impression is of a great musician who was also a great man.
Apart from the marvellous film itself, there are those very valuable extras. In addition to the bonus of family recollections mainly concerning Solzhenitsyn, we have films of three previously unreleased performances. Rostropovich plays the Sarabande from Bach’s 2nd Suite, and the closing variations and coda of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the Boston Symphony and Ozawa. Yet perhaps the best of all is the film of a 1974 UNESCO Paris concert of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio in which the cellist is joined by Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Kempff. Three elder statesmen of their instruments from three countries playing one of the greatest of piano trios live - that is quite some “extra”.
It was a couple of years later that I met him. I was a hanger-on at an LSO rehearsal that he was conducting. I took the chance to offer him to sign my much-loved recording of him in the Britten cello suites 1 and 2 and he did. Emboldened, I asked him, “when will you record the Third Suite, maestro?” “Not now, later,” he said, and disappeared. (Bruno Monsaingeon’s research has not discovered this important cultural exchange so I mention it here.) Rostropovich did never record the Third Suite, alas. Not long before this episode, he had taken the arm of Peter Pears at Britten’s funeral. That Third Suite is based on the Kontakion, the Russian Hymn for the Departed. Perhaps he could never quite face it and did not need insensitive hangers-on with their LPs coming up to him after a rehearsal.
Discussing his dual role of conductor and cellist with Herbert von Karajan on the film Rostropovich says, “when I conduct I am happy, but the audience is not; when I play the audience is happy, but I am not.” Karajan replies, “so you must play and conduct, so that everyone is happy”. I can’t imagine anyone being less than happy after watching this highly recommended, indeed already prize-winning, film. It is one of the best films about a musician that even Bruno Monsaingeon has ever given us.
– MusicWeb International (Roy Westbrook)
A Musical Journey: Austria - Salzburg, The City Of Mozart
The Places
The places visited are associated in one way or another with Mozart. He was born in 1756 in Salzburg, where his father was a leading musician at the court of the ruling Prince-Archbishop, and remained there, with occasional breaks for foreign concert tours, until he was finally able to break free in 1781 and settle in Vienna, where he spent the last ten years of his short life.
The Music
The music chosen for the tour of Salzburg and its surroundings consists of two piano concertos by Mozart, written during his earlier successful years of independence in Vienna for subscription concerts at which he performed as soloist.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
A Musical Journey: Austria - Salzkammergut
Ravel: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2
It is also available on standard CD.
Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales present a vivid mixture of atmospheric impressionism, intense expression and modernist wit, his fascination with the waltz further explored in La valse, a mysterious evocation of a vanished imperial epoch. Heard here in an orchestration by Marius Constant, Gaspard de la nuit is Ravel’s response to the other-worldly poems of Aloysius Bertrand, and the dance suite Le tombeau de Couperin is a tribute to friends who fell in the war of 1914–18 as well as a great 18th-century musical forbear. ‘It is a delightful and assorted collection…presented in splendid performances by the Orchestre National de Lyon led by their music director, the venerable American conductor Leonard Slatkin.’
Thomas: Hamlet / Langree, Champs-Elysees Orchestra, Les Elements
With Shakespearian operas all the rage in Paris during the 19th century, Ambroise Thomas and his librettists Michel Carre and Jules Barbier adapted Hamlet to create a romantic spectacle in which the character of Ophelie shines with a haunting radiance. With its virtuosic arias, stunning ensembles and vivid orchestration – with the colourful addition of the newly invented saxophone – Thomas composed one of the most successful operas in the French repertoire. This is further enhanced by director Cyril Teste’s multi-layered production, reinstating its powerful original ending, and including cinematic techniques to create ‘a very palpable hit’ (bachtrack.com).
Naxos Musical Journey - Sicily
This series of DVDs features travel scenes accompanied by classical music.
Naxos Musical Journey - Salzburg - A Musical Tour Of The City Of Mozart
The Places
Mozart’s father Leopold settled in Salzburg in 1737 and in 1744 entered the service of the city’s ruling Prince-Archbishop as a violinist. The city underwent various changes of regime in the first years of the nineteenth century, but in 1825 Schubert could express his wonder at the fine churches and palaces of the place.
The Music
The music includes movements directly connected with Salzburg, compositions for distinguished local families, members of the Mozarts’ social circle, and works resulting from his visit in 1777-78 to Mannheim. Other compositions come from the remarkable final decade of Mozart’s life, when he was living in Vienna, culminating in the Lacrimosa from the unfinished Requiem of 1791, a movement that he is said to have tried to sing, with his friends, on his death-bed.
A Musical Journey: Berlin, Germany
The Places
Berlin was transformed into the capital of Brandenburg under the Elector Friedrich II in the 14th century, to become the capital of Prussia and then, in the 19th century, of a united Germany.
The Music
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony accompanies the tour to Berlin, with his third Leonora Overture and his overture to Goethe’s play Egmont.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 56 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Naxos Musical Journey - Brittany & Normandy
This series of DVDs features travel scenes accompanied by classical music.
