DVD Videos

Director and Scenery Designer FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI

Artistic Supervision PLACIDO DOMINGO

Music and Libretto RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO

Leoncavallo’s often-performed short opera uses the play-within-a play device to explore the classic operatic themes of passion, adultery, jealousy and revenge. The great tenor aria, Vesti la giubba, expresses the anguish of the cuckolded husband who, as a performing clown, must make others laugh even as his heart is breaking. Zeffirelli’s production is set in a contemporary urban environment, with fire eaters, children, animals, jugglers and acrobats. Plácido Domingo, showing that he is arguably the finest actor-tenor of our time, gives a definitive performance as Canio.

Recorded live at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Opera House in November 1997.

SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, SPANISH, ITALIAN

78 Minutes NTSC 4:3

High Definition All Regions

5.0 Surround Sound + Dolby Digital 2.0

Stereo

Original idea by PATRICE BART & MARTINE KAHANE

Choreography by PATRICE BART

Sets by EZIO TOFFOLUTTI

Costumes by SYLVIE SKINAZI

Paris Opera Ballet Master and choreographer Patrice Bart plunges into the Opera‘s past and brings Degas‘ famous statuette to life. From the rehearsal rooms to the Cabaret du Chat Noir, the ballet conjures up a colourful era and the lively backstage world of a theatre.

The creation of La Petite Danseuse de Degas was the fruit of a long process dating back to 1997, when Martine Kahane, Head Curator and Director of the Paris Opera’s cultural department, presented an exhibition on the tutu at the Palais Garnier. Not long after, the Musée d’Orsay contacted her and asked her to work with the Opera costume workshop to restore the tutu adorning Edgar Degas’ famous statue. In the research that followed, she began to wonder about the identity of the model.

The investigation revealed that La Petite Danseuse aged fourteen had in fact been a certain Marie Van Goethem, the daughter of Belgian parents who had settled with their three daughters in a poor district of Paris. After the death of the father, the mother survived by enrolling the daughters at the Paris Opera Ballet School and by sending them to pose for artists in their studios.

Numerous exhibitions, books and films had already dedicated to Degas and dance, until then, no choreographic work had ever really done so. The project, entrusted to choreographer Patrice Bart and composer Denis Levaillant, took form around a central idea: to translate the intrinsic modernity of a 19th century story into music and the language of the stage. From a mere investigation, the ballet became a quest to recreate the imaginative world of classical dance through the works of Degas. The story was nothing less than the starting point for a wider exploration of the wings of the Paris Opera, a place infused with memories that do so much to evoke the troubling proximity between effort and performance, between the sublime and shameful, to which Degas‘ work remains the perfect testimony.

BONUS: Interviews with Patrice Bart, Denis Levaillant, Brigitte Lefèvre and Martine Kahane.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Subtitle Languages: FR, GB, DE, ES, IT (Bonus)

Running Time: 112 mins + 20 mins (bonus)

FSK: 0

The Places

The tour starts in Uzbekistan, of which there are later glimpses. There is a visit to the historic Russian town of Suzdal and scenes from St Petersburg as well as from Ukraine. It would be impossible to avoid the Russian winter, which appears in various guises, providing entertainment for some and for others a seemingly enchanted snow-bound landscape.

The Music

The music for the tour is taken from Russian composers who were, by and large, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their country. This is reflected in Lyadov’s arrangement of a series folk-songs and his translation of Russian legend into music. Other composers represented are Ippolitov-Ivanov, Kabalevsky and Anton Rubinstein, with two well known excerpts from unfinished operas by Mussorgsky.

Video Format • NTSC / Colour / 4:3

Audio Format • DTS 5.1 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / PCM Stereo 2.0

Region Coding • No Region Coding

Staged by LA FURA DELS BAUS

World Premiere Recording

Barcelona’s Grand Teatre del Liceu presents György Ligeti’s sole opera “Le grand macabre” in a stunningly imaginative and highly theatrical production by La Fura dels Baus - a production that already claimed enormous success in Brussels, London and Rome and - as the British Independent proclaimed - “only comes along once a decade”.

Ligeti’s (1923-2006) absurd-tragicomical masterpiece of the highest order blends popular theater, comics, pop art, cabaret, caricature and the Apocalypse with fascinating imaginativeness. The orchestra, for example, is enhanced with “instruments” such as car horns and doorbells. Ligeti himself – one of the great composers of the later 20th century – called his work an “anti-anti-opera.” Premiered in Stockholm in 1978, the work is based on a play by Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) and unfolds in an imaginary land inspired by the famous Dutch painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Nekrotzar, the Grand Macabre, announces the end of the world; but in a land ruled by eros, alcohol and corruption, his plan to unleash the Apocalypse bursts like a soap bubble. The people continue to lead their lives as before and refuse to be frightened by thoughts of death and a dark future… Masterfully rendering the colorful score is conductor Michael Boder and the orchestra and chorus of the Liceu. The top-notch cast includes Werner Van Mechelen as Nekrotzar, Chris Merritt as Piet the Pot, Barbara Hannigan as Chief of the secret police, and Brian Asawa as Prince Go-Go.

Special Features: „Fear to Death“ - Making Of Le Grand Macabre & Interview with Michael Boder.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 (DVD)

Format: 1 x DVD 5 / DVD 9, NTSC, 25 GB (Single Layer)

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

Running Time: 122 mins + 42 mins (bonus)

FSK: 12

The Waldbühne in Berlin is one of Europe’s ideal outdoor amphitheatres. It is home to the Berlin Philharmonic’s summer concerts, which are among the most popular classical events in the world, attracting audiences of 20,000 or more people.

In July 2011 the orchestra, under the ebullient direction of Riccardo Chailly, presented this concert of effervescent works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Nino Rota and Ottorino Respighi.

All three composers possessed an unerring instinct for composing music that is guaranteed to please the ear of the listener. In their own individual ways, each of them powerfully demonstrates a phenomenal handling of tone colour. Their music sparkles with light one moment and lurks in the shadows the next.

Riccardo Chailly is famous for having one of the broadest repertoires in the business, ranging from the orchestral highways of Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner through to the 20th century byways via Bach, the core operatic repertoire and almost anything else - he is an omnivore, with the brilliance to match.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Region code: 0

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 105 mins

Students: Jayson Gillham & Qian Wu

Described in the Sunday Times in 2008 as "Britain's finest pianist" Stephen Hough appears regularly with most of the major American and European orchestras under the finest conductors, and gives recitals at major venues and festivals across the world. He has recorded over 40 CDs many of which have won international prizes, including eight Gramophone Awards and three Grammy nominations. He is an avid writer and composer and in recognition of his achievements he was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, joining prominent scientists, writers and others who have made unique contributions to contemporary life.

Stephen Hough is also a dedicated and much sought-after teacher. He is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

In this masterclass he works with students on two of Liszt's virtuoso pieces for solo piano, The Spanish Rhapsody and The Hungarian Rhapsody no 12

Total playing time: 135 mins.

System: NTSC 16:9

DVD format: DVD-9

Region 0 (worldwide)

Booklet in English, French, German, Italian

Vienna’s musical year shines with two dates that always dazzle: The New Year’s Day concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic’s open-air June concert in the gardens of the palace of Schönbrunn, the Summer Night Concert.

As Oonachrichten last year summed up: for the more than 100,000 people attending the concert, it was “a heavenly summer night with the Vienna Philharmonic”.

Memorial concert on the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt (22. October 2011). Under the direction of romantic-music specialist Christian Thielemann, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden performs a special Franz Liszt memorial concert at the Semperoper in Dresden to commemorate the bicentenary of one the 19th century’s greatest composers.

Christian Thielemann is a maestro internationally known and admired above all as a specialist of Romantic music and a highly acclaimed Bayreuth Wagner Ring conductor.

Running Time Total: 85 minutes

DVD: DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo