"•First release in a new partnership with the RSC • Starring distinguished TV, Film and Theatre actor David Tennant whose credits range from Doctor Who to Hamlet at the RSC • Production directed by Gregory Doran “one of the great Shakespearians of his generation” (The Sunday Times)"

Also available on Blu-ray

Acclaimed dancer-choreographer Akram Khan ‘speaks tremendously of tremendous things’ (Financial Times) and this new Giselle reimagines the classic narrative ballet for the 21st Century. Giselle had become a former garment factory migrant worker, Albrecht, a member of the wealthy factory-owning class. An abandoned ‘ghost factory’ haunted by the memory of female migrant workers, many of them victims of industrial accidents, replaces the traditional glade of Act II. There, Giselle’s desire to break the cycle of violence will lead her to reconciliation with Albrecht and his release from the retributive justice of the Wilis. “Giselle has been transformed for the ENB by Akram Khan into the ballet event of the year. Staggeringly beautiful and utterly devastating, it is an electrifying triumph which any dance or theatre fan must not miss.” (The Daily Express)

REVIEW:

So far as I know, only two pianists have recorded comprehensive Scriabin solo-piano cycles. One is Michael Ponti; the other is Maria Lettberg, a Riga-born Swedish national residing in Berlin, who lived with this repertoire for years, and even wrote a doctoral thesis on Scriabin. She recorded all of Scriabin’s solo piano works with opus numbers between 2004 and 2007 for a co-production between the Capriccio label and Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Unlike Ponti, with his horribly-engineered and ill-tuned instrument, Lettberg enjoys the advantage of a beautifully regulated concert grand and resplendent, lifelike engineering. She revels in the composer’s dynamic extremes and inner-voice labyrinths both real and implied. Her big, juicy sonority and refined articulation consistently address the sensual element that perpetually lurks underneath the surface of nearly every composition, from the early, Chopin-influenced Preludes, Etudes, Mazurkas, Waltzes, and sundry short pieces to the harmonically ambiguous, intensely mystical late sonatas and poems. Granted, you won’t encounter the ice in the fire revealed throughout the younger Richter’s incisive live Second, Fifth, or Ninth sonatas, nor the jackhammer impact of Horowitz’s repeated chords in Vers la flame or his trills in the Tenth sonata. At the same time, Lettberg can unleash enough fervent momentum to help tighten looser-knit works like the Fantasie Op. 28 and the rarely played Allegro Appassionato Op. 4.

A bonus DVD features Lettberg in excerpts from different sonatas interspersed with discussions about the music and a multi-media project called “Mysterium”, where video artist Andreas Schmidt reinterprets the music in terms of abstract manipulations of color. While Lettberg may not displace favorite versions of specific works, her overall consistency, meticulous technique, and total identification with Scriabin’s idiom deserve nothing less than our highest rating. Capriccio’s bargain price is enough to forgive the pianist’s poorly organized booklet notes, although they contain many interesting quotations from the composer.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10, Jed Distler)

Tchaikovsky’s unforgettable score combines with the magical choreography inspired by Lev Ivanov in an atmosphere of fantasy and the supernatural. Hoffmann’s Christmas story unfolds with breathtaking splendour and beauty in the most festive and enduring of all ballets. The Royal Ballet, whose Director, Sir Anthony Dowell, plays Drosselmeyer, is joined by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

Anthony Dowell, Alina Cojocaru, Ivan Putrov, Miyako Yoshida, Jonathan Cope The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Evgenii Svetlanov

FORMAT: NTSC; REGION 1 | PICTURE FORMAT: 16:9 | APPROX RUN TIME: 133 MINS | SOUND: DOLBY SURROUND / LPCM STEREO

Extra features include
• The Transformation Revealed Behind-the-scenes secrets of the spectacular Christmas tree scene
• Producer Sir Peter Wright on the production and Sir Anthony Dowell on the role of Herr Drosselmeyer
• Fixed wide shots of the Snowflakes and Transformation scenes

R E V I E W S:

‘...gorgeously staged Nutcracker.’ -- The Guardian

‘…fabulously entertaining. …a deliciously mysterious Herr Drosselmeyer played by Dowell. I plan on returning to this ‘Nutcracker’ many,many times.’ -- The San Francisco Chronicle

‘Peter Wright’s traditional production of The Nutcracker is lovely Christmas stuff, with lots of tutus and tiaras.’ -- The Mail on Sunday

‘Now you don’t have to leave the comfort of your armchair to enjoy one of the most magical productions of recent years whenever you wish – in pin-sharp widescreen with CD-quality Dolby Digital surround sound. …Needless to say, the dancers are top class, the costumes exquisite, the music delightful and the sets as sumptuous as a wedding cake. Enjoy the best that ballet has to offer from the best seat in the house – your own.’ -- HMV Choice

“Charles Ives' America”
Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff
Film two in the six-film Naxos series:
“Dvorak’s Prophecy: A New Narrative for American Classical Music”

Steeped in nostalgia, in his Danbury childhood and the New England Transcendentalists with whom he profoundly identified, in the American experience of race which he absorbed from his Abolitionist grandparents, Ives used the past with consummate empathy and brave artistry. A musical Whitman or Melville, he embodies the American trope of the “self-made genius,” heeding Emerson’s call to cut the cultural umbilical cord with Europe, forging an original path. The music at hand here includes his Second Symphony (a milestone in culling the vernacular to set beside Huckleberry Finn), The Housatonic at Stockbridge (possibly the most sublime nature reverie in the American orchestral repertoire), and The St. Gaudens in Boston Common (a singular ghost dirge in tribute to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw’s Black Civil War regiment). We also hear portions of Ives’s Concord Sonata performed by Steven Mayer (an interpretation seasoned by a lifetime of advocacy) and half a dozen Ives songs peerlessly sung (in live performance with Paul Sanchez) by William Sharp. The commentators include the Ives scholar Peter Burkholder, James Sinclair, William Sharp and Judith Tick.

‘Charles Ives’ America may be the most important film ever produced about American music. Horowitz moves Ives from the fringes squarely to his position as the seminal composer of our country’ – JoAnn Falletta, Music Director, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

In her twenty years with The Royal Ballet, Argentine dancer Marianela Nu�ez has excelled in iconic ballet classics, Company heritage works and modern creations. A Company Principal for 16 years, she has performed all the leading roles in the classical, dramatic and contemporary repertory. This collection showcases her exceptional mastery in four quintessential roles. In Swan Lake, she brings to life the beautifully tragic Odette and her rival Odile. She perfectly portrays the young lover Lise in La Fille mal gard�e, and brings bravura and vivacity to the role of Kitri in Carlos Acosta's production of the classical Don Quixote. She is transcendent as Giselle, one of the most challenging and demanding roles in the repertory. With peerless technical skill and compelling performances by the whole Company, this collection celebrates an exceptional dancer in her prime. ".. a jovial and entertaining showcase for classical dancing at it's most demanding and exuberant. One of the pleasures of this ballet is to be tickled by Minkus's infectiously melodious score... Marianela Nu�ez and Acosta delivered sparky, engaging performances" (The Times (Don Quixote)) "If the acting is superb, it's given real authority by the dancing. Muntagirov and Nu�ez are technically thrilling; she, at her finest moments, can combine an absolute mastery of the choreography, with the illusion that she's dancing it for the first time." (The Guardian (Giselle))

When Leontes, Sicilian king, becomes convinced his pregnant wife Hermione is conducting an affair with his closest friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, he is so enraged he banishes her newborn child, while Hermione apparently dies of grief. Sixteen years later, the child, Perdita, having been raised in Bohemia by shepherds, is in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes, who forbids their marriage. The lovers travel to Leontes’ court seeking happiness, which they find – in ways nobody expected. Blanche McIntyre directs a new version of Shakespeare’s great play of the irrational and inexplicable. Set in a world of monsters, gods and natural disasters, travel from the stifling atmosphere of the Sicilian court to the unbuttoned joy of a Bohemian festival.

