Director Claudia Bauer and her enthusiastic cast translate PeterLicht’s radical rewriting of Molière’s “Tartuffe” into fast-paced comedy. In its colourful pop outfit, betrayal shines all the brighter and our present times are firmly in their sights. The seemingly pious and virtuous Tartuffe deeply impresses the wealthy Orgon and unsettles his entire family, until he is gradually caught in dishonest intentions. So far the story as told by Molière. In his radical retelling, PeterLicht takes up central motifs of the work, taking aim at our present times in the process. “A outrageous exuberant, thoroughly Pop-trendy Molière-transcription of the Cologne music writer PeterLicht. Completely unhinged and inspired." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung )“This Tartuffe is so super! Pure nonsense. A philosophy parody – surely destined to become a cult work.” (Deutschlandfunk)

In a deserted city, a young boy stumbles into a theatre. He wanders through the auditorium, where rows of velvet chairs, draping curtains and chandeliers seem to lie in lonely wait for audiences to return. The theatre may be empty, but the show will go on...

Starring characters from the most popular festive ballets, the worlds of the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy collide when the theatre bursts into life. In this spectacular, feature-length film, you’ll be treated to an extraordinary show filled with acrobats, snowflakes, clowns, princes and – of course – beautiful ballerinas.

The Secret Theatre features the choreography of Scottish Ballet founder Peter Darrell and CEO/Artistic Director Christopher Hampson, co-directed for the screen by Jess & Morgs. Featuring set and costumes designed by Lez Brotherston, music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky recorded live by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra - including a new additional composition by Frank Moon, and of course spectacular performances from the full Scottish Ballet Company.

Along with the young singers of the Opernstudio der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Director and Grimme Award winner Axel Ranisch presents an unusual approach to two rarely performed works: In Peter I. Tchaikovsky’s last opera Iolanta, a blind princess is in search of reasons for her sadness and finds love. In Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical one act opera buffa Mavra, an inventive young woman decides to act on a risky idea and smuggle her lover into her mother’s house disguised as a cook. Through his immense love of his characters and impressive affinity for the relationships between them, Ranisch weaves both works into a magical coming of age fairy tale of family, love, realisation and self determination: Mavra and Iolanta become Mavra / Iolanta. Alevtina Ioffe in the conductor’s stand for the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and a magnificent ensemble of the Opernstudio der Bayerischen Staatsoper create a breath takingly electric atmosphere in which the intimate lyrical moments and the great romantic arcs of Tchaikovsky shine as much as the relational, musical comedy of the neoclassical Stravinsky sparkles.

This legendary concert of Luciano Pavarotti in Hyde Park, 1991, was held to mark the 30th anniversary of the start of Pavarotti's operatic career. The Guardian wrote that there had not been "such a brouhaha for a free concert" since the concert given by The Rolling Stones in 1969. Attended by 120,000 fans, including Lady Diana, Prince Charles, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Caine, and premier John Major, this concert by Luciano Pavarotti thrilled the electrified audience with a popular program from Verdi to Puccini (Nessun Dorma), from Mascagni and Leoncavallo to Bixio (Mamma) and Di Capua (`O sole mio), which is now available for the first time available here, digitally remastered!

Plácido Domingo has held a unique place in the history of opera for six decades. Eighty years young, this Madrileño is a lion of the stage who is putting on a Gala for the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles worthy of the French public’s great admiration for him. Accompanied by the Orchestra of the Opéra Royal under the direction of Laurent Campellone, in a duet with the dazzling Jennifer Rowley, Plácido Domingo performs at Versailles as a living legend, for an unforgettable evening.

