DVD Videos

Choreography by Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni

Set Design by Marie-Claire Musson

Costume Design by Michel Fresnay

Costume Design by Yelena Merkurova

Arthaus presents Pierre Lacotte’s landmark reconstruction of the Romantic Ballet La Sylphide, long regarded as a classic in its own right.

The original choreography by Philippe Taglioni had changed ballet forever. It introduced constitutional features of Romantic Ballet as we know it. These include dance en pointe and the tutu, which most certainly owe their omnipresence in ballet to the success of the 1832 staging of La Sylphide in Paris. Everything about the event combined to transform the ballet into a magical spectacle: the libretto, inspired by romantic literature, the bucolic exoticism of the village wedding festivities, the dramatic realism of the Sylvan forest, the eerie halo of the gas lights, the aerial flights of the dancers, the long diaphanous tulle costumes, and the ballerina’s variations en pointes. Through this work, ballet master Philippe Taglioni managed to achieve a magical fusion between mime and artistic dance in a light and flowing style that gave birth to the first “white” act in the history of ballet. Pierre Lacotte’s 1972 reconstruction returned to the very roots of Taglioni’s work. Whilst writing a book on romantic ballet in 1968, he had discovered documents about Philippe Taglioni‘s 1832 La Sylphide, which enabled him to reconstruct the work.

Bonus: “La Sylphide” rediscovered

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

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

Running Time: 108 mins + 19 mins Bonus

FSK: 0

Set Design by Johan Engels

Costume Design by Marie-Jeanne Lecca

Puccini’s last opera “Turandot” stands out from the rest of his works. In the fairytale based upon Gozzi’s motif, the composer blends exoticism with psychology in a way that can not be imitated when telling the story of the men-hating Chinese princess who eventually finds love. In his music, Puccini also succeeds in merging foreign fl air with Italian melodramma while still staying tuned to his own unique musical language. In his production for the Salzburger Festspiele, David Pountney tries to give an account of the dominant feeling in

Puccini’s time: the fear of being alienated by mechanisation and totalitarianism. Both Turandot’s salvation and the happiness in the closing scene are also refl ected in the release of the other characters from the system in which they had to live. This gives rise to a new hope of a humane society. The opera is staged using Luciano Berio’s completion of Act III. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is masterly conducted by Valery Gergiev.

Sound Format: PCM STEREO, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Picture Format: 16:9

Running Time: 125 mins & 16 mins (Bonus)

FSK: 12

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

In 1540 Cosimo de’Medici moved with his family and court into the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. On 1st May 1995 the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra performed its jubilee concert – conducted on this occasion by Zubin Mehta – in the same building. Since 1991 the orchestra has commemorated its foundation on 1st May 1882 with a concert, each time in a different European musical capital.

Florence is important in the history of music because, like all the royal houses of the time, the Medici liked to surround themselves with the most accomplished composers and players. Yet in the rooms of the palazzo, which are otherwise bursting with art treasures, one fi nds no evidence of this musical past. Apart from one gem; and that is a special room closed to the public which is enough to thrill the heart of every string player. It is a virtual treasure chamber of work by all the great Italian violin-makers. There is a 1662 Nicola Amati violin, a 1736 Guarneri and a violin, viola and cello by Antonio Stradivari. They were all made in Cremona, at the school of violin making, which was founded by the Amati family, and were obviously ordered directly by the Medici, as they all bear their coat of arms.

Sound Format: PCM STEREO, DD 5.1

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, PAL

Running Time: 98 mins

FSK: 0

We are in an historical place: the monastery El Escorial, north-west of Madrid, which King Philip II had built between 1563 and 1584 in honour of St. Lawrence, on whose saint day the battle of San Quintin had been won.

This European Concert, which annually celebrates the founding of the Berlin Philharmonic on 1st May 1882, was performed in this venue on the World Heritage List of the UNESCO. After the premiere in Prague in 1991, it was the second concert of its kind.

The orchestra was conducted by Daniel Barenboim. The soloist on this evening was the star tenor Plácido Domingo.

Sound Format: PCM STEREO, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, PAL

Running Time: 104 mins

FSK: 0

Since 2004 Venice‘s rebuilt Teatro La Fenice has welcomed each New Year with a celebration of opera and symphonic music. Since that date, the Venetian concert has become a regular and increasingly popular fixture with television audiences, taking over the lead from the Viennese New Year’s Concert with its all-waltzes programme. Venice instead of Vienna that means opera instead of waltzes – a variety of highlights from Rossini, Verdi, Bellini, Paganini and Mascagni too. The choice of performers is made each year from the ranks of great conductors and acclaimed soloists, people who can rouse an audience and touch its emotions in the space of a few moments. As for the repertoire, the pieces chosen – arias, choruses and opera overtures – are almost always short, familiar and well-loved, all of them among the most-requested operatic gems, presented with the intention of keeping the memory of musical theatre, its stories and characters, alive.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Running Time: 95 mins

FSK: 0

In their series of Jazz greats, Arthaus Musik releases a DVD of the second part of a jazz night with famed sax player Archie Shepp and his Quartet. The concert took place in Turin in 1977.