REVIEWS:

A show for the die-hard Shakespeare fans, certainly, but also an excellent introduction to those less familiar with his work. It's a theatrical experience only the Globe could offer, and one that should be grabbed with both hands[.]

-- Broadway World

Director Sean Holmes has pulled off a coup: the first director to use both of the Globe’s theatres in a single evening. It’s an obvious response to The Winter’s Tale’s two contrasting kingdoms, and – in practical terms – it works brilliantly. The claustrophobic interiors of Sicilia in the Wanamaker Playhouse (pitch perfect from designer Grace Smart) give way to the breezy openness (those “winds of March” right on cue) of the Globe itself, and Bohemia’s riotous sheep-shearing celebrations.

-- The Arts Desk

Also available on Blu-ray

Giselle remains one of the most popular Romantic ballets of all time. The story brings together an engaging mix of human passions, supernatural forces, and the transcendent power of self-sacrificing love. The production by Sir Peter Wright catches the atmosphere of this great Romantic ballet, especially in the perfection of its White Act, with ghostly maidens drifting through the forest in spectacular patterns -- one of the most famous of any scenes for the corps de ballet. Giselle dances with lightness and fragility, giving the impression of floating through the mist.

This is one of The Royal Ballet's most loved and admired productions, faithful to the spirit of the 1841 original yet always fresh at each revival. This performance features former Bolshoi star and now Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova in a breath-taking interpretation of the title role.

Adolphe Adam
GISELLE

Giselle - Natalia Osipova
Albrecht - Carlos Acosta
Hilarion - Thomas Whitehead
Wilfred - Johannes Stepanek
Berthe - Deirdre Chapman
The Duke of Courland - Christopher Saunders
Bathilde - Christina Arestis
Myrtha - Hikaru Kobayashi
Moyna - Elizabeth Harrod
Zulme - Akane Takada

Royal Opera House Orchestra
Boris Gruzin, conductor

Marius Petipa, choreographer
John Macfarlane, set and costume designer
Jennifer Tipton, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, January 2014

Bonus:
- The Romance of Giselle
- The Corps de ballet in Giselle
- Cast Gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles (bonus): English
Running time: 113 mins (ballet) + 10 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Press Reviews
"There has never been a choreographer that I can think of who could produce three such contrasting works, and you sit watching in wonderment at the fertile imaginings of his mind." (The Daily Telegraph )

"It's grisly, and yet horribly exciting in its momentum, as the men show off to each other like skateboarders, flinging themselves into barrel turns while knotting and unknotting their legs." (The Independent )

"As far as I am aware there are no other versions of Elite Syncopations or Concerto currently available on DVD and as mentioned these are significant works in the MacMillan canon so pretty much an obligatory purchase for admirers of his work. As a programme this strikes me as an excellent triple bill as diverse in its emotional range as it is accomplished in its technical excellence from every department." (Musicweb International )

“Dvořák's New World Symphony - A Lens on the American Experience of Race”
A PostClassical Ensemble “More than Music” film
Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff
Film one in the six-film Naxos series:
“Dvorak’s Prophecy: A New Narrative for American Classical Music”

The six documentary films in this series align with Joe Horowitz's new book 'Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music'. Like the book, they explore a “new paradigm” for the history of classical music in the United States. Why classical music in America “stayed white” is a central concern of Dvořák’s Prophecy." The films incorporate Naxos recordings as well as live performances, including William Sharp singing Ives, Kevin Deas singing Harry Burleigh, and Dennis Russell Davies conducting Harrison’s Piano Concerto. Participating commentators include critic Alex Ross, Black Classical Music pioneer George Shirley, music historians Bill Alves, Beth Levy, and Judith Tick, and the African-American conductors Roderick Cox and the late Michael Morgan.

