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Beethoven wrote his Piano Concerto No. 3 around 1800, at a time in which the ambitious composer had created his fi rst important works in Vienna, such as the “Pathétique” Sonata and the “Moonlight” Sonata – personal works full of power and passion, with which he distanced himself from his mentor and model, Haydn. This performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of its principal conductor Mariss Jansons stars the distinguished pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who is known the world over for her outstanding interpretations of the piano works of Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as of 20th-century masters such as Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and Boulez.

Richard Strauss wrote his tone poem for large orchestra Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) in 1898, shortly before he left Munich for the Berlin Court Opera, where he was appointed house conductor. In the imaginary hero whose eventful life is described in the work, the young Strauss apparently envisioned the freelance artist of his time, who was exposed to considerable hostility during the Wilhelminian era, just as Strauss himself in his early Munich period.

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

Running Time: 90 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

FSK: 0

Region Code: Worldwide

Worldwide available

Pergolesi’s comic opera Lo frate ’nnamorato (The Brother in Love) from 1732 was his ticket to the Royal Chapel in Naples. Its huge success was due to the beautiful score, showing Pergolesi’s talent for opera compositions, and the exquisite Libretto by Gennarantonio Federico. Lo frate ‘nnamorato especially owes its wit and exuberance to the comic resources of improvisational theatre, which is refl ected in the narrative structure and relationships between the dramatis personae. Love triangles, marriage plans that come to nothing, intrigues and more lead the opera along to the unsuspected outcome.

The 2011 Jesi production, set in the 1950s, features an outstanding cast of singers that further present first-class acting skills that drive a line between quintessence and parody, inventive genius and a sense of tradition, caricature and insight into the roles and characters. Nicola Alaimo, Elena Belfiore, Patrizia Biccirè and Jurgita Adamonytė – to name but a few – carry this wonderful production, realized by the young Argentine director Willy Landin.

Fabio Biondi began his career as a Wunderkind Violinist at the age of twelve. In 1990 he founded his fabulous ensemble Europa Galante, which quickly became the most internationally renowned and awarded Italian ensemble of baroque music.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

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

Running Time: 160 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 50 GB (Dual Layer)

FSK: 0

Region Code: Worldwide

Worldwide available

World Premiere Recording.

Live Recording from The Residenzhof, Salzburg Festival, 2012

We are all familiar with Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) to the libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812). It is not widely known however that Schikaneder wrote a sequel to The Magic Flute, which his friend Peter von Winter (1754–1825) set to music.

2012 the Salzburg Festival presented this operatic rarity in the form of a glittering fairy-tale opera full of magical events.

The happy couple Pamina and Tamino have to master trials and tribulations, like the separation by Sarastro in order to wander through an underground labyrinth and the continuing machinations of the Queen of the Night. Well-loved Papageno – who reunites with his parents and finally marries his Papagena – helps Tamino and Pamina in their efforts to reach a happy ending.

The Salzburg production by young director Alexandra Liedtke features a number of star soloists with Christof Fischesser as Sarastro and Malin Hartelius and Michael Schade as the lovers Pamina and Tamino. Newcomer Thomas Tatzl gives a charming Papageno, who leads us through the story and is always good for an adventure.

Ivor Bolton conducts his Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra energetically, smoothly and elegantly, bringing out the best in Peter von Winter’s charming score with its cleverly interwoven allusions to Mozart. His compositions partly marked the transition between Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber in the development in German opera.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, dts-HD Master Audio 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

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

Running Time: 158 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

FSK: 0

When it comes to shaping a musical event for the ears and the eyes, the monumental majesty of Anton Bruckner’s (1824–1896) symphonies and the exhilarating vibrancy of St. Florian’s monastery in Austria are a perfect match – especially when they are captured on film so thrillingly by such an eminent director as Brian Large.

