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Müller: Flute Concertos Nos. 5, 7 & 8 / Ruhland, Handschuh, Southwest German Chamber Orchestra
CPO · Apr 2022CD$18.99 -
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SaleHenze: Der Prinz von Homburg / Meister, Stuttgart Staatsoper
Naxos AudioVisual · Sep 2020DVD$30.99$15.49 -
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C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin / Podger, Bezuidenhout
Channel Classics · Apr 2023SACD$23.99 -
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Lanner: Viennese Dances / Dorner, Orchestre de Cannes
Review:
Naxos's sound engineers have done a first class job on this disc. Robert Letellier's booklet notes provide a welcome and expert introduction to a composer who will be little - if at all - known to many.
Naxos's competitive pricing always encourages taking a risk on unfamiliar material. In this case and after listening to nearly 70 minutes of Lanner's undemanding but nonetheless highly enjoyable music, most buyers will conclude that any risk had turned out to be well justified. Believe me, if you enjoy the music of Lanner’s era you will most certainly like his easy-going tunes. And if, like me, you do so enough that you play the disc more than a few times, I suspect you might even start whistling them too.
– MusicWeb International (Rob Maynard)
Müller: Flute Concertos Nos. 5, 7 & 8 / Ruhland, Handschuh, Southwest German Chamber Orchestra
Henze: Der Prinz von Homburg / Meister, Stuttgart Staatsoper
Resonating powerfully with Hans Werner Henze’s pacifist perspective, Der Prinz von Homburg is based on a play by Heinrich von Kleist that opposes authority, celebrating a dreamer rather than a classical hero, and individualist freedom rather than militarist nationalism. Ingeborg Bachmann’s libretto heightens this message, and Henze’s chamber-music setting is at once powerful and unpredictable. This visually stunning production stretches from intimate transparency to dramatic heights, in a critically acclaimed staging by the award-winning director Stephan Kimmig.
Organ Music of the North German Baroque
Liedgeschwister - Lieder aus Japan und Europa
Peter & The Wolf / Murphy, Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Peter and the Wolf, Prokofiev’s musical fairy tale, has been delighting children since 1936. Nearly 60 years later, in 1995, the young choreographer Matthew Hart created a witty choreographed version for the Royal Ballet School with designs by Ian Spurling. Described as ‘an utterly delightful ballet and a perfect showcase for the younger students,’ by the Royal Ballet’s Director, Monica Mason, it was staged again and recorded for this DVD.
"...Matthew Hart’s Peter and the Wolf is one of the most beguiling children’s ballets around.” - The Telegraph
Matthew Hart, choreographer
The Wolf – Sergei Polunin
Grandfather – Will Kemp
Peter – Kilian Smith
Duck – Charlotte Edmonds
Bird – Laurine Muccioli
Cat – Chisato Katsura
The Royal Ballet School
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Paul Murphy, conductor
Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, 16 and 18 December 2010.
Bonus:
- Cast gallery
- Documentary feature on rehearsing Peter and the Wolf
Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 38 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
This enchanting DVD captures 2011’s Christmas performance from the students of the Royal Ballet Lower School. All of the cast seem to be of primary school age, with the adult dancers Sergei Polunin and Will Kemp brought in as the Wolf and Narrator. Matthew Hart’s realisation of Prokofiev’s score as a ballet had first been seen in 1995 and it works very well indeed. Hart says in a short extra film that one of his aims had been to get as many dancers as possible onto the stage. He provide roles not only for the principal characters but for the corps as the physical elements of the story: dancers embody the hunters, the grass of the meadow, the waves of the pond, the trees of the forest and the wall next to Peter’s house. The choreography is simple without being simplistic and Hart tells the story very well. The principals are all extraordinarily proficient for their age, particularly the three girls playing the bird, duck and cat, who have the flexible movement of their creatures down to a T. Kilian Smith’s Peter is brave and likeable, while Polunin’s wolf embodies the sinister characteristics of a pantomime villain with that extra bit of danger. Will Kemp doubles as on-stage narrator and as Grandfather. The bright primary colours of both set and costumes work very well, and the only piece of staging is a bulky frame which is used for the tree, covered in graffiti about the story. The orchestra plays very well and the 5.1 surround sound brings the story to life. The only thing I missed, compared to an audio only recording, is the sense of intimacy with the narrator, something necessarily lost in a production such as this one, but if you don’t mind that then you’ll enjoy this very much. If you know some children who enjoy dancing, or if you want to get some children interested in dance for the first time, then this is especially for you.
