Royal Opera House Covent Garden

Perhaps the most celebrated ballet of the Romantic era, Adolphe Adam’s intoxicating ballet Giselle is the dramatic story of a peasant girl whose betrayal by her aristocratic lover causes her to go mad before dying and returning as a ghost. Featuring the fabulous Alina Cojocaru in the title role and Johan Kobborg as a torn Count Albrecht, Peter Wright’s sparkling production and John Macfarlane’s pastoral designs create an opulent feast for the eyes, here captured in High Definition video and true surround sound.

David McVicar’s powerful 2008 production of Oscar Wilde’s bible-based drama takes the controversially disturbing film 120 Days of Sodom as its visual reference, setting it in a debauched palace in Nazi Germany. Strauss’s ravishing and voluptuous score adds to the sexual alchemy conjured by an international cast led by Nadja Michael in the title role. Filmed for the big screen with high definition cameras and recorded in true surround sound.

Warning: Contains nudity and scenes of violence.

World-renowned tenor Plácido Domingo is joined by Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and a host of other international stars including Susan Graham, in the famously glittering 1996 Gala Concert on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Asher Fisch conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in a programme of many of the world’s best-loved operatic arias with music by composers including Bizet, Massenet, Gounod, Mozart and Donizetti.

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 12th December 1996.

Stage Director: David Edwards

Paul Czinner’s acclaimed 1956 filming of the Bolshoi Ballet’s first-ever tour of Great Britain, which preserves two complete programs: a Bolshoi Highlights Program featuring Raissa Struchkova in the Walpurgisnacht from Gounod’s Faust, and Galina Ulanova in The Dying Swan and a thrilling performance of Giselle with Ulanova and Nikolai Fadeyechev

Also included in the Highlights Program is the celebrated Spring Water ballet, set to music by Rachmaninoff and danced with dazzling virtuosity by the outstanding members of the Bolshoi troupe

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra are under the direction of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Yuri Faier

In Dance Magazine, critic Clive Barnes eulogized the artistry documented here: “Everything the Russian critics have written about her is true. The impeccable technique, the expressive body, the intellect, the informed face; yet Ulanova has something criticism could never define, something you might look for in Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

“The greatest performance by an interpretive artist within my experience” – Clive Barnes, Dance Magazine (1998) [on Ulanova’s Giselle as seen documented here]

In 5.1 DTS Surround Sound

First time on DVD

Sir Charles Mackerras teases the romantic beauty from Gounod’s score, which has been much admired and performed since its first performance, at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, in 1867. In this 1994 recording, the youthful Roberto Alagna as Roméo, and Leontina Vaduva as the unattainable Juliette, lead an excellent cast in a touching portrayal of this story of impossible love, based on the play by William Shakespeare.