DVD Videos

This 4-DVD set includes top opera stars performing great works live in concert in Lugano with the Orchestra della Radio Televisione della Svizzera Italiana. DVD #1 Carlo Bergonzi performs in 1985 with conductor Bruno Amaducci in works by Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, & Mascagni. DVD #2: Raina Kabaivanska performs in 1987 with conductor Nino Bonavolonta in works by Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and Cilia. DVD #3: Mirella Freni & Cesare Siepi perform in 1985 with conductor Bruno Amaducci in works by Nicolai, Gounod, Boito, Verdi, Puccini, and Mozart. DVD #4: Teresa Berganza performs in 1990 with conductor Nino Bonavonta in works by Rossini, Bizet, and De Falla.

Includes 25-minute interview with Raina Kabaivanska and Giorgio Gualerzi

Director: Guido De Monticelli

Sets: Paolo Bregni

Costumes: Santuzza Cali

Lighting: Guido Mariani

Premièred at La Scala, Milan, in 1814, Il turco in Italia is a madcap ensemble opera with an inspired score that boasts music of both comic genius and extraordinary beauty, inspired perhaps by Mozart’s Così fan tutte, which was produced there immediately before Rossini’s drama buffo.

Set in Naples, it spins a crazy tale around a poet who uses the romantic entanglements of the inhabitants with a Turkish prince as inspiration for the plot of his next play. Ultimately, life imitates art as all ends happily, but not before a planned abduction leads to a chaotic situation of mistaken identity …

Lovingly restored, using the finest state-of-the art technology, Classic Archive features great performances from legendary artists, offering a unique historical glimpse into our classical heritage, in this case, a beautifully crafted biography of the legendary Hungarian-born conductor, Ferenc Fricsay, whose tragically early death in 1963 prevented him from earning the celebrity of the likes of Karajan or Bernstein. This film portrays the maestro conducting rehearsals and concert performances of works by Kodaly, Smetana, Dukas and Mozart. Tamas Vasary, Kurt Masur,Yehudi Menuhin and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, all of whom worked closely with him, talk about the man and his remarkable artistry. From archive footage, we discover the marvellous technique of this passionate and elegant conductor, who was compared to Toscanini, and the imaginative language he used to bring music to life during his rehearsals with various orchestras from Budapest to Berlin via Munich.

Tenor superstar, Juan Diego Flórez, adds the role of Prince Ramiro in Rossini’s sparkling comedy ‘La Cenerentola’, to his rapidly growing catalogue of performances on Decca DVD.

Taking the title role in one of Rossini’s most popular operas is one of today’s great Cinderellas, the American mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato.

The DVD presents Joan Font’s strikingly colourful, toy-town staging of Perrault’s tale, using dancers as rats, and finally revealing the action to have been Cinderella’s dream. Filmed in Barcelona’s Liceu Theatre, the production was first seen, with Joyce DiDonato as Cinderella, a year previously at the Houston Grand Opera, to enormous critical acclaim.

‘La Cenerentola’ joins Flórez’s other Rossini comic opera on Decca DVD, ‘Il barbiere di Siviglia’, together with his DVDs of Donizetti’s ‘La Fille du Régiment’ and ‘Don Pasquale’.

Picture: 16:9 (anamorphic widescreen)

Audio:LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1 Surround.

Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian (sung language), Spanish, Chinese.

Bonus Feature: English

Setting faithfully recreates early 19th century Italian theatre, giving the audience an authentic experience of Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Broadcast in selected Curzon and Odeon cinemas in February 2009 as part of the Italy’s Grand Opera in Cinemas project.

Picture Format: 16:9

Sound Format: DD 5.1 / LPCM 2.0

NTSC

Region Code: 0

Available Worldwide

L’Equivoco stravagante (the curious misunderstanding) was Rossini’s first attempt at writing a two act opera.

The plot is based around three characters; Ermanno, Ernestina and Buralicchio. Ermanno, who’s young and poor, loves Ernestina the daughter of Gamberotto, a wealthy farmer. However, Ernestina and her father have their eyes on Buralicchio, a young upstart who has more money than sense. To get his competition out of the way, Ermanno and a few servants hatch a plot to convince Buralicchio that Ernestina is actually a castrato, and worse, an army deserter. Ernestina is arrested, but eventually freed by Ermanno whom she then marries.

The opera is set in the seventies and features an international cast including opera stars Marco Vinco and Bruno de Simone.

Picture Format: 16:9

Sound Format: DD 5.1 / LPCM 2.0

Subtitles: IT/EN/G/FR/SP

Running Time: 165 minutes

Region Code:0

Available Worldwide

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, DD 5.1

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Picture Format: 16:9

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

FSK: 0

Running Time: 162 mins