-- Simon Thompson, MusicWeb International
Deutscher: Cinderella (Viennese version for children)
C. Lindberg: Steppenwolf, Tales Of Galamanta & Peking Twilig
For the past twenty years, while maintaining an unsurpassed career as a trombone soloist and in tandem with being a sought-after conductor, Christian Lindberg has also been composing. Previous releases of his music have earned him critical praise: the reviewer in American Record Guide ‘was captivated by his interesting ideas and rich harmonic language’ while his counterpart on German website Klassik-Heute characterised Lindberg as ‘a marvellously deft, self-reliant composer’. The present album is the third BIS release dedicated entirely to Lindberg’s music, and features some of his more recent works. In his own liner notes, Lindberg describes his method of working, and explains the background of the three pieces recorded here with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. In regards to Steppenwolf, his viola concerto, he was attracted by the solo instrument’s ‘melancholic and deep qualities … offering an opportunity to compose something that could never be expressed in the same way with, for instance, a violin’. In a classical, three-movement concerto form, the work isn’t programmatic as such, but while composing it, Lindberg was reminded of the novel by Hermann Hesse. The title of the following piece, on the other hand, refers to a previous composition by Lindberg himself. Composed for a television project involving music as well as dance, the fifteen-minute Tales of Galamanta uses material from the ‘arte commedia’ Dawn from Galamanta.
German: Symphony No. 2 / Penny, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland
Sir Arthur Sullivan called Edward German ‘the one man to follow me who has genius’. Notwithstanding German’s success in operetta, especially with Tom Jones and Merrie England, orchestral music was always central to his life. Stylistic affiliations with French and Russian music – not that common in British music of the time – are often evident. German, like Elgar, was a stylistic cosmopolitan whose music is, paradoxically, quintessentially English, and the ‘Norwich’ is indeed an outstanding late 19th-century British symphony. German gave us another superb symphony too, albeit in miniature, with his Welsh Rhapsody, a brilliant orchestral showpiece that remains his most performed extended orchestral work.
REVIEW:
In the mid-1990s, Marco Polo set about recording much of Edward German’s orchestral music. This programme was issued in 1995, and is now one of four discs re-released on Naxos.
I have not heard German’s 1st Symphony. His four-movement 2nd Symphony subtitled ‘Norwich’ is apparently even finer. It was commissioned by the Norwich Festival Committee. It has assured orchestration and inventive colours, and its material is often memorable and always clearly presented. There have been other recordings over the last fifty years, but none is now available.
The second movement Andante con moto, the real star for me, is overwhelmingly enchanting. But we start with a sonata-form Allegro preceded by a dark, slow introduction marked Andante maestoso. This powerful movement compares interestingly with the lighter touches of the later Allegro scherzando and the boisterous finale. The last movement at times brought to my mind anything by Dvořák and, possibly less surprisingly, Eric Coates. To me, this is the finest British symphony before Elgar; some of you might even prefer it. David Russell Hulme’s excellent, detailed booklet notes remind us that Elgar thought very highly of Edward German.
German’s most performed orchestral work may be the Welsh Rhapsody, written for the Cardiff Music Festival of 1904. The booklet writer calls it symphonic, and I know what he means. It falls into four distinctly different movements of varying tempi and mood. German uses several traditional melodies. The third part is a whirling Scherzo. The finale begins with a chorale-like idea, and moves into the famous ‘Men of Harlech’ tune developed with much enthusiasm. You might think it’s a little over the top, but it brings the work to a great climax, so it often gets a standing ovation.