Archie Shepp was a popular topic of conversation among jazz fans during the 1970s as it was becoming increasingly clear that a profound change was taking place in his approach to music and even his physical appearance. For years he had been the embodiment of black resistance, dressing in traditional African garments and protesting against the suppression of black people. But now he was wearing suits and had given up his free style of playing in favour of interpretations of well-known pieces from the jazz tradition.

Inevitably, the changes upset some people and pleased others. But Shepp never made it easy for people to judge him, and ignoring the talk he continued along the straight path, which had already led him to a place among the jazz greats while he was still a young man. Actually Shepp did not really break with his musical past. Before he became an avant-gardist Shepp played R&B and modern jazz and – as the younger Shepp once said: “New Jazz is no different from old jazz. There is really nothing new in it, if you set aside a message that couldn’t have been formulated earlier. This message is the truth. New Jazz tells the story of a people’s suffering. It talks about emancipation, the destruction of the ghettos, fascism. I’m a black jazz musician, a black father, an anti-fascist.” And in interview with jazz journalist Christian Broecking in 1993 he explained: “When I played Free Jazz, that pleased a lot of critics. But it’s a music black people as good as never hear. Then when I turned more to my people, the grumble started up that my audience was entirely white. Added to that, I’d always had a clear message for Afro-Americans, and still have, but I never reached them.”

Nothing could underline the continuity in Shepp’s career more effectively than the 1977 concert with Siegfried Kessler, Cameron Brown and Clifford Jordan, now being issued by Arthaus Musik in cooperation with Italian Television RAI.

Sound Format: PCM Mono

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 5, PAL

Menu Language: GB

Running Time: 68 mins

FSK: 0

On 24 May 1990, Al Di Meola, Larry Coryell and Biréli Lagrène, each known for their ground-breaking accomplishment on electric and acoustic guitars, joined forces at Nightstage in Cambridge, Massachusetts for an extraordinary evening of acoustic music. Percussionists Arto Tuncboyaci and Gumbi Ortiz, accent this rare musical meeting along with special guest guitarist Chris Carrington. The performance adds new dynamic and rhythmic dimensions to such traditional Al Di Meola favourites as Mediterranean Sundance or Spain, a familiar tune by Chick Corea, and PSP by Larry Coryell – all stirring renditions of classic jazz standards by a trio of superstars!

Sound Format: DD 5.1/DTS 5.1/LPCM Stereo

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 5, NTSC

Menu Language: GB

Running Time: 60 mins

FSK: 0

Set Design by Susanna Rossi Jost

Costume Design by Roberta Guidi di Bagno

This DVD presents a sophisticated staging of Donizetti’s wittiest opera, Don Pasquale. This production was performed at the world famous Scala in Milan. It was directed by Stefano Vizioli, who was praised for stripping the piece of any clichés acquired over a century-and-a-half of performing tradition, and making the characters truly live and breathe. The approach emphasised the unaffected brightness and gaiety of the opera, especially as the director was brilliantly supported by a pre-eminent international cast of singer-actors.

From the uproarious orchestral guffaw that opens the piece onwards, Riccardo Muti’s reading reveals a flexibility and poise that matches the overall intention to take the opera’s humour seriously. In a recent interview, Muti emphasised the vein of melancholy that runs through Don Pasquale, and stressed how much the libretto contributes to the perfection of the opera as a whole, how the composer manages to bend the music to the text, and bring out the deep meaning of every word. This Scala production embodied his conviction, in a performance marked by ‘absolute clarity of diction, the right emphasis for every word’ as the press hailed.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

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

Running Time: 130 mins

FSK: 0

Set & Costume design by Johannes Leiacker

Arthaus presents the world première of the unabridged version of Don Carlos at the Vienna State Opera, in a staging by the world renowned German director Peter Konwitschny. This staging in its unabridged version remains true to Giuseppe Verdi’s original vision of his grand opera, when it was premiered in Paris in 1867.

However, during the rehearsals it soon became clear that Don Carlos would not fit within the convention of duration, and Verdi was forced, against his will, to make cuts. Over the next 20 years, he would repeatedly turn out new versions of the opera, none of which ultimately left him satisfied. Therefore it was not until October 2004 that his original work – without cuts and sung in the original French - received its world première, now available for home viewing on DVD. Led by French conductor Bertrand de Billy the singers were hailed by audience and critics. The international cast were all renowned soloists on the world’s opera stages and also long-term stalwarts of the Vienna Opera.

Sound Format: LPCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: 2 x DVD 9, NTSC

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

Running Time: 247 mins

FSK: 0

Written & Directed by François Dupeyron

"Conversations à Rechlin" is a superb blend of music and theatre.

The concept, scenario and staging are the work of the French director and scriptwriter François Dupeyron, famous for The Officer’s Ward and Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran with Omar Sharif. The production is enhanced by an excellent cast: the well known mezzo-soprano Marie-Claude Chappuis, with Inna Petcheniouk, who brings with her a wealth of experience as an accompanist, and the actor Nicolas Brieger.

Set against a backdrop of Europe in 1944, the end of the Second World War and the collapse of Nazi Germany, the story shows three people brought together by a daily ritual that overcomes the differences between them. Marie-Claude Chappuis performs lieder by Schubert, Schumann and Wolf that form a contrast with the actors‘ situation in the labour camp at Rechlin. An intimate, spiritual interaction among a trio of human beings caught up in a moment of history.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Subtitle Languages: FR, GB, DE

Running Time: 91 mins

FSK: 0