This special Blu-ray brings together two compelling works showing the dramatic range of Lauren Cuthbertson, and The Royal Ballet. Internationally acclaimed choreographer Cathy Marston, previously Associate Artist of The Royal Opera House and Director of Bern Ballett, created The Cellist for The Royal Ballet in 2020. The inspiration for her first work for the Royal Opera House Main Stage is the momentous life and career of cellist Jacqueline du Pr� - from her discovery of the cello and her celebrity as one of it's most extraordinary players, to her pain, frustration and struggle with multiple sclerosis. Composer Philip Feeney incorporates some of the most moving and powerful music for cello by Elgar, Beethoven, Faur�, Mendelssohn, Piatti, Rachmaninoff and Schubert into an exquisite score that is itself an homage to the cello. In The Two Pigeons, Lauren Cuthbertson and Vadim Muntagirov lead a charismatic cast in Ashton's poignant and heart-warming reflection on love, based on an old French folk tale and first performed on Valentine's Day 1961. Created by the Company's Founder Choreographer, this recording captures The Royal Ballet's famous skill and distinctive style as Barry Wordsworth conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in Messager's rapturous score.

This Blu-ray box contains legendary concerts from 1977 – 1990 of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker, Orchestre National de France and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The set also includes the Centennial Celebration Concert at Tanglewood, featuring John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tony Yazbeck and many more, performing works by Bernstein, Williams, Mahler and Copland. Notable compositions include Jean Sibelius’s Symphonies 1, 2, 5, and 7, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16, Haydn’s Missa in tempore beli, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and many more.

Double-meanings, disguises and dirty laundry abound as Sir John Falstaff sets about improving his financial situation by wooing Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. But the ‘Merry Wives’ quickly cotton on to his tricks and decide to have a bit of fun of their own at Falstaff’s expenses. The Merry Wives of Windsor is the only comedy that Shakespeare set in his native land. Drawing influences from British 1930s fashion, music and dance, this production celebrates women, the power and beauty of nature, and with its witty mix of verbal and physical humor, rejoices in a tradition that reaches right down to the contemporary English sitcom.

Directed by Elle While (Hamlet, As You Like It), this production stars Olivier Award-nominated Bryony Hannah (Call the Midwife, The Children’s Hour) as Mistress Ford, Sarah Finigan (Suffragette, Upstart Crow, Globe on Tour) as Mistress Page, and Pearce Quigley (Detectorists, Hamlet, As You Like It) as Falstaff. The Windsor Locals appear courtesy of Soldiers’ Arts Academy, London Bubble and Clean Break. Spoken in Shakespeare’s English.

REVIEWS:

There's something magical about watching a Shakespeare play being performed at The Globe Theatre...The Merry Wives of Windsor is an intricate play with various subplots and a multitude of characters and in this production, director Elle While places a 1930s spin on things.

Padded out with a rotund stomach, rumpled and with a heavy northern accent, Quigley creates a memorable performance. When it is revealed that everyone has worked together to play a trick on Falstaff, Quigley's sad and defeated demeanour brings about audible sympathy from the audience. He gets the loudest laughs and the audience lap up every second of his performance.

Quigley is without a doubt the standout performer in this production, but he's well supported by Hedydd Dylan (as Welsh priest Sir Hugh Evans), Anita Reynolds as Mistress Quickly and Richard Katz as Dr Caius, with his heavy French accent manages to balance the fine line of comedy. The fairy dance is wonderfully choreographed by Sasha Milavic Davies and the score by Frank Moon is brilliantly played by the band who sit above the action on stage.

-- Broadway World

Classical Music

The composition of Un ballo in maschera caused Verdi many problems. What began as an opera called Gustavo III was subject to censorship by the Neapolitan and Roman authorities, so its libretto, location and title all changed. The subject, however, is still the murder of Riccardo (Gustavo) at the masked ball, couched in a musical language in which the seriousness of Italian opera is infused with French vivacity. The opera’s structure is carefully symmetrical in the great terzets, and the themes of duty, pleasure, drama and humor are rendered with masterful clarity.

The old Tzar Dodon, tired of ruling his country, manipulated by his political advisors - among which the obscure Astrologer - and showing little interest in protecting his kingdom against foreign agression, relies on a magic Golden Cockerel to warn him in case of an attack. But when the Cockerel tells him of his own defeat, the Tzar quickly falls in love with his enemy, the beautiful Tzaritza of Shemakha, who easily convinces him to surrender his empire by making him propose to her. A cruel and sardonic fairytale, Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel draws from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, and undoubtedly counts among the most subversive works in the history of music. A very direct attack against autocracy, stupidity and political inertia, it was censored and premiered only in 1909, one year after Rimsky-Korsakov's death. This new production from the The�tre de la Monnaie was imagined by Laurent Pelly. Drawing from the modernity of Rimsky-Korsakov's musical and dramatic imagination, the ambiguities of it's specular structure, and it's underlying reflection on language, manipulation and absurdity, the French stage director underlies the heavily symbolical aspects of this fierce and pitiless tale, all the while remembering both it's historical context and it's universal philosophical depth... French conductor Alain Altinoglu works wonders with the The�tre de la Monnaie Symphonic Orchestra, and reaffirms his strong affinities with Russian music, which were already made clear in the Tchaikovsky dyptich Iolanta / The Nutcracker at the Paris Opera in 2015.

Now in his nineties, Herbert Blomstedt, former conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, is still a powerful interpreter of the symphonic repertoire. His program with the Wiener Philharmoniker is straightforward: it begins with Honegger’s brilliant Third Symphony and ends with Brahms’ Fourth. The eminent maestro, one of the orchestra’s favorites since his debut at the 2011 Salzburg Mozart Week, continues to enchant audiences with his enormous presence, verve and artistic drive. “A stirring, long-lasting listening experience. At the end, standing ovations and boundless cheers.” (br-klassik.de) / “Fortunately, they still exist, the magical moments when time stands still, when music reaches and touches people.” (Die Presse)

This is one volume in a multi-volume set. Find the complete box set here.

On the occasion of the Bruckner bicentenary, the Wiener Philharmoniker recorded its first ever complete Bruckner cycle under the baton of Christian Thielemann. In addition to the well-known canon of nine symphonies, the two earliest Bruckner symphonies in F minor and D minor, which are a world premiere on DVD and Blu-ray, were also recorded for the first time in the orchestra's history. This uniquely complete edition from the Musikverein and Salzburg Festival, featuring 11 symphonies, also includes extensive conversations with Christian Thielemann about each symphony and insights into his rehearsal work.

“Two symphonies that document Bruckner's path to mastery quite excellently. (…) Conclusion: The next interesting Bruckner milestone in the cycle.” (Kurier) / “Masterly, kapellmeisterlike, dreamlike.” (Der Standard) / Beautiful to weep for and artistically accomplished. [...] The interpretation of the Fifth may be considered a milestone. The way the musicians realized this work was simply grand." (Kurier)

On this new release from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s classic tale is reimagined especially for the screen. King Leontes rips his family apart but grief opens his heart. Will he find the child he abandoned before it is too late? This production of Shakespeare’s play is staged for the screen by the RSC. Directed by Erica Whyman, the play is set across a 16-year span, from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to the moon landings. “The first ever televised Royal Shakespeare Company world premiere is solid.” (The Independent) “Autolycus can be a touchstone for personal taste and Anne Odeke was delicious here across the whole gamut, from singing voice through to cream-cake comedy.” (The Arts Desk)

Reviews

“Enchanting” – The Times ★★★★

“Engaging and high-spirited” – The Stage ★★★★

Verdi was commissioned by the Paris Opera to write Don Carlo to a French libretto. The source material was a dramatic play by Schiller and the work premiered as a five-act grand opera in March 1867 under the title Don Carlos. Set in the 16th century, its subject is Carlo, the son of Spain’s King Phillip II, and his love for Elizabetta, whom Philip later marries. The nature of the crises and conflicts Carlo faces, personal and political, drive the drama with unremitting intensity. In 1958 the celebrated director Luchino Visconti was invited by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to stage his first opera outside Italy. The choice was the five-act Italian-language Don Carlo and the spectacular production was pivotal in establishing this version as a repertoire piece. In 1985 the Royal Opera House once again presented its Visconti production with Bernard Haitink memorably directing a superb cast that includes Ileana Cotrubas at the height of her powers and Luis Lima, unequalled in his tortured introspection, in the title role.

Monteverdi’s great opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heart-breaking music. After two brutal decades of war, the weary Ulysses is washed up on the rocky shore of his home island of Ithaca. There, he discovers the hordes of depraved admirers who have beseiged his faithful wife Penelope in his 20-year absence – and launches into battle to win back her love. Monteverdi’s opera is a celebration of unwavering devotion, conveyed in some of the composer’s most poignant, heartbreaking music. John Eliot Gardiner leads an exemplary cast of world-class singers alongside the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in this live recording from The National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, Poland – part of their critically acclaimed Monteverdi 450 tour in 2017.

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REVIEWS:

Faced with lots of recitative and practically no arias, singers and players abandon themselves to intense arioso, jazzy cross-rhythms between poetry and continuo, and take-no-prisoners dissonances. Furio Zanasi, Lucile Richardot, and Hana Blažiková bring a depth of acting almost without rival.

– BBC Music Magazine

Recitatives flicker and spark with detail. Instrumental textures are spare and speeds swift, and there’s a welcome sense of narrative drive. Text is king, but it’s the rhetoric of the English Baroque Soloists that really counts. Zanasi is a smooth, patrician Uliss. There are more classically beautiful accounts of Il ritorno d’Ulisse available, but perhaps none with quite so much life.

– Gramophone

Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen concludes with Götterdämmerung. The composer’s original draft, in which the gods are redeemed by the hero Siegfried’s sacrifice, had fundamentally changed by 1874. Now in this ‘cosmic catastrophe’ Brünnhilde rides into Siegfried’s funeral pyre, the Rhine overflows and Valhalla perishes, and the gods with it. It’s the longest and most complex of the four music dramas, and its orchestration is also the most colorful and sophisticated. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March and Brünnhilde’s immolation scene are some of Wagner’s most potent theatrical moments and bring this drama to a shattering conclusion.

Double vinyl LP pressing.

Opera was in its infancy when Monteverdi wrote L’Orfeo, only six years after the first example of a drama set wholly to music had been performed in Florence. He brought to the work a revolutionary synthesis of text, staging and musical architectural that virtually defined the future of opera.

John Eliot Gardiner first conducted L’Orfeo at the Proms in London in 1967. For decades he has been at the forefront of Monteverdi performance and scholarship and in 2017, the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth, and the 50th anniversary of his own first performance of the opera, he undertook the crowning achievement of his association with the composer, an odyssey to perform all three surviving full-length operas. This performance of L’Orfeo was given at the historic Teatro La Fenice in Venice – which has seen triumphant premieres of works by Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and many others – in a critically acclaimed semi-staged production.

MONTEVERDI: IL RITORNO DI ULISSE IN PATRIA

“I am interested in the way that, right now, we are having to recalibrate our existence and to rethink our humanity: our relationship to the world, to its changes and its history. At turning points there is always a chance of finding but sadly also of forgetting something. Amid the tumult of the world the Renaissance values that resonate in the Madrigals seem to be perpetually relevant as a way of anchoring ourselves. On the other hand, just as the composer once did with his newly created Seconda pratica, I too seek a new kind of expression – a third practice – in my choreography.” (Tero Saarinen) Tero Saarinen’s Third Practice explores radical shifts in values and perspectives. Claudio Monteverdi’s revolutionary, breathtakingly beautiful madrigals are incarnated by twelve dancers and musicians. The Tero Saarinen Company and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra join forces to create a gripping contemporary fusion of dance, live music, opera and design. Rooted with Wings is a visual dance documentary that explores the work of internationally acclaimed choreographer and dancer Tero Saarinen, granting the viewer a unique impression of this extraordinary artist’s creative process.

Please note: this is a recording of spoken theatre, not opera.

One of the most important dramas in the German language, Georg Büchner’s fragile fragment is based on the case of the soldier J.Ch. Woyzeck, who stabbed his lover to death in 1824. Büchner explores the question of our dependence on social conditions, while also addressing the role of individual freedom and of fatalistic determination in our lives. Rarely has the hopelessness of Büchner’s Woyzeck been so movingly portrayed as it is in this production. Ulrich Rasche’s sets conjure up a series of breathtaking images, each of them reflecting the situation onstage. This production opens up a direct route to the narrative that is hard to resist.

“Büchner's Woyzeck has never been seen like this. Gutted and yet filled. Abstract and at the same time of concentrated force." -Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Classical Music

This new release is a second trio of outstanding productions of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies from the Royal Shakespeare Company. In Romeo and Juliet, the most famous story of love at first sight explodes with intense passion. Macbeth is a contemporary production of Shakespeare’s darkest psychological thriller, whilst Troilus and Cressida presents a satirical futuristic vision of a world resounding with the rhythm of battle. Extra features include cast interviews, directors’ commentaries, interviews with creative teams, and more. “Sweeping and confident production of Shakespeare’s rarely performed tragedy” (Evening Standard, Troilus and Cressida) “A fresh, fleet, blade-sharp revival” (The Telegraph, Romeo and Juliet).

Reviews

On Troilus and Cressida:

"Sweeping and confident production of Shakespeare's rarely performed tragedy." (The Evening Standard ★★★★)

"Gregory Doran's epic Mad Max post-apocalypse style Troilus and Cressida, with its swaggering yet flawed superheroes and ill-fated young lovers, opens with a clash of percussion instruments so loud, the night I saw it many of the audience jumped in their seats. The Scottish virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie has composed her first ever theatre score and it is so phenomenally good you can feel every beat – be it a tank drum, vibraphone or an oil can, "the rhythm of war" is almost deafening at times. A hugely entertaining and engrossing three-hour watch." (WhatsOnStage)

"Two performances stand out. Adjoa Andoh memorably brings out the manipulative monstrosity behind Ulysses’s beguiling rhetoric, literally loading the dice when it comes to the choice of a Greek champion to fight Hector. Oliver Ford Davies is a classic Pandarus, brimming over with senile prurience so that even a line such as “I’ll go get a fire” gains a lurking suggestiveness. The central lovers are also well played, with Amber James’s spryly intelligent Cressida provoked beyond endurance by the naive insistence of Gavin Fowler’s Troilus on her fidelity." (The Guardian ★★★)

On Macbeth:

"Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack make a gripping central couple." (The Stage ★★★★★)

"Urgent and wonderfully sinister." (Evening Standard ★★★★)

On Romeo and Juliet:

"a fresh, fleet, blade-sharp revival" (The Telegraph ★★★★)

"...two hugely appealing performances from Karen Fishwick and Bally Gill as the star-crossed lovers. Together they convey the blinkered giddiness of the young couple’s infatuation, the arrow-slit of adolescence in which tomorrow morning seems an age away and no adult can possibly understand the depth of your pain." (The Stage ★★★★)

"...strong performances in Erica Whyman’s swift production" (The Guardian ★★★)

Please note: the audio narration for this program is in French, with English subtitles.

In his Parisian living-room, music critic André Tubeuf (1930-2021) tells, with his knowledge, his language and his memory, the story of the German Lied. From Mozart and Beethoven to Mahler and Strauss, through Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf, a major part of the European culture and of music history is reborn before our eyes and ears. A series in seven episodes by Martin Mirabel. “Of course, there is much grander music, more sublime music, but there is no music that is more direct or intimate. That is to say, there is nothing we need more.’’ (André Tubeuf)