The Valse gracieuse was originally part of the Leeds Suite written for the Leeds Festival in 1895. This beautifully scored piece proved so popular that German revised it twenty years later to make an independent concert waltz. If you know German’s famous Tom Jones or his Merrie England with its waltz-songs, then the main melody of Valse gracieuse may remind you how good a tunesmith he could be.
I have known this music for over twenty years, and it never fails to please. The performances and recording are a joy, and do the music proud.
-- MusicWeb International (Gary Higginson)
DANCE FANTASIES
Weber: Der Freischutz
Hofmann: Octet, Op. 80; Serenade, Op. 65; Sextett, Op. 25
HOFMANN Octet. Serenade. Sextet • Berolina Ens • MDG 948 18086 (SACD: 78:03)
There are some 20 composers named Hofmann or Hofman or Hoffman or Hoffmann listed in ArkivMusic.com. This one is Heinrich Karl J. Hofmann (one “f,” two “n”s). I find only one other listing of a piece by this composer on ArkivMusic, and nothing in the Fanfare Archive. Hence, this 78-minute program of three substantial chamber works fills a need.
The music is conservatively romantic in style, coming from a composer (1842–1902) who lived through the ages of Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, and early Mahler, seemingly without being touched by any of them. Does that mean Hofmann is not worth remembering? The extensive program notes by Michael Wittmann make a strong case for the composer, noting that music need not be “metaphysical” to be eminently enjoyable and worthy, and that Hofmann “was one of the most frequently performed German composers during his lifetime.” Wittmann goes on to make the almost unbelievable claims that the Symphony, op. 22, of 1874 was “for a time the most frequently performed symphony in the German empire,” and that “the cantata Märchen von der schönen Melusine was performed more than 1,500 times” between 1875 and 1895 in Germany, England, and the U.S.A.
Weber, Spohr, Reinecke, and Bruch are the names that come to mind when listening to Hofmann’s chamber music. It is invariably pleasant, easy-going, lyrical, and melodious without being remarkable. It does not reach out and grab you, but then neither does Beethoven’s Septet, which was one of that composer’s most popular works during his lifetime. As a measure of Hofmann’s standing in the U.S. in the late 19th century, it was the New York Philharmonic Club that commissioned his Serenade for Flute and Strings. The Serenade impresses not so much for its melodic ideas, but for the skill with which Hofmann handles his material. The addition of a double bass to the standard string quartet gives the music an almost symphonic weight. The sonata-form first movement is full of sparkle, the second has an elegiac quality, the scherzo makes its mark with unusual rhythmic patterns, and the energetic finale is imbued with strong dance-like impulses.
Asked to name an octet for the mixed ensemble of strings and winds, most music lovers would have no trouble citing Schubert’s. But beyond his, what else is there? Not counting those that include piano, I can come up with the paltry list of only Spohr, Rheinberger, Hindemith, Sigismund Neukomm, and now Hofmann. (I’ve probably missed an obvious one; perhaps some kind reader will send a letter to the editor.) Hofmann’s Octet is not for quite the same forces as Schubert’s (Hofmann has a flute, Schubert a double bass). Purely by coincidence, I would assume, Hofmann’s Octet opens with a subject that seems almost a clone of Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings. The movement breezes along in a most genial vein, and is followed a bucolic slow movement, a gavotte that will inevitably set faces smiling and feet tapping, and a finale that romps along with Brahmsian vigor.
The 11-member Berlin-based Berolina Ensemble is a first-class group that turns in committed performances full of vitality, dynamic contrast, and color. Hofmann may not be a composer on the order of a Schubert or a Weber, but the Berolinas make such a strong case for him that while listening one cannot but fully enjoy the experience. Excellent sound.