Russian Treasures & Northern Lights / Schwarz
A Chinese Musical Journey - Beijing
Beijing (Peking), the capital of China, has been the site of various cities with different names. Under Kubla Khan, who established the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), a new city, Khanbalik (Cambaluc) was built, to be destroyed by the Ming Emperors, the second of whom made Beijing once again the capital. Many of the historical remains come from the period of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and the following Qing (1644-1911). These include the former imperial palace, known as the Forbidden City, and other palaces, parks and dwellings. The Great Wall is represented by the well known sight of the Jinshanling section of this ancient structure, built during the early years of the Ming dynasty.
The Music
The music chosen for this tour of Beijing is played on Chinese instruments, and makes use of traditional works and more modern arrangements, in traditional style. The instruments to be heard include the Chinese flute (dizi), the zither (qin), the Chinese lute (pipa), the three-string lute (sanxian) and the two-string Chinese fiddle (erhu). The Shepherd and His Flute, for example, is played on the Chinese dulcimer (yangqin), The Moon Over Guanshan on the sanxian and Song of the Tea-Pickers, taken from Yue Opera, is arranged for an instrumental ensemble. As with Chinese traditional visual arts, the titles of pieces explain their mood and origin.
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Booklet notes: English, Chinese
Running time: 66 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Naxos Musical Journey - Chateaux Of The Loire
This series of DVDs features travel scenes accompanied by classical music.
Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia / Theodossiou, De Biasio
LUCREZIA BORGIA
Lucrezia Borgia – Dimitra Theodossiou
Gennaro – Roberto de Biasio
Don Alfonso – Enrico Giuseppe Iori
Maffio Orsini – Nidia Palacios
Rustighello – Luigi Albani
Gubetta – Giuseppe di Paola
Astolfo – Mauro Corna
Bergamo Musica Festival Choir and Orchestra
Tiziano Severini, conductor
Francesco Bellotto, stage director
Filmed at the Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo, Italy, during performances in the Bergamo Musica Festival Gaetano Donizetti, 30 November and 2 December 2007
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Surround 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, Italian
Running time: 138 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)
Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella / Bär, Orgonasova, Hampson
ALFONSO UND ESTRELLA
Opera in 3 Acts
Mauregato – Olaf Bär
Estrella – Luba Orgonasova
Adolfo – Alfred Muff
Froila – Thomas Hampson
Alfonso – Endrik Wottrich
Arnold Schoenberg Choir
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, conductor
Jürgen Flimm, stage director
Erich Wonder, set design
Florence von Gerkan, costumes
Filmed at the Theater an der Wien during performances in Wiener Festwochen, May 1997.
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Surround 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German
Running time: 140 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)
Musical Journey: Italy - Verona & Romeo & Juliet
ITALY
The Places
Our tour of Italy stars in Verona, with its reminiscences of Romeo and Juliet. Then to Florence, for some 300 years, from 1434, the seat of the powerful Medici family, whose artistic patronage has left an impressive cultural legacy. The tour ends in the south, with Naples, originally a Greek colony and later a Roman port, and then capital of a kingdom, ruled by Normans and later from Spain. Briefly a Habsburg possession, from 1734 it belonged to the Bourbons, before the unification of Italy in 1860.
The Music
Tchaikovsky stayed in Florence on two occasions in 1878, after the disaster of his marriage, hastily contracted, had led him to seek respite abroad. A visit to Rome in 1880 led to the composition of the Italian Capriccio and his opera The Queen of Spades was written in 1890 in Florence, recalled in the same year in his Souvenir de Florence. The other music heard here is the Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet, written in 1869 and based on Shakespeare's play, set in Verona.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 72 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Massenet: Cendrillon
A Musical Journey - Finland
The Places
Scenes of Finland and its capital Helsinki, the interlinked islands of Savonlinna, site of an ancient castle and Kerimäki, with its wooden church, suggest a vision of a remarkable country, moulded by its geographical features and its varied and long history.
The Music
Finland found its musical identity largely through the work of Jean Sibelius. The son of a doctor, Sibelius belonged to a class of which the culture and language was Swedish. He learned Finnish and acquired his knowledge of Finnish literature and legend at school, developed his understanding of music in Germany, principally in Berlin, and established himself as one of the most considerable of the late Romantic symphonists, exploring new possibilities in a vein that might have seemed overworked. Here and in his tone-poems, based largely on Finnish legend, he created a national music that has defied imitation in the very breadth of his conception of the symphonic form.
Verdi: Stiffelio / Calvo, Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Also available on Blu-ray
Verdi’s Stiffelio is a tense moral drama in which a Protestant minister learns of his wife’s betrayal and is torn between a thirst for revenge and his religious duty of forgiveness. These themes of adultery and divorce were social taboos in 1850, and Stiffelio was met with such censorship and disapproval that it was soon withdrawn. Today we can appreciate both the title character’s significance as the first true Verdi tenor, and the many wonderful moments in this ‘most unjustly neglected of Verdi’s operas’. This unique and dynamic production from Parma was acclaimed for taking us to “a whole new theatrical world” (Huffington Post), and as “nothing short of a coup” (bachtrack.com).
