The caption on the DVD sleeve reads “This Is how Verdi should be played!” and I could not agree more. The trio of principals: Ribeiro, Lungu, and Dalla Benetta , offer youthful exhuberance and intensity, good looks and glorious voices. The rest of the cast is equally good. Superb conductor, traditional production, great staging. Anf of course, Verdi’s exquisite music. It has renovated my faith in the totality of the Verdi canon, not only its most performed titles.
Corrado
Giovanni
Gulnara
Selimo
Un eunoco / Un schiavo
Medora
Conductor
The Glyndebourne Opera's 1981 production of the Benjamin Britten opera, based on Shakespeare's play.
Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Live performance from the Opéra National de Paris, 2003.
An Egyptian military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his love for the enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida, and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. To complicate the story further, the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris is in love with Radamès, although he does not return her feelings.
When Barbe-bleue loses his fifth wife, the turbulent Boulotte is selected at random to be the next one. But Barbe-Bleue falls in love with Hermia – who loves the shepherd Saphir – and soon wearies of Boulotte. So, he asks his alchemist to concoct for him an “anti-wife” philtre. But, as on the previous occasions, it is merely a sleeping potion and Boulotte wakes up the other five “dead” wives. They reappear, dressed up as gypsies and bring the truth to light.
The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this second opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle. Hildegard Behrens brings deep empathy to Brünnhilde, the favorite daughter of the god Wotan (James Morris) who nevertheless defies him. Morris’s portrayal of Wotan is deservedly legendary, as is Christa Ludwig, as Fricka. Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes are Sieglinde and Siegmund, and Kurt Moll is the threatening Hunding. James Levine and the Met orchestra provide astonishing color and drama. (Performed April 8, 1989)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.
The Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini's "Turandot", recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera in April, 1987. Éva Marton stars as Turandot, with Plácido Domingo as Calaf, Leona Mitchell as Liù, Paul Plishka as Timur, and Hugues Cuenod as L'Imperatore Altoum. James Levine conducts.
A musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris" which follows the gypsy dancer Esmeralda and the three men who vie for her love: the kind hunchback Quadimodo, the twisted priest Frollo, and the unfaithful soldier Phoebus.
Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting and directed for television and video by Brian Large.
This is a joy from beginning to end. Although there are many tricks and ideas from Laurent Pelly, as always he seems to still retain the Offenbach magic. La Lott and Monsieur Beuron are a joy, but so is everyone else. The Patriotic Trio by the sea is both a hoot and wonderfully sung, the score seems truly complete yet never flags and the finale sequences for especially acts 1 & 2 are a joy of movement and sound fused as one glorious Offenbachian moment.
The stupendous climax to Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle is brilliantly realized by the Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production and byJames Levine’s monumental conducting. The Met orchestra, chorus, and an all-star cast make this Götterdämmerung one that truly rises to the occasion. Hildegard Behrens’s Brünnhilde must be experienced to be believed, as does Matti Salminen’s richly sung, domineering Hagen. At the center of the drama is Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried, who does not realize he has been drawn into a plot of betrayal until it is too late. Christa Ludwig is magnetic as Waltraute and Ekkehard Wlaschiha is a compelling Alberich.
The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.
After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.
Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thrilled Met audiences when it rang in the New Year in 2018. Only weeks later, the production was seen by opera lovers worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema presentations. In this performance, Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Željko Lučić is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. On the podium, Emmanuel Villaume conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.
A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterpiece. A vengeful but misguided court jester strives to save his daughter from a duke’s licentious clutches, but can't part with the feeling that a curse looms over all of his actions. In Rigoletto, the composer introduces several of his most iconic arias and duets—as well as an 11th-hour quartet that counts among the finest moments in opera.
Live performance from Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1992. Based on Voltaire's tragedy, TANCREDI is a story of innocence wronged set against a backdrop of Turks at war with Syracuse. Amenaide, the daughter of Argirio, leader of the senate, is in love with the exiled knight Tancredi. Argirio offers Amenaide's hand in marriage to Orbazzano, the leader of a rival faction, as a token of reconciliation. Amenaide resists this and sends a letter to Tancredi, who is back in Syracuse in hiding. The letter is intercepted, and it is mistaken as an invitation to the Turk Solamir to enter Syracuse. Amenaide is sentenced to death for treachery, but Argirio allows a champion to fight for her vindication... will her beloved Tancredi save her? Bernadette Manca di Nissa, Maria Bayo, and Raul Gimenez star in this Rossini opera with Gianluigi Gelmetti conducting the Radio Symphony Orchester Stuttgart.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Nabucco (2009) Parma. NABUCCO was Verdi’s third work for the stage and proved his first great success when performed in 1842. It deals with the Hebrew’s attempts to break free from the yoke of their Babylonian oppressors and is nowadays numbered among Verdi’s most popular works, not least on account of its famous Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, which has one of the best-loved melodies in the whole history of opera.
Most opera houses ring in the New Year with Johann Strauss Jr.'s most popular operetta--the festiveness of which is appropriate for the occasion--and this December 31, 1983, Covent Garden performance follows suit. An exceptional cast--led by Hermann Prey and Kiri Te Kanawa as the couple whose marriage survives the comic indiscretions of three long acts--obviously has as much fun as the audience. Plácido Domingo leads the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House through its paces with panache. Prince Orlofsky's Act II party is always a splendid opportunity to pull out all the stops with surprise "guests," and this performance makes the most of its chance: entering the proceedings to sing one of his tailor-made chansons, "She," is French crooner Charles Aznavour, who is followed by dancers Merle Park and Wayne Eagling, their delightful pas de deux flashily choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton.