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Set Design by FRANCESCO CALCAGNINI

In Parma, where audiences are considered the most discerning in all Italy, the benchmark for vocal artists is set traditionally high. Operagoers here are intimately familiar with the works of their favourites, from Rossini to Puccini, and know every tricky corner by heart. God forbid any singer who fails to accomplish the task without due seemliness… Unsurprisingly, then, this performance attempts no directorial experiments. The main setting for this realistically inspired production – both indoors and out – is Rosina’s house, which is converted as required into its constituent parts. One happily turns a blind eye to a (historically authentically dressed) protagonist occasionally being seconded to move a piece of stage scenery. Stage presence, vocal perfection and above all the audibly and visibly gleeful participation of all performers in the action are a more than adequate payoff for the intellectual flights of fancy of other interpretations.

Our rewards are found on the one hand in the precise and sure-footed direction of Stefano Vizioli. All performers know exactly the role they are required to play and how best to carry it off. On the other hand, the singers on stage and instrumentalists in the pit seem to enter a new dimension as soon as the Rossini machine gets up to speed. The spirited orchestra plays under the magical baton of Andrea Battistoni, born in Verona in 1987 and appointed principal guest conductor at Parma’s Teatro Regio in January 2011.

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

Picture Format: 16:9

Resolution: 1080i HD

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

Running Time: 170 mins

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

FSK: 0

Restaged by Elisabetta Courir & Set Design by Emanuele Luzzati

Il Turco in Italia is one of Rossini‘s wittiest but most neglected works. It is full of ingenious and freshly composed invention. It is Rossini‘s first collaboration with Felice Romani - Bellini‘s librettist - on this opera and Romani understood perfectly Rossini‘s love of pastiche and parody. He provided a commedia dell‘ arte scenario that gave Rossini plenty of opportunity to mock traditions he had helped to cultivate in the first place. The plot is delightfully salcious and among the many jewels in the score, the duet for Geronio and Selim, in which the Turk tries to persuade the ageing husband to sell his wife to him, is widely considered one of the composer‘s masterpieces.

Amongst the singers appearing on this DVD are the highly sought-after Sicilian bass Simone Alaimo, the Greek soprano Myrtò Papatanasiu, who became known to a wider public after her appearance as Violetta in Zeffirelli’s Traviata in Rome in 2007 and the legendary basso-buffo and pupil of Bruscantini, Bruno de Simone.

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

Picture Format: 16:9

Resolution: 1080i FULL HD

Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB (Single Layer)

Subtitle Languages: IT, GB, DE, FR, ES, JP

Running Time: 162 mins

Dynamic are proud to present, for the first time on Blu-ray, Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra ‘The Thieving Magpie’ recorded at the prestigious Rossini Opera Festival in 2007 (standard DVD release 33567).

The stage is set in modern times and the whole story is presented as the dream of a young girl who plays the role of the magpie.

The brilliant, rousing overture was made famous thanks to the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s motion picture “A Clockwork Orange”.

Sung in Italian

Sound Format: PCM 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1/ DTS HD 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

Region Code 0

Subtitles: It, Eng, Ger, Fr, Sp

Running Time: 201 minutes

Booklet Notes: It, Eng, Ger, Fr

Available Worldwide

Note: This Blu-ray Disc (BD) is not compatible with standard DVD players

The Nobel Prize-winning writer Dario Fo applies his inventive genius to Rossini's comic opera in its premiere DVD release. Recorded in 2005 under the musical direction of Maurizio Barbacini, Fo's production brings fresh vitality and colour to the story of Lisetta, and of her father's attempts to find a husband for her through an advertisement in the newspaper La Gazzetta.

‘…ironic and sensual, friendly but with a light taste of satire, La Gazzetta by Rossini has been reborn in this production that has the distinctive stamp of Fo, who has been able to handle with strength the Rossinian chaos without neglecting - and here his major virtue - the music.’ El Periodico de Catalunya

Bonus material:

Illustrated synopsis & cast gallery.

