DVD Videos

“The only ideal voice to be heard is the first, Joseph Kaiser's as an angelic-sounding Narraboth; but most shortcomings are overridden by Jonathan Haswell's accomplished filming. McVicar's energetic, slightly scary part in all this, as actor and designer manqué, comes across entertainingly in the 50-minute documentary.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2008 ****

“Nadia Michael… is an attractive Salome, moving like a dancer, as physically unafraid as she is vocally… Michael Volle is an imposing, rich-toned Narraboth… but it is Thomas Moser's weakly human Herod who emerges as the most truly lived-in character. Philippe Jordan seems... especially alert to the most modern twists of Strauss's harmonies. The filming (Jonathan Haswell) is sensitive to David McVicar's work while being much more than merely a static record.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009

“For all its nudity and gore Salome ends the evening in a white petticoat red with blood (mostly from the executioner) – this is a conventional production which lays out the story straightforwardly.
It is based on Pasolini's film Salo which gives us the 1930s setting and 'decadent' extras (who could be much more animated) standing around watching an everyday story of the Herods. Es Devlin's handsome set shows us Herod's banquet in progress upstairs in addition to the main area of the basement, and becomes nicely mobile during a Dance in Seven Rooms (which, according to the accompanying documentary, depicts Salome's abused upbringing).
Nadja Michael has become in short order Europe's Number One not-quite-hochdramatische choice for physically demanding productions.
She is an attractive Salome, moving like a dancer, as physically unafraid as she is vocally – and this tricky sing, with its ferocious tuning, suits her. Michael Volle is an imposing, richtoned Narraboth, given little to do but emote about Jesus. Both these German artists make a considerable impact through their own voices and physicality – but it is Thomas Moser's weakly human Herod who emerges as the most truly lived-in character. Philippe Jordan seems to have balanced his orchestra extremely well for both house and cast and is especially alert to the most modern twists of Strauss's harmonies. The filming (Jonathan Haswell) is sensitive to David McVicar's work while being much more than merely a static record.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The colourful sets amplify the decadence, and Salome's dance is sensuously managed. Michael's Salome can sing and dance with comparable flair and accuracy. Thomas Moser's Herod is genuinely moving...The orchestra plays splendidly under Philippe Jordan” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition **

“The heart throbs...in scenes featuring Jessica Rivera as Oppenheimer’s wife, the opera’s symbol of warmth, sensuousness, and hope. But these are moments: the overall tone stays cool, intellectual. We watch as observers, not participants. Sellars directed this TV version himself. There are virtues here, and vices. Cinema aficionados dismayed by static shots may revel in the nervous visuals, the quick editing and close-ups (you grow very familiar with Rivera’s tongue). But by fidgeting so much, Sellars the film director often works against the interests of Sellars the stage director. Body movements are truncated; the patterns of Lucinda Childs’s choreography get lost. All too rarely do we grasp the big picture and enjoy the full impact of Adrianne Lobel’s stark sets, with desert hills silhouetted and the bomb, cradled with wires, looming overhead like a malevolent planet. Finley, Rivera, Eric Owens and the rest of the cast are always as eloquent as the opera allows, and Lawrence Renes’s conducting is on the ball. Extras are disappointing: too much of Sellars holding forth, not enough on the production” The Times, 1st August 2008 ***

“Doctor Atomic centres on the hours before the first detonation of the atomic bomb… Peter Sellars's film of the opera is expressionistic, claustrophobic, sometimes deliberately out of focus. The sound quality is exceptionally good, as is the singing and playing under conductor Lawrence Renes.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 *****

“Gerald Finley carries the problems of the world on his shoulders as Oppenheimer and the Netherlands Philharmonic and Lawrence Renes play like it’s the best score since Fidelio.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2008

“is the most dramatic subject matter of any John Adams opera and musically the most inconsistent. Indeed, as subject matter goes, Doctor Atomic could hardly be more apocalyptic.
The work's principal character is J Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who developed the atomic bomb during the Second World War from its earliest prototype through to the test bomb that was detonated in 1945 at a secret site in New Mexico. The opera's First Act takes place a month before the test; the Second Act is set on the day itself, with a finale that strategically plays with our perception of time as the bomb is about to be detonated.
Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, rattled along with a note-specific clarity that flickered like newsreel; he paints Doctor Atomic in broader brushstrokes, using post-Bernard Herrmann suspense tactics and angsty chromatic swells to portray charged emotions. But an underlying weakness is the stubbornly unmemorable and melodically colourless vocal writing, leading to one-dimensional characterisations. Adams's and librettist Peter Sellars's decision to incorporate poetry by John Donne and Muriel Rukeyser into the opera only highlights the functional flavour of Sellars's own words as the balance is flipped towards contrived artifice. No complaints about the performance though. Gerald Finley carries the problems of the world on his shoulders as Oppenheimer and the Netherlands Philharmonic and Lawrence Renes play like it's the best score since Fidelio.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“In 2006, the company revived its classic Sleeping Beauty, featuring pretty Oliver Messel designs and a spruce choreography combining the romantic Petipa original with Ashton's hallmark narrative. Nuñez is charm personified as the Lilac Fairy, and has there ever been a more enchanting Aurora than Cojocaru?” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 ****

“Alina Cojocaru’s Aurora was the ballet’s radiant centrepiece, charming, in control and filled with a palpable delight in every pretty step.” The Times

“La fille mal gardée is sheer perfection, Nuñez and Acosta are unsurpassable respectively in the feminine grace and masculine confidence of Ashton's Lise and Colas, and their mimetic skills are delicious.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****

“The Royal Ballet’s present revival makes much of its vigorous characters, its brilliantly virtuosic solos and duets…[Marianella Nunez] gives the swift, intricate footwork as gorgeously as I have ever seen it. …Nunez is an excellent match for Carlos Acosta’s whizzing solos and his cheerful eagerness as her admirer Colas. …Altogether, a terrific show.” The Stage

“Here is a Figaro to put with the 1973 Glyndebourne production placed among the top five operatic DVDs. Figaro and Susanna are very much the centre here, and we like them not only because they sing and act well but because they are sympathetic in a modern way. Dorothea Röschmann's Countess is an unusually active, passionate woman... The Count's in an unenviable role... Finley goes grim-faced from one defeat to another, singing like a true aristocrat all the way.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2008

“…so accomplished a cast, in which Gerald Finley's Count, Miah Persson's Susanna and Rinat Shaham's Cherubino stand out as ideal.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 ****

“Schrott is a lively, resourceful and above all very good-looking Figaro, but the delightful Susanna (Miah Persson), charmingly dressed, is his match...The dignified Countess (Dorothea Roschmann)... is appealingly spirited...The sets are appealing and the action moves forward with a swing.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“A modern production which for all its weaknesses snaps the opera to life.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2008 ****

“The cast was clearly superior to the one in Brussels . Vladimir Ognovenko's Khovansky was magnificent both vocally and dramatically, creating a really "hideous" character… Nikolai Putilin made a great Shaklovity… Vladimir Galouzine was an impressive Andrei Khovansky… The chorus gave a magnificent performance… Michael Boder's musical direction is superb” Mundoclasico.com

“It seems perverse to place it in Las Vegas in the 1950s, as Robert Lepage has done, with stetsons, risqué revue turns and black-and-white TV … Yet when we arrive at the graveyard scene, and then the incredibly moving mad scene in Bedlam, it is all so wonderful that I felt it had been worth persevering. Musically, it is first-rate.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2008 ****

“This is a show to be seen - Covent Garden is staging it in July - and, down to the witty, period and silent menu screens, a model of its kind.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2008

“Lepage has forged a reputation as one of the most visionary theatre directors of our age… The Rake’s Progress is heading our way, and it promises to be a highlight of the 2007/8 season.” Sunday Times

“Auden first met Stravinsky to discuss the libretto of The Rake's Progress in Hollywood in 1947, and Robert Lepage winds forward his 'clock of fashion' to the time and place of the opera's composition.
Hogarth's Gin Alley runs into Easy Street, populated by Vegas hookers, dancers and chancers. The composer-sanctioned division into two halves rather than three acts is a complementary move from the conventions of the opera house to the theater, and what a show we have. Madam, or rather Mother Goose (Julianne Young, bearing a disconcerting resemblance to Julianne Moore), lures the naive Tom onto a heart-shaped satin bed, and the pair literally sink into its folds – before our hero re-emerges, worldly wise and weary, in front of a blow-up Winnebago, and banishes ennui not with mother's ruin but a line or two of Colombia's finest.
Andrew Kennedy takes all this in his stride, and his always fresh, appealing tenor ensures we retain our sympathy through Tom's piteous downfall from indolence to insanity, far more so than we are likely to for his operatic model, Ferrando.
From Nick Shadow's first entrance under the shade of a Dallas derrick to his flame-capped Broadway nemesis, the parallels are not with Dons Alfonso or Giovanni but rather Alberich.
This is largely thanks to William Shimell's ironblack baritone and rasping wit, though lines such as 'That man alone is free who chooses what to will and wills his choice as destiny' certainly strike a Wagnerian ring of mania.
The recorded balance is slightly unfavourable to Laura Claycomb in 'I go to him': this is her 'Abscheulicher', but she is no Leonora, and is happiest vocally when she is dramatically downcast.
The two crucial scenes, either side of the interval, between her, Tom and Dagmar Pecková's show-stealing Baba are models of ensemble writing and direction, pulling between operatic naturalism and Stravinsky's preferred realism just as Tom is torn between one woman and the other – and all in front of a chorus who change from waltz-time party guests to painfully well observed inhabitants of Bedlam with phenomenal assurance.
Doubtless Kazushi Ono must take credit for some slickly cinematic pacing. This is a show to be seen and, down to the witty, period and silent menu screens, a model of its kind.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Jonathan Summers…was in wonderful voice and gave a performance of rich intensity and dramatic power.” The Australian

“Lucrezia Borgia is a lyrical masterly example of Donizetti's art that delights the ear endlessly… Sutherland made the low key arias breathtaking vehicles for the most ravishing singing one is likely to hear on any opera stage in the world” The Financial Review

“In Pier Luidi Pizzi's production for Madrid's Teatro Real, Marie-Ange Todorovich and Marco Vinco and admirable in every respect… Alberto Zedda keeps both plot and music bubbling along deliciously.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 ****

“An elegant comedy, brimming with intelligence and expressive beauty, which had a colossal success at its opening in Pesaro… It is a heavenly blessing to listen to this Rossini … This production has two particular strengths which bring it to the level of exceptionality: the first one is the musical direction by Alberto Zedda, the great Rossinian maestro of our time … He is just extraordinary … The second is the stage and set direction by Pier Luigi Pizzi. The Milan maestro is the Prince of theatre architecture … The singers believe the story and their performance is superb, both theatrically and musically” El País