 This first film in the series keys on Dvořák’s prophecy and explores its present-day pertinence. In New York City and Spillville, Iowa, Dvořák boldly chose to regard African-Americans and Native Americans as representative Americans. That decision was both acclaimed and ridiculed at the time. It remains inspirational. His New World Symphony, still the best known and best loved symphonic work conceived on American soil, is saturated with the influence of plantation song, and also with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. This act of appropriation, the film argues, was an act of empathy performed by a great humanitarian. The musical selections here are mainly taken from the Hiawatha Melodrama, which Joe Horowitz co-composed with the music historian Michael Beckerman with orchestrations by Angel Gil-Ordonez. It mates Dvorak with Longfellow. The participating commentators include the music historians Mark Clague and Lorenzo Candelaria, the literary historian Brian Yothers, the conductor JoAnn Falletta, faculty members from Howard University – and also (sagely commenting on cultural appropriation) the bass-baritone Kevin Deas, and the late Michael Morgan.

"Horowitz's six beautiful films reveal a compelling inclusive tradition in American classical music, open to influences from popular, Black, Native American, and world music, this music is deeply interwoven with American culture." – J. Peter Burkholder, author of A History of Western Music and Listening to Charles Ives.

“Beyond Psycho - The Musical Genius of Bernard Herrmann”
A PostClassical Ensemble “More than Music” film
Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff
Film five in the six-film Naxos series:
“Dvorak’s Prophecy: A New Narrative for American Classical Music”

Hollywood’s supreme film composer was a casualty of the standard narrative - as he himself was bitterly aware. Not only were his movie scores high creative accomplishments; Bernard Herrmann was a formidable- and formidably unfashionable- concert composer whose Clarinet Quintet may be the most beautiful chamber music by an American. His Psycho Narrative, which we also sample, surpasses the Psycho Suite we normally hear. He honed his gift for dramatizing the spoken word as the pre-eminent composer for a genre no longer remembered: the radio drama. This film samples Whitman (1944) – a Norman Corwin radio play that deserves to live as a concert work. It also exemplifies how radio, an unprecedented mass medium, once consolidated the American experience, its biggest star being Franklin D. Roosevelt. Participants include the Whitman scholar Karen Karbiener, the critic Alex Ross, Murray Horwitz on radio lore, and William Sharp on playing Walt Whitman to music by Bernard Herrmann.

Take a seat in the stalls at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for an unforgettable evening of ballet and opera highlights performed by world-renowned stars of The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet past and present. This special video release features opera arias, duets, and choruses, as well as ballet solos, pas de deux and ensembles, drawn from the repertory of two of the world's greatest artistic companies and performed in one of the world's most loved opera houses. Ballet features include selections from Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, The Firebird, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Giselle, and others, and opera features include selections from Il barbiere di Siviglia, La traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflote, and many more.

Without Camille Pissarro, there is no Impressionist movement. He is rightfully known as “the father of Impressionism”. Born in the West Indies, Pissarro found his passion in paint as a young man in Paris and, by the age of 43, had corralled a group of enthusiastic artists into a new collective. Their first show was scorned by the critics but the group had acquired a new name: the Impressionists. For the next 40 years Pissarro was the driving force behind what has today become the world’s favorite artistic movement. Pissarro was a dedicated family man, generous with his advice, passionate about experimentation, well-read, socially aware and an anarchist. It was a dramatic path that Pissarro followed and, throughout it all, he wrote extensively to his family. It is through these intimate and revealing letters that this gripping film reveals Pissarro’s life and work. Filmed on location in France, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Kunstmuseum in Basel. With exclusive access to the most extensive archive of any Impressionist painter and to the first major Pissarro retrospective in four decades, this film explores the enthralling and hugely important biography of an extraordinary artist.