Interview with Dario Fo.

This thought-provoking, modern-day interpretation of Rossini’s “Mosè in Egitto” sets the scene for superior music-making at the prestigious Rossini Festival in Pesaro. For conductor Roberto Abbado, the transposition of the action to the present day releases the energy of Rossini’s music. At his disposal is a cast of top-quality vocalists such as the “refined bel canto artist” (Bresciaoggi) Sonia Ganassi as Elcia, and the “outstanding” Dmitry Korchak as the Pharaoh’s son, two lovers fatefully drawn into the political turmoil and catastrophes of their time. Also among the protagonists are the “thoroughly brilliant” (DeutschlandRadio Kultur) baritone Alex Esposito as Faraone and, in his Rossini Festival debut, young, full-bodied bass Riccardo Zanellato as Moses. Conductor Roberto Abbado “inspired his musicians to deliver a spectacular performance” (Salzburger Nachrichten).

This is the premiere of the opera on DVD & Blu-ray.

The second release on Opus Arte from the acclaimed Pesaro Rossini Festival; a highly contrasting production following the release of La Scala di Seta.

Alex Esposito, who was recently acclaimed as Papageno in the La Scala production of Magic Flute, stars as Pharaoh.

Running time: 170 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

World Premiere Recording.

Early Rossini has something buoyant, vibrant, youthful about it – even when it is a „dramma per musica“ such as Sigismondo, a dark swirl of an opera revolving around a mad king and his delusions, his wife who is allegedly dead but very much alive, the fate of Poland and much more. Premiered in 1814 but rarely played thereafter, the work deserves to be resurrected, if only for its many beautiful and original arias and ensembles, some of which were such brilliant little masterpieces that he reused them in his later successes such as Il turco in Italia, La Cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia.

The work was given its first performance from the critical new edition at the 2010 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. The press hailed the production as a „perfect symbiosis of music and stage work“ that yields „truly brilliant theater“. Director Damiano Michieletto sets the first act in a startlingly realistic „insane asylum“ of around 1900, where King Sigismondo has been placed after losing his mind over his wife’s death, which he, convinced of her infidelity, had ordered. The second act takes place in an elegantly appointed royal palace, where Sigismondo, who has now recovered, must confront an assault by the Bohemian army and decide upon Poland’s fate.

Mezzo Daniela Barcellona – a sought-after Rossini and Verdi singer – portrays the mad King Sigismondo with fi erce intensity and effortlessly flowing coloraturas; restored to health in the second act, her Sigismondo dominates the stage as ruler of Poland, alongside Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa and Andrea Concetti. Bringing youthful exuberance and supreme musicality to his conducting is Michele Mariotti, principal conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and acclaimed maestro at La Scala, the Met and other leading houses.

Special Feature: Making Of Sigismondo

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, dts-HD Master

Audio 5.1 (Blu-ray)

Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i

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

Running Time: 164 mins + 19 mins (bonus)

FSK: 0

Juan Diego Florez, Kate Aldrich, Gregory Kunde, Alex Esposito

Orchestra e coro del Teatro Comunale de Bologna, Roberto Abbado

Juan Diego Flórez stars in the only available DVD version of Zelmira, filmed at the celebrated Rossini Festival in the composer’s home town of Pesaro. Recorded in high definition at the 2009 Festival, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti’s production places the classical tale, set during the Trojan Wars, in modern times and modern dress. The final opera Rossini wrote for Naples is a dramatic and musical tour de force and a magnificent showcase for the bel canto superstar of our time.

Joining Juan Diego Flórez are a major international cast, described as “near miraculous” by Opera Today and led by American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich in the virtuosic title role.

But the evening remained another distinguished triumph for Juan Diego Flórez as Prince Ilo, whose arrival in his homeland, to rescue Zelmira, was marked by “a dazzling tenorial display” which “evoked a nearly twenty-minute ovation” (Opera Today)