DVD Videos

The Biblical story of Belshazzar’s hubristic arrogance set against the valour of the young warrrior-leader Cyrus provided the 20-year-old Rossini with a dramatic story with West-Eastern resonances which still speak to us today. For the title role of Cyrus, Rossini wrote what would be his longest-ever contralto role, to which the great Rossini singer Ewa Podles is both naturally attracted and ideally suited. She is partnered by two young American stars of Rossini singing, Jessica Pratt and Michael Spyres, and a conductor-scholar, Will Crutchfield, of immense experience and sympathy.

World-premiere filming of this Rossini masterpiece.

Rossini was only 20 when he wrote Ciro in Babilonia.

Stage director Davide Livermore sets the action in the 1920s, with period black-and-white film inserts.

Features Ewa Podles as Ciro.

From the Rossini Festival at Pesaro, Italy – the only festival devoted exclusively to the works of the composer.

Extra features include: Cast gallery.

Running time: 165 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/KR

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Director: Dominic Dromgoole

Capped by one of the most famous speeches ever written, King Henry V recalls the momentous English victory at Agincourt. With comic sub-plots to be found among Henry’s soldiers, the production boasts some terrific performances – including Sam Cox as the ‘splendidly unhinged’ Pistol (Telegraph). In the title role is Jamie Parker, who ‘casts such a rapt spell that you feel the entire audience would rise up to march behind him.’ (Independent)

Broadcast into cinemas worldwide in May 2013.

Henry V was the play that opened the current Globe theatre.

Shakespeare’s masterpiece of the turbulence of war and the arts of peace.

A traditional period costume performance.

Features Jamie Parker as Henry V, already acclaimed for his role as Hal in Henry IV Parts I & II at the Globe in 2010.

Extra features include: Cast gallery.

Running time: 164 minutes

Subtitles: EN/DE

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

The Dresden Staatskapelle has a living Bruckner tradition, stretching back a century and more, which is lovingly curated by its new music director, Christian Thielemann, who is himself a powerful advocate for the composer’s symphonies as the pinnacle of the Austro-German tradition; and in particular for the Wagnerian resonances of the Seventh, whose Adagio was shaped by news of Wagner’s death in Venice. Hugo Wolf was also deeply affected by that news; his songs, like Bruckner’s symphonies, can be seen as oblique reflections on the influence of Wagner, especially when sung, as they are here by Renée Fleming, with the utmost delicacy and intimacy.

Christian Thielemann’s first concert as Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Both Thielemann and Fleming are renowned interpreters of Romantic repertoire.

Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in 1884 to universal acclaim & established him as a serious composer of symphonic music, Wolf’s Songs were composed four years later.

Wolf was a great admirer of Bruckner and both idolized Wagner, whose influence is felt in the 7th Symphony.

Running time: 106 minutes

Subtitles N/A

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Rebellious servants, capricious lovers, cross-dressing farce and a happy ending: the fast paced action of this comic Baroque opera had all the ingredients to please the self-confessed ‘low-brow taste’ of an Austro-German prince, who commissioned Giuseppe Scarlatti for a piece to celebrate his son’s wedding. This is the opera’s first revival in modern times, and it takes place in the very same Baroque theatre, impeccably restored to its original glory, which hosted the first performance. With a cast of young singers drawn from Prague’s National Theatre and a stylish period-instrument ensemble, this vivid reconstruction will delight audiences as much today as it did the aristocratic guests at Ceský Krumlov in 1768.

Composer Giuseppe Scarlatti (1723-1777), was related to Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti.

Comic opera performed in the Cesky
Krumlov Theatre, where it was premiered in 1768.

Theatre is a fully restored Baroque theatre, complete with authentic stage machinery, props and scenery.

Performed by candlelight.

‘WINNER OF THE HAVEL FOUNDATION AWARD 2012’ – the top artistic prize in the Czech Republic.

Extra feautures include: A Jewel of the Baroque - The story of the Castle Theatre in Ceský Krumlov.

Running time: 138 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/KR

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Perhaps no opera is closely and affectionately associated with a single house as Le nozze di Figaro is with Glyndebourne. Effortlessly witty yet shot through with pain and sadness, this deeply ambivalent life in the day of masters and servants as they scheme and outwit one another was Glyndebourne’s opening production in 1934. Michael Grandage’s staging is the seventh, set in a louche Sixties ambience. Marshalled by the ‘ideal pacing’ of Robin Ticciati, a youthful cast of principals has ‘no weak link’ and ‘looks gorgeous’ (The Sunday Times) in a production that continues Glyndebourne’s rewarding history of engagement with Mozart’s and da Ponte’s ‘day of madness’.

