Opus Arte
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Special offer. Britten: The Rape of Lucretia
Sarah Connolly (Lucretia), Christopher Maltman (Tarquinius), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Bianca), Mary Nelson (Lucia), Leigh Melrose (Junius), Clive Bayley (Collatinus), Orla Boylan (Female Chorus) & John Mark Ainsley (Male Chorus)
English National Opera, Paul Daniel (conductor) & David McVicar...
The main cast delivers a superlative response from start to finish, headed by baritone Christopher Maltman's bull-like Tarquinius and mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly's harrowingly intense Lucretia...Top-flight... —
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Opera, April 2014, Recording of the Month
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Special offer. Rameau: Les Paladins
Topi Lehtipuu, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Laurent Naouri, Sandrine Piau, René Schirrer, François Piolino
Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
José Montalvo's production provides the spectacle with magical video back projections: characters trampoline on clouds and walk through ornamental gardens and buildings, and a veritable menagerie... —
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Gramophone Magazine, April 2006, DVD of the Month
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Special offer. Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges
Alain Vernhes, Martial Defontaine, François Le Roux, Serghei Khomov, Sandrine Piau, Anna Shafajinskaja & Sir Willard White
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir of De Nederlandse Opera, Stéphane Denève
Director-designer Laurent Pelly's quirkily stylish costumes and Chantal Thomas's mobile giant playing-cards rule this lavish Amsterdam production of Prokofiev's fairy-tale satire. The spectacle... —
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BBC Music Magazine, October 2006, DVD Choice
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Special offer. Handel: Deidamia
Sally Matthews (Deidamia), Veronica Cangemi (Nerea), Olga Pasichnyk (Achille), Silvia Tro Santafé (Ulisse), Andrew Foster-Williams (Fenice), Umberto Chiummo (Licomede) & Jan-Willem Schaafsma (Nestore)
Concerto Köln, Ivor Bolton (conductor) & David Alden (director)
Alden's approach is lightly ironic, matching well with a piece that treats its material with a knowing air...Ivor Bolton and Concerto Koln provide the expert musical underpinning. Sally Matthews... —
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Opera, April 2013, Recording of the Month
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Special offer. Puccini: Turandot
Lise Lindstrom (Turandot), Marco Berti (Calaf), Eri Nakamura (Liu), Raymond Aceto (Timur)
Orchestra & Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Henrik Nánási (conductor) & Andrei Serban (director)
Serban's galvanically colourful staging has survived with remarkable vigour...Lindstrom is pretty much the ideal Ice Princess: her voice one of steely intensity...Berti as Calaf has a clarion... —
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BBC Music Magazine, July 2014, DVD/Blu-ray Choice
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Berlioz: Les Troyens
Bryan Hymel (Énée), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Didon), Anna Caterina Antonacci (Cassandre), Fabio Capitanucci (Chorebe), Hanna Hipp (Anna), Brindley Sherratt (Narbal), Ed Lyon (Hylas), Ji-min Park (Iopas)
Royal Opera House, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir David McVicar
It's powerful in all senses, not least Antonio Pappano's conducting, which is dramatically hard-driven but not without atmosphere, making the love music luminously sensuous...The huge cast is... —
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BBC Music Magazine, January 2014, DVD/Blu-ray Choice
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Special offer. Cavalli: Ercole Amante
Luca Pisaroni (Ercole), Veronica Cangemi (Iole), Anna Bonitatibus (Giunone), Jeremy Ovenden (Hyllo), Anna Maria Panzarella (Deianira), Marlin Miller (Licco), Umberto Chiummo (Nettuno/Tevere/Spirit of Eutyro), Wilke te Brummelstroete (Bellezza/Venere), Johannette Zomer (Cinzia/Parsitea/Spirit of Clerica),...
This is a ravishing production in every department - scenery, stage effects, costumes, dancing, acting and music. Luca Pisaroni is an assured and vigorous Hercules...but it is Cavalli's women... —
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Opera, October 2011, Recording of the Month
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Special offer. Dove: The Adventures of Pinocchio
Victoria Simmonds (Pinocchio), Jonathan Summers (Geppetto), Mary Plazas (Blue Fairy), Rebecca Bottone (Cricket/Parrot), Graeme Broadbent (Puppeteer/Ape-Judge/Ringmaster), Allan Clayton (Lampwick), Mark Wilde (Cat), James Laing (Fox/Coachman), Carole Wilson (Pigeon/Snail)
The Orchestra and Chorus...
…curiosity is aroused for adult and child alike from the first notes of Jonathan Dove's lavish and fantastical new opera genuinely for all age-groups. The scary moments are balanced by the... —
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Gramophone Magazine, June 2009, DVD of the Month
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Special offer. Adams, J: Doctor Atomic
Gerald Finley (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Jessica Rivera (Kitty Oppenheimer), Eric Owens (General Leslie Groves), Richard Paul Fink (Edward Teller), James Maddalena (Jack Hubbard), Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson), Jay Hunter Morris (Captain James Nolan), Ellen Rabiner (Pasqualita)
Chorus of De Nederlandse...
Doctor Atomic centres on the hours before the first detonation of the atomic bomb… Peter Sellars's film of the opera is expressionistic, claustrophobic, sometimes deliberately out of focus.... —
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Gramophone Magazine, December 2008, Editor's Choice
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Special offer. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K620
Maximilian Schmitt (Tamino), Christina Landshamer (Pamina), Thomas Oliemans (Papageno), Brindley Sherratt (Sarastro), Íride Martínez (Königin der Nacht), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (Monostatos), Nina Lejderman ((Papagena)
Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Chorus of Dutch National Opera, Marc...
Freshness of vision, emotional openness, genuine ensemble theatricality, a robustly physical sense of adventure humorous and serious (but never portentous) by turns, and an underlying directorial... —
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Gramophone Magazine, May 2015, DVD/Blu-ray of the Month
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