Piotr Beczala - Blu-ray video

Thielemann’s annual Operetta Gala is THE New Year’s tradition in the making, presenting the sparkling treasures of the popular operetta repertoire – magnificent, familiar music and great artists, a colourful, festive atmosphere, and the most elegant of historic German venues.

A unique occasion, and a unique product offering - welcome 2013 in effervescent style with Christian Thielemann, the Staatskapelle Dresden, vibrant dancers, and a pair of dashing star soloists – Ingeborg Schöpf and Piotr Beczala.

Recorded in Dresden’s magnificent Semperoper, the concert was broadcast LIVE on television on 30 December 2012, and seen by a 1.75-million-plus audience on ZDF, as well as being carried to a potential six-figure audience via key European and Asian satellite affiliates.

Features operetta hits and favourites from Countess Mariza, The Gypsy Princess, Kaiserin Josephine, The Duchess of Chicago and many more

The incomparable Anna Netrebko follows Deutsche Grammophon’s acclaimed, best-selling 2008 audio release of La Bohème.

This BD is a new production of the Puccini favourite, staged at Salzburg 2012. Tenor Piotr Beczala rocks as Rodolfo, Mimì’s lover. Massimo Cavalletti sings Rodolfo’s friend Marcello with uncommon finesse and beauty of tone. Nino Machaidze is a moving Musetta.

The robust orchestration of this popular opera verges on the ethereal as Mimì’s life slips away. Throughout his reading, conductor Daniele Gatti strikes the perfect balance between sentiment and sentimentality, vigour and fragility, the specter of untimely death and the quick and young it haunts.

The New York Times wrote, “You don’t often hear Mimì sung with such vivid character and sheer charisma.”

Complete Opera Recording

+ Exclusive Bonus Feature:

More than 130 minutes of highlights from 45 critically acclaimed opera, ballet & documentary productions on Blu-ray Disc!

+ Arthaus Musik Blu-ray Catalogue

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, dts-HD Master Audio 7.1

Picture Format: 16:9

Resolution: 1080i FULL HD

Subtitle Languages: IT (Original Language), GB, DE, FR, ES, Korean

Running Time: 128 mins + 130 mins (bonus)

Blu-ray Disc: 50 GB (Dual Layer)

FSK: 0

This is a Beethoven Symphonies Cycle of the 21st century! Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1 – 9 incl. and each DVD includes a one-hour-long documentary for each symphony.

Includes an hour-long documentary for each symphony where Maestro Thielemann and Joachim Kaiser (the most famous German music critic) discuss and analyze in an entertaining conversational exchange Thielemann’s interpretation, complemented by excerpts from rehearsals as well as by comparisons of Beethoven cycles with Karajan, Bernstein etc. – no aspect of Beethoven’s symphonic œuvre will remain unaffected!

The Documentaries include legendary footage of performances from Karajan, Bernstein, Böhm, Järvi etc

This is the first Beethoven Cycle of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in full HD and 5.0 sound.

Running Time: Total: 325 minutes

Symphonies: 155 minutes

Documentaries: 170 minutes

Sound BD: dts-HD MA 5.0, PCM Stereo

Subtitles E, F, Sp, I, Kor., Chin., Jap.

Packaging Blu-ray box

Booklet English, German, French

Set Design by William Orlandi

Lighting by Jürgen Hoffmann

Rigoletto tells the story of the crippled court jester Rigoletto and his adored daughter Gilda, whom he desperately tries to protect from the advances of the pleasure-loving Duke of Mantua. While Gilda naïvely gives credence to the Duke’s amorous advances, he is concerned only with constantly changing erotic relationships, of which he boasts in his famous aria Questa o quella. Rigoletto fails. A terrible curse uttered against him by Count Monterone, whom he had once ridiculed before the entire court, comes true: at the end he holds his beloved daughter dead in his arms.

“It has long been a truism that Nello Santi is an exceptionally gifted conductor of Verdi, but it is always a pleasure to observe to what extent he in is control of every second of a musical evening – with his charisma, his calm gestures, his eyes and his physical presence. The emotional energy of the evening is concentrated in Santi’s person; he stands for nothing less than incontestable aplomb, and for music-making that, thanks to his sense of timing and style, is above reproach. This is the way, and no other, that this Verdi opera must sound.” (Tages-Anzeiger)

The sought-after lyric tenor Piotr Beczala, is the womanizing Duke in this new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto from the Metropolitan Opera. Željko Luèiæ sings the title role and Diana Damrau sings Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda.

This DVD and Blu-ray release appears in the Verdi year 2013, as music lovers around the world celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Italy’s beloved composer.

Director Michael Mayer has placed his new production of Verdi’s towering tragedy in Las Vegas in 1960 – an ideal setting for this eternal conflict of depravity and innocence.