Glyndebourne's "signature" work, Le nozze di Figaro was the opening production when the theatre re-opened in 1994.

The production is set the 1960s/70s.

Extra features include: ‘The Greatest Opera Ever Written’ and ‘From page to stage’.

Running time: 180 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/KR

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Sung in Czech with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean

The tale of a quick witted fox and her escape from confinement for a life in the forest that is by turns joyful and violent, The Cunning Little Vixen is an unsentimental parable of death and rebirth that lives through the instinctive and immediate world of nature, animal and human, which Janacek loved so much.

Melly Still's production for Glyndebourne finds the 'delicate balance between whimsy and mysticism' (Daily Telegraph) at the heart of the opera, which Vladimir Jurowski conducts 'with lustrous style: you can hear the birds in the score, feel the sunshine and thrill to the starlit night sky in the final scene' (Opera Today).

Running Time: 119 minutes

Subtitles EN/FR/DE/KR

Sound format: 2.0LPCD plus 5.1(5.0) DTS

The Italian and international press were unanimous in their praise for Peter Grimes at La Scala, which revived the tradition of Britten's operas on the lyric stages of Italy. A strong British cast was marshalled by the baton of Robin Ticciati, who has already won golden opinions for his opera conducting.

Richard Jones's production focuses on the fisherman as the outsider in a brutal society, cut off by mutual suspicion and misunderstanding: an unforgettable production of an opera that never loses its power.

Extra feature: Interviews with cast and crew.

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/KR

Running time: 168 minutes

Two late and baleful tragedies by Euripides focus on the ill-starred daughter of the Greek King, Agamemnon. Will he sacrifice Iphigenia in order to secure fair winds for his voyage to Troy? In Aulis, the drama rages until she is spared. Having escaped to Tauris, Iphigenia finds herself compelled to kill her own brother before, once more, the fickle gods intervene.

Gluck's operatic settings are very rarely staged together, but Pierre Audi's production makes a darkly compelling case for their dramatic unity. All the lead performers here are experienced exponents of Gluck, and together they present a powerfully idiomatic experience.

First ever release together on DVD/Blu-ray.

Iphigénie en Aulide has never been issued before on DVD/Blu-ray.

Top international cast includes Véronique Gens as Iphigénie and Anne Sofie von Otter as Clytemnestre.

Marc Minkowski & Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble have been widely acclaimed for their Gluck performances.

Running time: 267 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/DU/KO

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Ariane et Barbe-bleue makes its premiere on Blu-ray.

Stéphane Denève is universally acclaimed for his interpretation of French repertoire.

This is the twelfth release from the Liceu-Opus Arte partnership.

Dukas's opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, based on Maeterlinck's symbolist version of the classic tale, sees free spirit Ariane become the sixth wife of the infamous Barbe-bleue, who gives his new bride seven keys to seven doors, but prohibits the use of the last. Ariane discovers an array of glittering jewels behind the first six doors, but a terrifying reality awaits her as she unlocks the seventh.

José van Dam is cast as the villainous Barbe-bleue, while taking on the immensely demanding role of Ariane - who does not leave the stage throughout the entire opera - is American soprano Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet.

Running time: 120 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT/CA/JP

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Director: Matthew Dunster

Music: Jules Maxwell

Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe’s most renowned and controversial work. Famous for being the first dramatized version of the Faustus tale, the play depicts the sinister aftermath of Faustus’s decision to sell his soul to the Devil’s henchman in exchange for power and knowledge. In the first-ever staging of this menacing drama at the Globe Theatre, Matthew Dunster’s production features Paul Hilton as the arrogant, power-hungry Faustus and Arthur Darvill as the sardonic Mephistopheles, and includes several impressive magical stunts along the way.

Doctor Faustus is considered the greatest tragedy in English before Shakespeare. Marlowe places some of the greatest poetry ever written for the stage and a good deal of anarchic comedy at the service of this mythic tale illustrating mankind’s insatiable desire for knowledge and power.

This was the first production of Doctor Faustus at the Globe.

This production employs Renaissance costumes and staging.

Screened in cinemas worldwide through November 2012.

Mephistopheles is played by Arthur Darvill, best known for the role of Rory in Doctor Who.

Running time: 166 minutes

Subtitles: EN/DE

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS