Matti Salminen

“Its brilliant use of computer graphic backgrounds and acrobatic mimes shows one can stage a truly modern, theatrically advantageous Ring without distorting its genuinely central concepts - Wagner's.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 *****

“Ryan is a formidable stage-presence in both these music dramas...[He] can fine down the sound to spin a properly lyrical thread, and in his dying salutation to Brünnhilde rounds off a performance remarkable not just for its tireless stamina but for its musical and dramatic sensitivity.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010

“Musically this is quite the finest Parsifal on DVD, to be heard even if you find the production tiresome. Hans Hollmann may have bizarre ideas about the staging, but he can get singers to act, and the production never impedes the overwhelming intensity of the relationships between the central characters.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 *****

“With Johanna Meier’s unusually powerful Isolde and René Kollo’s resplendent, expressive Tristan, a better cast is hardly imaginable today” Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung

“For a supposedly 'difficult' opera, there's a fair choice of DVD Tristans… But this 1983 Bayreuth version, reappearing at last here on DVD, remains the finest. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's staging steers impressively between the Romantically naturalistic and the poetic: a gnarled tree trunk doubles as ship and castle, and Isolde is symbolically isolated by her encircling robes. René Kollo and Johanna Meier don't have huge voices, but sing and act with unusual expression, and even look good. Matti Salminen as King Mark and Hanna Schwarz as Brangäne are heartbreakingly intense...” BBC Music Magazine, December 2007 *****

“This Bayreuth Tristan (first seen in 1981) is an almost perfect marriage of fairy-tale beauty (legendary Arthurian settings, "period" costumes) and interventionist Regie. Meier, of all princess, spell-casting witch and consumed lover, is a risk-taking Isolde, slamming the sword with the missing fragment into the wide swaying ship deck. Kollo's hero has Hotter-like detail, intensity and pain. ...the younger Daniel Barenboim secures thrilling drama-enhancing playing from the Festival Orchestra. But the ultimate triumph is Ponnelle's - he staged the show, designed the set and the costumes, and directed this film of it.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2007

“Barenboim's DVD, with evocatively beautiful sets by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, presents an essentially poetic vision of Tristan...The video production is very well managed, using six cameras imaginatively, often in close-up, bringing out the beauty of the sets. Meier rises superbly to the challenge of the final Liebestod, rounding off an impressive performance” Penguin Guide

“A simple, beautiful staging in glowing stained-glass hues, with Jerusalem and Sotin near-ideal, Kundry and Amfortas slightly less so, but Stein's conducting is soundly theatrical.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2007 *****

“A production and performance that showed the festival at its finest” New York Times

“In the simple stylizing of the sets...[Wolfgang Wagner] follows the example of his brother, Wieland, and effectively so...Leif Roar makes a wonderfully sinister Klingsor, singing powerfully. The rest of the cast is comparably strong...Horst Stein is a totally reliable conductor, rising well to the big climaxes of the choral passages” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“Nicolas Joël's… cleverly circumvents the traditional imagery by setting the action at roughly the time of composition (1870-1), in the… context of the scramble for Africa. The exoticism of Aïda is preserved, yet the characters (costumed by Franca Squarciapino) are brought closer to 'home'. It helps that Zurich's excellent cast play their roles with such dramatic and musical conviction, a rare combination in Aïda. Making her debut in the title role, Nina Stemme... gives a beautiful and touching performance.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 *****

“This 2006 production from the Zurich Opera is a traditional one by Nicolas Joël in veteran Ezio Frigerio's wonderfully evocative, highly coloured sets. Then Adám Fischer in the pit leads a remarkably strong yet subtle account of the score, which – when played and sung like this – is once more revealed as one of Verdi's greatest masterpieces.
Four of the principals easily surpass their DVD rivals. Stemme offers a deeply considered, expressive and superbly sung Aida, one for whom the work's vocal perils do not seem to exist. Add to that acting that goes to the heart of the matter, and one is left breathless in admiration after so many sopranos not truly fitted to the part. Licitra has done nothing better than his Radames here. At last fulfilling his potential, he sings the role with an open-hearted sincerity and a heroic voice up to the part's exigent demands.
He and Stemme make their Act 3 duet the highlight it should be.
D'Intino, an experienced Amneris, sings her role with intense feeling allied to a mezzo of generous proportions. The demands of her Act 4 scena are fully met, and she storms off to a well earned burst of applause. Stemme and Licitra give the final scene with the utmost sensibility. Salminen remains a force to be reckoned with, but Pons – as Amonasro – no longer is the baritone he once was, although dramatically he is up to the part.
The showpiece close to Act 2 is the one comparative disappointment, not offering the frisson it ought to. And here Andy Sommer's video direction is uncertain, too often dividing the screen into three for no discernible purpose, but he directs the principals with a deal of senstivity.
So this is the DVD Aida we have long awaited.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“At last an Aida on DVD that can hold its head high and surpass its lesser rivals. Last year's production from the Zürich Opera is a traditional one by Nicolas Joël in veteran Ezio Frigerio's wonderfully evocative, highly coloured sets. Stemme offers a deeply considered, expressive and superbly sung Aida, one for whom the work's vocal perils do not seem to exist. Add to that acting that goes to the heart of the matter, and one is left breathless in admiration... Licitra has done nothing better than his Radames here. He and Stemme make their Act 3 duet the highlight it should be.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007