Also available on Blu-ray

Strauss's musically ravishing comic masterpiece is given a visual updating in director Richard Jones's stylish and 'gently subversive' Glyndebourne staging, one which offers 'a dreamlike distortion not just of Vienna's 18th-century past, but also of everything we know about reality' (Financial Times). Created to mark the 150th centenary of the composer's birth, the production is packed with energy and wit, its impeccable stagecraft by no means detracting from the first-class singing which underpins, among others, Tara Erraught's 'touching' (Guardian) performance as Octavian, Kate Royal's 'most graceful of Marschallins' and Lars Woldt's 'pitch-perfect' Baron Ochs (Sunday Telegraph). Conductor Robin Ticciati brings clarity and detail to the score, infusing the music with spirit and humanity.

R E V I E W:

"Lars Woldt’s Baron Ochs is rich in tone and dialect, a deliciously crude idiot, yet surprising in his muted final line and some sarcastic inflections opposite Octavian. Comic interest never flags, thanks to Jones’s deft blocking and inventive gags. Conductor Robin Ticciati, chief at Glyndebourne, keeps the London Philharmonic at a keen pitch, spreading glitter over all. It’s the standard menu in major companies today — visual provocation, musical reassurance."

-- David J. Baker, Opera News [11/2015]

Richard Strauss
DER ROSENKAVALIER

Octavian - Tara Erraught
The Marschallin - Kate Royal
Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau - Lars Woldt
Sophie - Teodora Gheorghiu
Herr von Faninal - Michael Kraus
Marianne Leitmetzerin - Miranda Keys
Valzacchi - Christopher Gillett
Annina - Helene Schneiderman
Italian Tenor - Andrej Dunaev
Notary - Gwynne Howell
Innkeeper - Robert Wörle
Police Inspector - Scott Conner

Glyndebourne Chorus
(chorus master: Jeremy Bines)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robin Ticciati, conductor

Richard Jones, stage director
Paul Steinberg, set designer
Nicky Gillibrand, costume designer
Mimi Jordan Sherin, lighting designer

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, May 2014

Bonus:
- Robin Ticciati, Taking the Baton
- The Trio
- Sights and smells of a production
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 191 mins (opera) + 22 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 2 (DVD 9)

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

Also available on standard DVD

Director Katharina Thoma sets Richard Strauss’ comedy in a country house in the South Downs (a surrogate for Glyndebourne), immediately before and during the Second World War. Hofmannsthals’ conceit—that a hapless young composer has to accept the simultaneous performance of his new tragic opera with a burlesque from a commedia dell’arte troupe—is turned into a touching wartime drama of nurses, invalids and airmen, and of painful delusions and soul searching, before final happiness.

ACCLAIM
“Everything fits superbly and the production captures the fragility of happiness and the undertow of melancholy better than any I can remember. The mellow glow of the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski’s sensitive baton complements the vision perfectly, while a fine cast enhances the pleasure. Soile Isokoski is superb as Ariadne…” – The Evening Standard

“Conductor Vladimir Jurowski ends his 13-year reign as music director by drawing sumptuous Straussian playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 40 years of watching Ariadne, the opera has never moved me more.” – The Daily Mail

Richard Strauss
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS

Ariadne / Prima Donna - Soile Isokoski
Zerbinetta - Laura Claycomb
Bacchus / Tenor - Sergey Skorokhodov
Music Master - Thomas Allen
Composer - Kate Lindsey
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor
Katharina Thoma, stage director
Julia Müer, set designer
Irina Bartels, costume designer
Olaf Winter, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lewes, March 2013

Bonus:
- When Two Worlds Collide
- Thomas Allen at Glyndebourne
- Vladimir Jurowski on his final production as Music Director
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 121 mins (opera) + 21 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (blu-ray)

Also available on Blu-ray

Director Katharina Thoma sets Richard Strauss’ comedy in a country house in the South Downs (a surrogate for Glyndebourne), immediately before and during the Second World War. Hofmannsthals’ conceit—that a hapless young composer has to accept the simultaneous performance of his new tragic opera with a burlesque from a commedia dell’arte troupe—is turned into a touching wartime drama of nurses, invalids and airmen, and of painful delusions and soul searching, before final happiness.

ACCLAIM
“Everything fits superbly and the production captures the fragility of happiness and the undertow of melancholy better than any I can remember. The mellow glow of the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski’s sensitive baton complements the vision perfectly, while a fine cast enhances the pleasure. Soile Isokoski is superb as Ariadne…” – The Evening Standard

“Conductor Vladimir Jurowski ends his 13-year reign as music director by drawing sumptuous Straussian playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 40 years of watching Ariadne, the opera has never moved me more.” – The Daily Mail

Richard Strauss
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS

Ariadne / Prima Donna - Soile Isokoski
Zerbinetta - Laura Claycomb
Bacchus / Tenor - Sergey Skorokhodov
Music Master - Thomas Allen
Composer - Kate Lindsey
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor
Katharina Thoma, stage director
Julia Müer, set designer
Irina Bartels, costume designer
Olaf Winter, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lewes, March 2013

Bonus:
- When Two Worlds Collide
- Thomas Allen at Glyndebourne
- Vladimir Jurowski on his final production as Music Director
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 121 mins (opera) + 21 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Also available on standard DVD

Also Available, a two disc set: Love’s Labour’s Lost & Love's Labour’s Won, on DVD and Blu-ray.

ARTISTS: Jasper Britton • Antony Sher • Alex Hassell • Paola Dionisott • Royal Shakespeare Company • Gregory Doran (stage director)

Gregory Doran directs Shakespeare’s epic pair of plays with a cast including Antony Sher as Sir John Falstaff, Jasper Britton as King Henry and Alex Hassell as Prince Hal.

Part I
With his crown under threat from enemies both foreign and domestic, Henry IV prepares for war. As his father gets ready to defend his crown, Prince Hal is languishing in the taverns and brothels of London, reveling in the company of his friend, the notorious Sir John Falstaff. With the onset of war, Hal must confront his responsibilities to family and throne.

Part II
King Henry’s health is failing but he is uncertain Hal is a worthy heir. Meanwhile, Falstaff is sent to the countryside to recruit fresh troops, where he gleefully indulges in the business of lining his own pockets. As the King’s health continues to worsen, Hal must choose between duty and loyalty to an old friend in Shakespeare’s heartbreaking conclusion to this pair of plays.

Running time: 6 hours 10 minutes
Subtitles: English, French, German
Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

"She adds to the faultness suppleness of her vocal line a palette of emotions that go right to the mark. The staccati of her coloratura work together with her stunning messe di voce. Her interpretation is at once both tender and heroic, charming and threatening." - Patrick De Maria, La Marseillaise

Begun in the year 1900, amidst the art nouveau curlicues of Klmt and the Jugendstil, Schoberg's grand cantata is written in a lush, late-romantic style indebted to Wagner and Mahler and pre-dating his pioneering atonal works. This setting of the medieval Danish legend of Gurre Castle - a love triangle between King Waldemar, his mistress Tove and a jealous Queen - gains an innovative new dimension in this first-ever staging of the work, directed by Pierre Audi. This album marks the first ever collaboration between DNO Artistic Director Pierre Audi and Music Director Marc Albrecht. This production was the first staging of Schonberg's mammoth cantata with gargantuan orchestra, five soloists, speaker and multiple choruses.

REVIEW:

This release captures the very first attempt to stage the piece; it makes for fascinating viewing. The Dutch National Opera's artistic director wisely chooses to keep his narrative loose and subjective, emphasizing the piece's affinity to Wagner's Tristan as to Parsifal.

The individual songs of Waldemat and Tove in the first part are straightforwardly done, but the two are seen addressing one another in a languorous, long-paragraphed dialog rather than expressing themselves in isolation. Once Tove disappears, we are more than ever aware of the whole piece as Waldemar's own journey - dreamlike, psychologically complex, and ambiguous, up to and including the final chorus, which is all the more moving for the allegorical richness it takes on.

Burkhard Fritz carries the dramatic weight admirably, and Emily Magee is a moving, entranced, and enchanting Tove. Anna Larsson is a sternly impassioned Waldtaube here, and the character's long scene is a highlight of the staging. The detailed, virtuoso playing of the orchestra and Albrecht's clear-sighted but impassioned conducting need far no comparison with the best audio-only versions. A very impressive achievement all round.

– Gramophone

Also available on Blu-ray

Paired here are two of Rossini’s best-loved operas in stunning Glyndebourne stagings showcasing the composer’s threefold genius for comic storytelling, musical energy and vocal fireworks. Vladimir Jurowski and Sir Peter Hall unite for a fresh and vibrant yet timelessly elegant production of Rossini’s setting of the Cinderella story, with a fine cast led by Ruxandra Donose in the title role. While the magical, boldly theatrical world that Annabel Arden creates for the amorous plots and intrigues of young Figaro’s Seville bustles with a gifted ensemble of singer–actors and merry mischief from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Mazzola. Recorded in true SS. ‘This is a truly marvellous performance on all counts - staging, conducting and singing...The sense of an ensemble on top form is underlined by Vladimir Jurowski's exacting, pellucid and vivid interpretation, so that the music, like the libretto, is presented afresh. The superb cast has no weaknesses and many strengths...’ (Gramophone) ‘…conductor Enrique Mazzola gets Rossini’s music to sizzle. No slouching, no lingering here and there – just razor-sharp playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra at helter-skelter speeds.’ (The Financial Times)

Also available on Blu-ray

This thought-provoking, modern-day interpretation of Rossini's Mosè in Egitto sets the scene for superior music-making at the prestigious Rossini Festival in Pesaro. For conductor Roberto Abbado, the transposition of the action to the present day releases the energy of Rossini's music. At his disposal is a cast of top-quality vocalists such as the "refined bel canto artist" (Bresciaoggi) Sonia Ganassi as Elcia, and the "outstanding"Dmitry Korchak as the Pharaoh's son, two lovers fatefully drawn into the political turmoil and catastrophes of their time. Also among the protagonists are the "thoroughly brilliant" (Deutschland Radio Kultur) baritone Alex Esposito as Faraone and, in his Rossini Festival debut, young, full-bodied bass Riccardo Zanellato as Moses. Conductor Roberto Abbado "inspired his musicians to deliver a spectacular performance" (Salzburger Nachrichten).

Gioachino Rossini MOSÈ IN EGITTO
Mosè – Riccardo Zanellato


Faraone – Alex Esposito
Amaltea – Olga Senderskaya
Osiride – Dmitry Korchak
Elcia – Sonia Ganassi
Mambre – Enea Scala
Aronne – Yijie Shi
Amenofi – Chiara Amarù

Bologna Teatro Comunale Chorus and Orchestra
Roberto Abbado, conductor

Graham Vick, stage director

Recorded live at the Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2011

bonus
- Cast gallery
- The making of Mosè in Egitto

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English / French / German
Running time: 150 mins (opera) + 20 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1

Also available on Blu-ray

Gioachino Rossini
L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI

Isabella - Anna Goryachova
Mustafà - Alex Esposito
Lindoro - Yijie Shi
Taddeo - Mario Cass

Teatro Comunale di Bologna Chorus and Orchestra
José Ramón Encinar, conductor

Davide Livermore, stage director

Recorded live at the Pesaro Festival, August 2013

Bonus:
- The making of L’Italiana in Algeri
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 153 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Pesaro’s new offering in 2013 was an off-the-wall production of Rossini’s popular comedy, ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’, presented as a Swinging Sixties, James Bond adventure, set in the desert oil fields of the North African coast. Davide Livermore’s gag-a-minute, helter-skelter romp followed an alarmingly life-like air-crash, which delivered the ‘Italian girl’ from Rome into the clutches of the local oil baron, Mustafa. All three lead singers (Alex Esposito as Mustafa, the high tenor Yijie Shi as the young lover Lindoro, and Anna Goryachova as the agile-voiced mezzo-soprano of the title role) thoroughly distinguished themselves – and the audience roared its approval of the evening’s entertainment.

Recorded live at the Pesaro Festival, August 2013

"Italian bass Alex Esposito commanded our full attention as Mustafà with strong, firm fioratura that raged magnificently when necessary. Mr Esposito in the prime of vocal estate, a spirited, charismatic actor of inextinguishable theatrical energy." Opera Today
"Anyone lucky enough to have seen last year’s ROF Ciro in Babilonia or the 2012 Demetrio e Polibio, will already know the wisdom and wit of Davide Livermore’s Rossini stagings. Here again, he is sure handed. Rossini would have adored it." Seen and Heard International

The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace, is internationally renowned for its innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions.

This colourful and exuberant production was staged by Daminano Michieletto, “one of the truly new voices in stage direction today” (L’Unita). Damiano Michieletto made his international debut at the Wexford Opera Festival in 2003 with a highly-acclaimed production of Weinberger’s Svanda Dudák, named Opera Production of the Year by the Irish Times.