“Aaron Copland: American Populist”
A PostClassical Ensemble “More than Music” film
Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff
Film four in the six-film Naxos series:
“Dvorak’s Prophecy: A New Narrative for American Classical Music”

Buffeted by social and political currents, Copland can seem unmoored: a cork in a stream. He was politicized by the Depression- and by the example of Mexico, whose artists galvanized national identity and progressive thought. He wrote a prize-winning workers’ song and addressed a Communist picnic in Minnesota. Twenty years later, the Red Scare targeted him as a traitor. Can his odyssey be read as a parable illuminating the fate of the American artist?  This film features a reenactment of Copland’s grilling by Senator Joseph McCarthy (played by Edward Gero). It also highlights the most consequential Copland score we don’t know: his ingenious music of Lewis Mumford’s 1939 World’s Fair film The City, itself a complex product of the Popular Front. We reconsider the valedictory Piano Fantasy, in which Copland refreshed his modernist roots- a galvanizing performance by Benjamin Pasternack, who also recalls a telling encounter with the composer. The other commentators include the American historians Michael Kazin and Joseph McCartin, who ponder the tangled legacy of American populism of the left and right.

"The 'Dvořák’s Prophecy' film series makes an essential contribution to our understanding of the history of music in America, and of the role that music has played, and must continue to play, in American culture as a whole. The films are both enlightening and entertaining. I can readily envision their use in classrooms, in both introductory and advanced-research contexts. Non-specialists will also enjoy them thoroughly. Because Horowitz does not shy away from political, racial, and gender issues of intense contemporary relevance, these films are especially important right now." – Larry Starr, Emeritus Professor of Music, University of Washington

Experience the thrill of rebellion, the brutality of battle, and ambition without boundaries in Shakespeare’s epic trilogy about one of the most turbulent periods in English history. This box set trilogy, available together for the first time on DVD, includes: Henry VI: Part One Filmed as a rehearsal run through performance during the Covid 19 pandemic, Henry VI: Part One introduces us to a young and reclusive Henry, who is proclaimed King of England after the death of his father, Henry V. Directed by Gregory Doran and Owen Horsley. Henry VI: Rebellion: As fighting and division in the corridors of power continues, and Henry’s hold on the English throne wavers, ordinary men and women start to speak out. But as the people rise in protest, who is behind their rebellion? Directed by Owen Horsley. Henry VI: Wars of the Roses: In this thrilling climax, the tussle for the English crown escalates to the battlefield as the families of Lancaster and York drench their brutal conflict in sweat and blood. Directed by Owen Horsley.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Choral Performance!

** Physical package includes CD and Pure-Audio Blu-Ray with high-resolution and surround formats, and video selections of the world premiere concert and complete liturgical performance. **

Benedict Sheehan’s landmark setting of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English grows out of the tradition of the great Russian liturgy settings by Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff, and Tchaikovsky. Reminiscent of medieval Eastern chant, minimalism, American folk singing, and the high tradition of Western church music, it is also hailed by Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America as “a new milestone for Orthodoxy in America.”

Sheehan’s sweeping and virtuosic a cappella Liturgy represents a fresh and vibrant voice for choral music today.

The Saint Tikhon Choir was founded in 2015 by Benedict Sheehan, the group’s artistic director, and Abbot Sergius of St. Tikhon’s Monastery. It is the first professional vocal ensemble connected with an Orthodox monastery in America, founded with a mission to foster and build up the American Orthodox choral tradition at the highest artistic level.

ABOUT THE RECORDING

Sheehan’s Liturgy is the first of four planned releases on Cappella Records produced by multi-GRAMMY® Award winner Blanton Alspaugh and the engineering team at Soundmirror. Soundmirror’s outstanding orchestral, solo, opera, and chamber recordings have received more than 100 GRAMMY® nominations and awards, with releases on every major classical label.

This is also the first release of The Saint Tikhon Choir on Cappella Records. The Choir recently recorded a collaboration on Naxos with three other choirs and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Leonard Slatkin, which debuted at #1 on Billboard. They also previously recorded the sacred works of Benedict Sheehan for Saint Tikhon’s Monastery Press.

The 2-disc deluxe set features both CD and PureAudio Blu-ray™ media with high-resolution 2.0 Stereo and 5.0 Surround versions (DSM192K/24bit), recorded in DSD and downloadable to audio servers and devices. The Blu-ray™ also contains three video performances: two concert selections from the world première performance and the complete liturgical première sung at St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. The accompanying booklet provides an extensive essay by the composer, the full text of the Divine Liturgy, and beautiful photography.

BENEDICT SHEEHAN