The Fourth Symphony marks a major milestone in Bruckner’s attempt to establish a symphonic design suitable to sustain his innovative musical thought. Not surprisingly, the score was subjected to extensive revisions. The Fourth, in fact, represents the most convoluted revision history of all his symphonies – and this for a composer for whom variant editions of a work, often involving substantial changes, became the norm. The result is that the identification of the “authentic” final score that should be performed is a matter of ongoing debate for many of his symphonies – in particular the Fourth.

Franz Welser-Möst, the Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra and General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, is an acknowledged Bruckner specialist who has developed a passion for the composer’s Fourth Symphony – called the “Romantic” by its creator – in its infrequently played first edition (1888/89).

The Cleveland Orchestra, called the most European of America’s prestige formations, has been setting new standards in Bruckner interpretation for several years now through the “expertise” of Franz Welser-Möst, who “elicits a grandiose interpretation from his technically unsurpassable ensemble … It was an excellent concert … as anticipated.” (Austria’s leading daily, Die Presse).

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, dts-HD Master Audio 5.0

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

Running Time: 74 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

FSK: 0

Hosted by Valerie Solti

The Solti Centenary Concert in Chicago celebrated Sir Georg Solti’s 100th birthday on October 21, 2012, featuring the World Orchestra for Peace. This unique ensemble owes its existence to the vision of its founder, Sir Georg Solti, who believed passionately in peace and the power of music and musicians to be ambassadors for peace.

Charmingly hosted by Solti’s widow, Lady Valerie Solti, and featuring soloists such as Angela Gheorghiu and René Pape as well as members of the Georg Solti Accademia, this memorable evening presents musical highlights, all of which played a significant role in Solti’s life and career.

Besides excerpts from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni or Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto, this concert finds lovely musical moments in the 'Adagietto' from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Strauss’ Don Juan and Bartók’s masterful Concerto for Orchestra. Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever as the encore closes the performance with a smash.

Conductor Valery Gergiev was a good friend of his advisor Georg Solti. Together with Lady Valerie Solti and the World Orchestra for Peace he carries on Solti’s vision and maintains his memory.

Special Bonus Feature: “Solti’s Vision”, a film about the World Orchestra for Peace

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, dts-HD Master Audio 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

Subtitle Languages: DE, FR / DE (Bonus)

Running Time: 112 mins + 21 mins (Bonus)

FSK: 0

Worldwide available

The grand opera Die Hugenotten was one of the greatest operatic successes of the 19th century, and its creator was hailed as the foremost composer of his time. Yet today, he is largely forgotten by the opera-going public and his works lie gathering dust in opera house repertories around the world.

Die Hugenotten was performed at the opening of the new Covent Garden Opera in London in 1858. However, it was a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1890 which went into the history books. In the German translations by Ignatz Franz Castelli (1837 Vienna) and Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1838 Munich), the conflict between Catholics and Protestants was heavily disguised; a new version was created by Gustaf Gründgens and Julius Kapp in Berlin in 1932.

John Dew’s modern production, conducted by Stefan Soltesz, caused somewhat of a sensation when it was first performed in 1987 at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. Giving the period and content of the work new reference points, his staging becomes almost oppressively contemporary: he sets the opera in divided Berlin, where the wall is a symbol of the separation of the two German states. Angela Denning, Lucy Peacock, Richard Leech and Martin Blasius fascinate with their wonderful voices and impressive acting.

Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

Resolution: 1080i FULL HD

Subtitle Languages: GB, FR, ES

Running Time: 156 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

FSK: 0

This 2012 recording of the most influential and wide spread oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach features the Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer, a visionary in his field, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. The double choir is the essential musical aspect on which Iván Fischer’s interpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is based. Only by consistently seizing on that duality will all the complementary layers stand out as they should. He describes this essential fundamental aspect as follows: “You can’t do the St. Matthew in an unreligious way. The only approach is from a deep, universally religious feeling.”

The internationally renowned tenor Mark Padmore is brilliant as the Evangelist, Peter Harvey gives a moving interpretation of Christ. Together with Ingeborg Danz, Renate Arends, Maria Espada, Barbara Kozelj, Peter Gijsbertsen and Henk Neven and the Netherlands Radio Choir they carry the audience through an affecting performance of this masterwork.

