DVD Videos

Bonus feature: Ida Haendel in conversation with Giselle Brodsky, Founder and Artistic Director of the Miami International Piano Festival. Color, stereo, 4:3, 66 mins. (recital) plus 59 mins. (bonus), all regions.

Original Broadway stars Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison recreate their roles in this legendary 1958 television production of Cole Porter’s most beloved musical. Black & white, mono, 4:3, 78 min., all regions

A rarity among Tchaikovsky’s operas, The Enchantress (also known as The Sorceress) is presented here in a live performance by the esteemed Nizhegorodsky State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet; Pavel Reznikov, conductor (Moscow, 1984). Sung in Russian; subtitles in English, French, and Russian, Color, 4:3, 156 min., All regions.

Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress was composed during a happily reclusive period in the composer’s life. Living in a country house in Maidanovo, he described himself as “contented, cheerful, and quiet.” In the spring of 1885, Tchaikovsky discovered Shpazhinsky’s play The Enchantress, which greatly attracted him as an operatic subject, affording him the chance to express dramatically a long-cherished phrase in Goethe’s Faust, “Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan” [the eternal-feminine draws us upwards]. Indeed, his characterization of the good-hearted and passionate inn-keeper Nastasya (affectionately called “Kuma” – literally, “godmother” – by her admirers, and branded an “enchantress” by her enemies) is one of his most fascinating operatic portraits. This 1984 production, performed by an excellent cast fully committed to the work, makes a strong case for The Enchantress as an unjustly neglected masterpiece.

Black & White, 4:3, 76 min. All regions.

The first half of this remarkable DVD is a 1963 television special from Canadian television which presents Miss Sutherland in fully-staged arias and scenes from La Sonnambula, I Puritani, and La Traviata. The second half finds Miss Sutherland in a rare 1969 solo recital, with Richard Bonynge, piano. The program includes arias and songs by Bellini, Handel, Rossini, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, and others, and was taped live at the University of Toronto.

Concerts taped live in the Concert Hall of Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey). 56 min., Color, stereo, All regions.

A “double bill” of two Russian operatic masterpieces. Legendary bass Evgeny Nesterenko stars in the title role of Aleko (1892), an early work of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), written the composer was still a student at the Moscow Conservatory. Strongly influenced by the Italian verismo school (the plot is a close relation to that of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci), the score is full of colorful evocations of Gypsy life and passionate emotional outpourings. The cast of this expansive 1986 film version, directed by Victor Okuntsov, includes members of Gypsy folk ensembles, adding to the production’s striking authenticity. The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and Gosteleradio Chorus are under the direction of Dimitri Kitayenko.

By contrast, Kashchey the Immortal (sometimes called Kashchey the Deathless) is very much a mature work of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908); it was the composer’s twelfth opera, and premiered in 1902. Moreover, its mythic setting and magical storyline (drawn from the same Russian folk tale that inspired Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird) are worlds away from Aleko’s gritty realism. This 1987 Russian film version stars the great singing actor Konstantin Pluzhnikov in the title role (Pluzhnikov is also the Kaschey in the acclaimed CD recording conducted by Valery Gergiev). Directed by Oleg Yeryshev, the film goes far beyond what could be achieved in a stage production, adding clarity, depth, and spectacle to this poignant fairy tale.

124 minutes, Color, 4:3, Mono, All regions

Subtitles in English and Russian

Subtitles in English, French, Italian, Russian & Spanish

An operatic double bill, featuring two rarely-performed works of the Russian repertoire, performed by leading stars of the Bolshoi Opera. Rimsky-Korsakov held Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest in high esteem, admiring especially his setting of recitative; after Dargomyzhsky’s death, it was Rimsky-Korsakov who completed the orchestration of the opera. Rimsky-Korsakov's own opera Mozart and Salieri is a brilliant exploration of the rivalry between those two composers which later provided the inspiration for Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus.” The texts for both operas are taken almost verbatim from works of Alexander Pushkin, without an intervening librettist.

Sung in Russian, with optional subtitles in English, French, and Russian.

Color, 132 minutes, 4:3, All regions

omposed in 1898, “The Tsar’s Bride” was Rimsky-Korsakov’s tenth opera. Based on the true story of an ill-fated peasant bride of Tsar Ivan (“Ivan the Terrible”), the opera was composed in a traditional musical style, filled with lush “cantilena” melodies, intended by the composer as a response to the ubiquitous influence of Wagner. This 1983 Bolshoi Opera production features a magnificent cast under the direction of Yuri Simonov. Color, Mono, 4:3, 158 minutes; Sung in Russian, with optional subtitles in English, French, and Russian, All regions.