FANFARE: Robert Markow
A German Bouquet / Trio Settecento
REVIEW:
Çedille’s collection of German violin sonatas opens with Johann Schop’s brief Noblemen , a set of “divisions” influenced, according to the notes, by the English style. It offers Rachel Barton Pine an opportunity for engaging in the kind of brilliant rapid passagework that characterizes pieces of this kind. Throughout the program, Pine plays with a sound that falls a bit on the nasal, pinched side of the spectrum, yet without the timbral (or technical) mannerisms in which earlier period instrumentalists with similar timbral predilections used to indulge. The repertoire provides for a kind of collegiality in which the Trio revels in this varied program, and the engineers have balanced the performers in an ambiance that’s just reverberant enough to enhance the sound of their ensemble. Strongly recommended for its exuberant, virtuosic music-making, elegant yet without a trace of slickness and serious without a trace of ponderousness.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
Silenced Voices / Black Oak Ensemble
Black Oak Ensemble, a string trio boasting three of Chicago’s most enterprising and dynamic chamber musicians, makes its recording debut with Silenced Voices, an album of intriguing works by six promising, early 20th century Jewish composers originally from Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. One survived World War II as a member of the Dutch resistance, the others perished in concentration camps and elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe.
Silenced Voices includes the world premiere recording of wartime survivor Geza Frid’s early Trio a cordes, Op. 1, an inventive work infused with Hungarian folk music influences. Composer-cellist Paul Hermann’s Strijktrio, a forward-looking, cosmopolitan work from the early 1920s, shares its melodies among all three instruments. Dick Kattenburg’s youthful Trio a cordes was praised in a 1938 concert review for its “remarkable mastery and a very personal style.” Gideon Klein’s Trio for violin, viola and cello is notable for its treatment of a Moravian folk song that serves as the theme of its middle movement. Hans Krasa’s Tanec (“Dance”) is a five-minute whirl of dancelike episodes framed by the sonic evocation of trains. His Passagalia is more somber, with its own train motifs, while its companion Fuga bears shades of Germanic and Czech influences and occasional grotesque touches. Sandor Kuti’s Serenade for String Trio brims with Hungarian folk music and piquant chord clusters. His Franz Liszt Academy classmate, conductor Sir Georg Solti, later proclaimed that Kuti “would have become one of Hungary’s greatest composers.” Praised for its “flamboyant vitality” and “expert performances” (Chicago Tribune), the Black Oak Ensemble comprises Swiss-American violinist Desiree Ruhstrat and British-born cellist David Cunliffe of the acclaimed, Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio and French-born violist Aurelien Fort Pederzoli, a founding member of the groundbreaking, Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet. Silenced Voices was inspired, in part, by the educational efforts of violist Pederzoli’s mother, a history teacher of Sephardic Jewish descent who led annual student field trips to locations such as Prague, Budapest, Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Terezin.
REVIEW:
None of these works in any sense identifies with the carefree café scene, nor strikes the fave licks of the waltzing salon partiers of the 1920s and ’30s. This is serious music that bristles and singes and sings, whose creators know strings and how to make three voices into the proverbial sum greater than its parts. And before I forget, the three members of Black Oak Ensemble—Desirée Ruhstrat (violin); David Cunliffe (cello); Aurélien Fort Pederzoli (viola)—are ideal advocates for this music, a threesome that often sounds like six, or like one, and makes the most of melody and makes magic of irregular rhythm and phrasing, of beautiful lines and jazzy utterances, reveling in the gritty groan of bows digging into strings, and finding the joy in rich harmony and an occasional raucous dance. Thanks to such insightful, committed, and masterful performances, those composers, though dead, are still speaking.
– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Vernier)
Komm, Susses Kreuz!: The German Viol In Fantastic Dialogues
,,The Stylus Phantasticus is the most free and unrestrained type of playing" said Johann Mattheson in 1739. Around 1700 this style was transfered from the organ to the chamber music where the viol played an important role. Famous viol virtuosos, like August Kühnel, tried to draw attention to the instrument with their compositions. Dieterich Buxtehude also wrote charming trio sonatas in which a viol was required explicitly as second solo voice. Finally the great Johann Sebastian Bach used the gamba in his St Matthew Passion. Frauke Hess and her colleagues develop the blaze of color of Baroque viol music with their new recording.
Fahrbach: Waltzes; Marches; Polkas / Simonis, Nürnberger Symphoniker
Following marches, polkas, and waltzes by Benjamin Bilse, Richard Eilenberg, Josef Gung’l, and Carl Millöcker, this new release is now the fifth cpo album with the conductor Christian Simonis. This time he turns to two members of the Fahrbach family of musicians: to Philipp Fahrbach the Younger and Philipp Fahrbach the Elder. In mere numbers the members of the Fahrbach family by far surpassed the members of the Strauss family. Like the Strausses, the Fahrbachs also composed superb dances and marches. Moreover, in the Vienna and Austria of those times the Fahrbach dynasty of musicians contributed enormously to the music culture and development of popular music not only in the capital city’s region but also beyond it. The titles of the works, the occasions of their composition and performance, and not least the music itself with all its allusions are in the oeuvre of the Fahrbachs just as much »history in music« as they are in the compositions by the Strauss family. The Fahrbachs are no longer so famous today simply because of the poor state of the surviving source documentation. Like his father, Philipp Fahrbach the Younger was a conductor of military and private orchestras and in this capacity of course also a composer. The waltzes of father and son in particular enjoyed great favor among the public and music critics. The musical oeuvre of Philipp Fahrbach the Younger comprises more than five hundred compositions, most of which can be assigned to the genres of Viennese dance and march music. His most successful and most famous work is also heard on this album: the brilliant polka française “Im Kahlenbergerdörfel” op. 340.
Musical Journey: Germany - Majestic Marches
Majestic Marches
A Musical Visit to Kulmbach and the Tin Soldier Museum
The Places:
On a hill above the ancient town of Kulmbach stands the imposing 12th century Hohenzollern fortress of Plassenburg. Among various collections on display is the remarkable Tin Soldier Museum, with various figures and dioramas that recreate battles and mirror the great castle itself, with a variety of scenes from all periods of human history.
The Music:
The March has an inevitable part to play in human history. Marco Polo remarked on the use of music by the armies of China to terrify the enemy before a battle. Military music, however, has a more precise purpose, whatever alarm it may strike into the hearts of those who hear it. Drums and trumpets may serve as useful signals, to advance or retreat, to eat or to sleep. The same instruments and their near relations may serve to keep an army moving together, and may serve to inspire feelings of bravery and patriotism. At the same time a march can provide a suitable accompaniment to an occasion of solemnity, a wedding, a funeral or a state ceremony. The music chosen for this tour offers a series of Marches by different composers, culminating in Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
Picture Format: NTSC, Color, 4:3
Audio Format: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM Stereo 2.0
Region: 0 (All Region)
C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin / Podger, Bezuidenhout
The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.
Rachel Podger writes: “It was wonderful to delve into the specific musical world that belongs to C.P.E. Bach for this recording with Kris. These violin sonatas are (quite unfortunately!) largely overshadowed by the classical Viennese sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. Part of his genius is that he is full of surprises and unpredictable turns, and this was hugely enjoyable for me during the musical partnership with the wonderful Kristian Bezuidenhout.”
REVIEWS:
Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout are performers of the highest level of technical polish, and I am especially impressed by Bezuidenhout’s imaginative and assertive pianism. Podger’s violin was built by the Genoese maker Antonio Pazarini (Pesarinius) in 1739. Excellent sound from Channel as usual.
-- American Record Guide
Across the later sonatas Kristian Bezuidenhout and Rachel Podger savor the qualities of coaxing, pleading, playfulness, and arresting quirkiness that signal their identification with the so-called Empfindsamer Stil. But nothing is ever cut and dried. The keyboard opening of the B minor Sonata, composed some three decades after its G minor cousin, sounds like a throwback to the teenage work. And, rich in Empfindsamer fingerprints, the Arioso with five variations proves to be a 1780 respray of an earlier work.
At one level, Bezuidenhout and Podger help to pinpoint the chronology, allotting a handsome-sounding copy of an 1805 Walther fortepiano to the later works and a Taskin-inspired harpsichord to the products of the 1730s. It’s just one example of the thoughtfulness with which they approach a set of performances that are as equally persuasive in the bustling, youthful incisiveness of the G minor and D major Sonatas, as in the pristinely-paced, probingly expressive whimsy of the Arioso. Their music-making is infectiously spontaneous yet tellingly ‘considered’ – seamless rapport and impeccably-judged articulation delighting in a stream of illuminating felicities. CPE Bach’s free-spirited sonatas have surely found their free-spirited match.