PCM Stereo, dts-HD Master

Audio 5.0

Running Time: 174 mins

Subtitle Languages: DE (Original Language),

GB, FR, ES, JP

With Olimpiade the famous poet Metastasio created one of the most popular librettos of the 18th century. It was set to music by over 60 baroque and classical composers including Vivaldi, Caldara, Hasse, Cimarosa and Donizetti. Pergolesi’s composition from 1735 was one of the earliest adaptations.

In the 2011 Jesi production of L’Olimpiade a large part of the auditorium is taken up by a cross-shaped platform. This is where the characters of the drama are introduced, where they elaborate their plans and express their innermost feelings, their sufferings and hopes, while the supreme ritual of the ancient Greek world, the Olympic Games, is celebrated on a distant stage: that event upon which their lives – and all prospects of happiness or otherwise – depend.

L’Olimpiade stars a superb cast of young singers, especially to be named are the ladies in the leading roles – Lyubov Petrova, Yetzabel Arias Fernández, Jennifer Rivera and Sofi a Soloviy – as well as famous Raúl Giménez in the role of King Clistene.

Alessandro De Marchi has been involved in the interpretation of early music for a long time. His orchestra, specialized on the interpretation of baroque and classical compositions on period instruments, Academia Montis Regalis, was also involved in this project.

“It is hard to imagine a happier or more enthralling presentation of [Pergolesi’s] ‘Olimpiade’ ... more natural in the theater than one would think possible.” La Stampa

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 (DVD)

PCM Stereo, dts-HD Master

Audio 5.1 (Blu-ray)

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

Format: DVD 9 & DVD 5 / NTSC, 50 GB (Dual Layer)

Subtitle Languages: IT (Original Language),

GB, DE, FR, ES, JP, Korean

Running Time: 170 mins

La forza del destino (The Force of Fate), premiered in St. Petersburg 1862, is one of Verdi’s most important opera compositions.

Its plot is complicated and combines a sequence of interlaced unfortunate strokes of fate. Donna Leonora is the centre of events, together with her brother Don Carlo di Vargas and her lover Don Alvaro.

The story was originally set in 18th century Spain, however the French director Nicolas Joël established the action in a slightly later period, in the time of the Empire, the early 19th century.

The 2007 performance at the beautiful Maggio Musicale theatre in Florence, conducted by Zubin Mehta, who is a frequent guest artist there, stars Violeta Urmana as Donna Leonora with Carlo Guelfi and Marcello Giordani as Don Carlo and Don Alvaro.

“The singing and playing are fantastic, and the production is faithful and unobtrusive. [...] To my mind this set now leads the field and takes its place as one of the great Verdi productions [...] A real classic.” MusicWeb International

World Premiere Recording

„It can be truly said of Adelaide di Borgogna that, like a rose, it bloomed but a day - l’espace d’un matin.” First performed in Rome on the 27th December 1817, it enjoyed very few revivals. In 2011 the Rossini Festival in Pesaro presented the second staged performance of Adelaide di Borgogna since 1825.

The story of the opera was taken from a historical event that took place in the medieval period, marking the end of an independent Italian kingdom and leading to the birth of the German Holy Roman Empire through the efforts of Otto I of Saxony. Caught between political rivalry and the love of two men, Adelaide of Burgundy struggles to fight for her people and chooses Otto, the better ruler, for herself and her kingdom.

Adelaide stars sought-after mezzo Daniela Barcellona as Ottone, young Australian soprano Jessica Pratt, who possesses a natural-born bel canto voice, in the role of Adelaide, and Bogdan Mihai gives proof of his versatile coloratura-tenor.

Director Pier’ Alli devised a modern, stylish look for his production, which interweaves medieval aspects with ironically used elements from the time of the opera’s genesis. His video installations create a beautifully abstract world for Rossini’s colourful music.

SPECIAL FEATURE: Making Of Adelaide di Borgogna

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD

25 GB (Single Layer)

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

Running Time: 137 mins + 17 mins (Bonus)

FSK: 0