Claudio Scimone, a key figure in the international Rossini Renaissance, conducts the Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento and leads a cast of Rossini specialists including Daniele Zanfardino, Olga Peretyatko and Anna Malavasi. Gioachino Rossini LA SCALA DI SETA

Dormont – Daniele Zanfardino
Giulia – Olga Peretyatko
Lucilla – Anna Malavasi
Dorvil – José Manuel Zapata
Blanzac – Carlo Lepore
Germano – Paolo Bordogna

Bolzano-Trento Haydn Orchestra
Claudio Scimone, conductor

Damiano Michieletto, stage director

Recorded live at Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2009

bonus
- Cast Gallery
- The making of La scala di seta

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian
Running time: 105 mins (opera) + 22 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

R E V I E W:

"the musical aspects are in good hands as Claudio Scimone leads the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, with the piquant Olga Peretyatko’s Giulia miles above the rest of the cast in vocal terms, however involved they all are in the antics imposed by director Damiano Michieletto. Carlo Lepore acquits himself in the interpolated aria, “Alla Gloria,” familiar to those who are obsessive Rossinians in performances by Samuel Ramey and Michele Pertusi. Paolo Bordogna’s Germano is hampered by a vibrato housed in a voice of no particular distinction, though he does execute the fioritura quite well. José Manuel Zapata’s Dorvil requires the audience to suspend its belief in him as a romantic lead, while Anna Malavasi (Lucilla) executes the change from prude to sex-crazy puta in typical comic style."


FANFARE: Joel Kasow

Gioacchino Rossini - La Scala di Seta

Featuring Tullio Pane, Carmen Lavani, Tiziana Tramonti, Ernesto Palacio, Mario Chiappi, Robert Coviello

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Marc Andreae, conductor
Martin Derungs, Harpsichord-master

Basso continuo:
Antonio Mosca (violoncello)
Umberto Ferrari (double-bass)
Filippo Crivelli, stage director

Picture format: NTSC 4:3 (full screen)
Sound format: Stereo
Region code: All Regions
Subtitles: English
Running time: 103 minutes
No. of DVDs: 1

"Of the many joys that this new DVD from Opus Arte has to offer, the greatest is without question the opportunity to hear this marvellous score in all its glory. Maestro Albert Zedda is perhaps the greatest Rossini conductor of our times...The playing of the Orchestra of the Teatro Real, Madrid, on this DVD is nothing short of sensational - strings light but vigorous, woodwind prominent, brass precise. The tempos are all immaculately judged and Zedda's ability to hold together a large cast of soloists and chorus through some difficult concertati is breathtaking. Wonderful though Pier Luigi Pizzi's production is, it's Zedda who makes this amongst the three or four most absorbing and entertaining Rossini performances in my DVD collection.

What a production it is, though. I can't recall any opera DVD causing me to laugh out loud quite so uncontrollably as this one did - in fact, it gets more amusing as the production advances... Pizzi's production [presents] the drama realistically in the 1970s, in a large chic villa on two floors, complete with swimming pool and outdoor furniture. Grassy platforms on either side of the orchestra pit facilitate a tennis match; maids change the sheets on the beds; Fulvia paints a portrait; Asdrubale and Clarice communicate with each other via telephones; characters jump in and out of the swimming pool. It's all tremendous fun. But more than that, just as Rossini was able to flesh out the characters thanks to an outstanding cast in 1812, so too does Pizzi draw enormously emotional performances from several cast members."

-- Dominic McHugh, MusicalCriticism.com [11/1/2007]

----------------

Gioachino Rossini
LA PIETRA DEL PARAGONE

Baronessa Aspasia – Laura Brioli
Marchesa Clarice – Marie-Ange Todorovich
Cavalier Giocondo – Raúl Giménez
Count Asdrubale – Marco Vinco
Pacuvio – Paolo Bordogna
Macrobio – Pietro Spagnoli

Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real (Madrid Symphony Orchestra and Chorus)
Alberto Zedda, conductor

Pier Luigi Pizzi, stage director

Recorded live at the Teatro Real, Madrid, 11 and 13 April 2007.

Bonus features:
- Interviews with Alberto Zedda and Pier Luigi Pizzi
- Illustrated synopsis and cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / DTS Surround 5.1
Region code: 0 (All Regions)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian
Menu languages: English
Running time: 187 mins
No. of DVDs: 2

REGIONS: All Regions
PICTURE FORMAT: 1080i
LENGTH: 155 Mins
SOUND: 2.0 & 5.1 PCM
SUBTITLES: ENGLISH/FRENCH/GERMAN/SPANISH/ITALIAN/CATALAN
NO OF DISCS: 1

The Nobel Prize-winning writer Dario Fo applies his inventive genius to Rossini's comic opera in its premiere DVD release. Recorded in 2005 under the musical direction of Maurizio Barbacini, Fo's production brings fresh vitality and colour to the story of Lisetta, and of her father's attempts to find a husband for her through an advertisement in the newspaper La Gazzetta.

Lisetta: Cinzia Forte
Don Pomponio: Bruno Praticò
Filippo: Pietro Spagnoli
Alberto: Charles Workman
Madame La Rose: Agata Bienkowska
Doralice: Marisa Martins
Monsù Traversen: Simón Orfila
Anselmo: Marc Canturri

Orchestra Academy of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Intermezzo Choir
Musical Director: Maurizio Barbacini
Stage Director: Dario Fo.

Recorded live at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, on 1st and 3rd July 2005. Plus Illustrated synopsis & cast gallery. Interview with Dario Fo. Reviews ‘…ironic and sensual, friendly but with a light taste of satire, La Gazzetta by Rossini has been reborn in this production that has the distinctive stamp of Fo, who has been able to handle with strength the Rossinian chaos without neglecting - and here his major virtue - the music.’ El Periodico de Catalunya

Director Werner Herzog and conductor Riccardo Muti combine with the finest of casts to lavish Rossini’s rarely-performed Neapolitan masterpiece, set in feudal sixteenth century Scotland, with the genius it deserves. June Anderson is an outstanding Elena (the Lady of the Lake) in the 1992 production of the melodrama based on Sir Walter Scott’s poem.

Sung in Italian with English subtitles

Giacomo V, Re di Scozia Rockwell Blake
Douglas d'Angus Giorgio Surjan
Rodrigo di Dhu Chris Merritt
Elena June Anderson
Malcolm Groene Martine Dupuy
Albina Marilena Laurenza
Serano Ernesto Gavazzi
Bertram Ferrero Poggi

Part nine of this mid-price collection, this DVD includes a 24 page booklet with libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola.

ALL REGIONS
Running time: 167 mins
Picture format: 4:3
Sound format: Dolby Stereo

R E V I E W S:

Composed for Naples in 1819, La donna del lago, another of Rossini's serious operas, is based on a poem by Sir Walter Scott, whose appeal to Italian opera composers soon became rampant; the most famous is Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The mists, the madness, the melodrama of Scott's work well-suited the burgeoning Romantic style of the early 1800s, and within the next five years La donna del lago was presented in opera houses as far-flung as St Petersburg, Paris, Graz, and Barcelona. After 1860 it disappeared until a revival in Florence in 1958; the present video dates from 1992, when La Scala mounted it for the composer's bicentennial. The story of 16th century Scotland and its border wars holds no interest whatsoever, but the opera contains some of Rossini's most luscious--not to mention vocally challenging--music. The writing for the two tenors is particularly florid and difficult, with frequent excursions into the stratosphere.

Musically, this production more than copes with Rossini's hurdles, with Riccardo Muti leading the La Scala forces with precision, snap, and even delicacy in the score's several pastoral moments. June Anderson, as Elena (the eponymous "Lady") is in top form, looking lovely and singing with more warmth than she frequently has and with no problems with the fiorature. Her final rondo, the famous "Tanti affetti", properly brings down the house. Both tenor parts are superbly taken. As Uberto (truly King James in disguise), Rockwell Blake's machine-gun way with fast coloratura remains miraculous, with endless breath and no difficulty with his top Cs and Ds. Chris Merritt is equally fine as Rodrigo, another of Elena's suitors, and the vocally competitive second-act trio (in which they're joined by Elena) is one of the performance's high points. That having been said, neither tenor's voice is very lovely. As Elena's third suitor, Malcolm, mezzo Martine Dupuy does not erase memories of Marilyn Horne, and at any rate, the then-habit of composing a man's role for a woman seems uncomfortable. Giorgio Surjan's handsome bass voice is most welcome as Douglas, Elena's father.

The ugly, gloomy, but elaborately expensive-looking sets by Maurizio Balo (were the Scots cave dwellers in the 16th century?) create atmosphere if not any particular visual delight. Franz Blumauer's costumes are huge and furry (save for Elena's elegant, blue, hooded number), and director Werner Herzog does not elicit anything special from the singers. Picture and sound are excellent, and there are subtitles in English. In all, this set serves Rossini's rich bit of Romanticism well.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com