-- BBC Music Magazine
This is how it’s done, my friends. A completely scrumptious new release from the queen of the Baroque violin, Rachel Podger. In partnership with keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Rachel gives to us a bit over an hour of completely entrancing music by the often underestimated Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
There should be nothing underestimated about these keyboard and violin sonatas. They are imaginative, innovative, sublime. Add to this the impeccable performances, with that breath of life Rachel delivers so well in all of her performances, the excellent partnership with Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the utterly delightful recording quality from Jared Sacks, and one has an album to savor again and again. It is a must listen recording.
There is pure joy in Podger's performances, one feels her connection with music, the composer, and her audience. Kristian Bezuidenhout is her perfect partner in these works, As with Podger, his playing is not tied to a metronome. He plays, as does she, with a degree of improvisational exploration that makes these works far more interesting than in many other hands.
Listening to them together, one feels their connection in this music. I was particularly struck by this in their excellent performance of the Sonata in C minor which fairly danced with barely contained energy in the final Presto movement – their timing together is exquisite.
The shift from harpsichord to fortepiano and back again adds great interest to the recital. With the change in instruments, the texture of the sound changes. The balance of the violin and the keyboard shifts. Hard to accomplish in a live performance, but a delightful gift across the breadth of this recording.
-- Paul Rushton of Positive Feedback
VON ECKARDSTEIN PLAYS SCHUMANN
GHOST LIGHT - BY JOHN NEUMEIER
O Guldnes Licht / Poplutz, Banholzer
| At the center of this production are three of the most extended chorale fantasias of the North German Baroque, which superbly showcase the richness of sound of the Schnitger organ in Stade. Reincken's fantasies have survived only through the enthusiasm of the young Johann Sebastian Bach, who improvised on the same chorale for half an hour during a personal meeting with the aged master - years after he had made a copy of the latter's fantasy on An Wasserflüssen Babylon. In addition, organ works by Buxtehude and vocal works by Tunder will be heard. |
Tchaikovsky: The Classic Ballets / Royal Ballet
CLASSIC BALLETS
(3-DVD Box Set)
Swan Lake
Odette / Odille – Marianela Nuñez
Prince Siegfried – Thiago Soares
The Princess, Siegfried’s mother – Elizabeth McGorian
An Evil Spirit / Von Rothbart – Christopher Saunders
The Tutor – Alastair Marriott
Benno – David Pickering
Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Valeriy Ovsyanikov, conductor
Anthony Dowell, stage director
Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, choreographers
Recorded at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, on 16 and 24 March 2009
Bonus:
- Illustrated synopsis
- Cast gallery
- Interview with Anthony Dowell
- Four Swan Queens - Exclusive 30-minute conversation on the demands of dancing the role of the Swan Queen with former Prima Ballerinas
- Dame Beryl Grey, Dame Monica Mason, Lesley Collier and current principal Marianela Nuñez
The Nutcracker
The Sugar Plum Fairy – Miyako Yoshida
Nephew / Nutcracker – Ricardo Cervera / Steven McRae
The Prince – Steven McRae
Drosselmeyer – Gary Avis
Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Koen Kessels, conductor
Peter Wright, choreographer and director (after Lev Ivanov)
Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, November and December 2009
Bonus:
- Cast gallery
- Rehearsing at White Lodge
- Peter Wright tells the story of The Nutcracker
The Sleeping Beauty
Princess Aurora – Alina Cojocaru
Prince Florimund – Federico Bonelli
King Florestan XXIV – Christopher Saunders
His Queen – Elizabeth McGorian
Cattalabutte – Alastair Marriott
Carabosse – Genesia Rosato
Lilac Fairy – Marianela Nuñez
Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Valeriy Ovsyanikov, conductor
Marius Petipa, choreographer
Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 5 December 2006
Bonus:
- Cast gallery
- Illustrated synopsis
---
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles (bonus): French, German, Spanish (Nutcracker) + Italian (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty)
Running time: 7 hours 37 mins
No. of DVDs: 3
