Opus Arte
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Special offer. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K620
Will Hartmann (Tamino), Dorothea Röschmann (Pamina), Diana Damrau (Königin der Nacht), Franz-Josef Selig (Sarastro), Simon Keenlyside (Papageno), Ailish Tynan (Papagena), Adrian Thompson (Monostatos), Thomas Allen (Sprecher)
Royal Opera House, Sir Colin Davis, David McVicar
‘Diana Damrau’s supremely sung Queen of the Night oozes class, while Simon Keenlyside’s profoundly human, touchingly sympathetic view of Papageno deserves an Olivier Award. —
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Gounod: Roméo et Juliette
Roberto Alagna (Roméo), Leontina Vaduva (Juliette), Sarah Walker (Gertrude), Robert Lloyd (Frère Laurence), Peter Sidhom (Capulet), Paul Charles Clarke (Tybalt), David Wilson-Johnson (Le Prince), Jeremy White (Gregorio), François Le Roux (Mercutio), Anne Maria Panzarella (Stéphano), Richard Halton...
Leontina Vaduva is a touching Juliette… There's real passion in her Tomb aria… Roméo is the role that catapulted tenor Roberto Alagna into a celebrity. Best of all is Charles Mackerras conducting... —
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Special offer. Verdi: Attila
Samuel Ramey (Attila), Cheryl Studer (Odabella), Giorgio Zancanaro (Ezio), Kaludi Kaludov (Foresto), Ernesto Gavazzi (Uldino), Mario Luperi (Leone)
Orchestra & Chorus of Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti
Spectacular and pacy, Attila fills the stage with barbarians, gives them good tunes to sing and places them in a busy world where every moment may bring a reversal of fortune. Moreover, the... —
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Puccini: La Bohème
Sonya Yoncheva (Mimì), Charles Castronovo (Rodolfo), Andrzej Filończyk (Marcello), Simona Mihai (Musetta), Gyula Nagy (Schaunard), Peter Kellner (Colline), Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Richard Jones, Emmanuel Villaume
Individual performances are perceptive and human. Charles Castronovo makes a likeable Rodolfo, his sense of Italianate style as much an asset as the dynamic range of his lyric tenor…With Sonya... —
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Andrew Davis presents the documentary in an engaging style, giving an overview of the variations, as well as homing in on several of them. …there's a lot of information presented in an unassuming... —
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Special offer. Gianni Schicchi & The Miserly Knight
Sergei Leiferkus & Matilda Leyser, Alessandro Corbelli (Gianni Schicchi), Sally Matthews (Lauretta), Felicity Palmer (Zita), Massimo Giordano (Rinuccio), Adrian Thompson (Gherardo), Olga Schalaeva (Nella), Christopher Waite (Gherardino), Maxim Mikhailov II (Betto di Signa), Luigi Roni (Simone),...
Annabel Arden’s dark staging of Rachmaninov’s opera and her brilliantly funny view of Puccini’s comedy make for a perfect Glyndebourne evening. Sergei Leiferkus and Alessandro Corbelli are memorable... —
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Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66
Alina Cojocaru, Federico Bonelli, Christopher Saunders, Elizabeth McGorian, Alastair Marriott, Genesia Rosato & Marianela Nuñez, Choreographer: Marius Petipa
The Royal Ballet & The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Valeriy Ovsyanikov
In 2006, the company revived its classic Sleeping Beauty, featuring pretty Oliver Messel designs and a spruce choreography combining the romantic Petipa original with Ashton's hallmark narrative.... —
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An all-pervasive aspect of the seven quartets, featured here in order of composition, is the ensemble's burning enthusiasm for the music, and the overpowering desire to convey a sense of discovery... —
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Eroica - The day that changed music for ever
Nick Dear's award-winning period drama, starring Ian Hart as Beethoven, brings to life the first performance of the Eroica Symphony, an event that prompted Haydn to remark 'everything is different from today'.
Ian Hart, Tim Pigott-Smith, Claire Skinner, Jack Davenport, Frank Finlay, Fenella Woolgar, Lucy Akhurst, Leo Bill, Peter Hanson, Robert Glenister, Anton Lesser
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
'June 1804' says the legend at the film's opening.
Denis Matthews (in his Master Musicians volume) thought it was six months later that the Eroica was given a first run-through in the palace... —
