DVD Videos

Seldom has the genius of one man so influenced the musical conscience of his age. Leonard Bernstein triumphed as composer, conductor, writer and teacher.The spontaneous joy of his Broadway hits, the bold, spiritual quest of his orchestral works, his intensity and vitality as conductor, made Bernstein one of the central figures in 20th-century music. In Leonard Bernstein - Reflections, he discusses his Boston childhood, his musical growth at Harvard and the Curtis Institute and the influence of great masters like Reiner, Mitropoulos and Koussevitzky. He shares his feelings on the primacy of tonal music and speculates on the nature of the creative process. From Carnegie Hall, scene of his début, to the living room of his home and his private studio overlooking New York's Central Park, Reflections explores the artist's varied and colourful career. Released for the first time since its production 30 years ago, this film is a rare personal portrait of Leonard Bernstein, who triumphed as composer, conductor, writer and teacher, told through his own words. It brings a renewed appreciation of this gifted man and his far-reaching influence.

NTSC 4:3 PCM Stereo

DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 (Bonus)

Original language: English

Booklet Notes: French, German, English

Running time: 52 minutes + 20 minutes (Bonus)

Arrangement, text version and script by Walter Felsenstein and Hanns Eisler.

Opera Feature Film (black-and-white), 1956

Artistic Supervisor and Direction Walter Felsenstein

Director of Photography Nicolaus Hayer

Sceneries and Costumes Rochus Gliese, Leo Metzenbauer

Walter Felsenstein (1901–1975), founder and general director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, was one of the twentieth century’s greatest creative theatre directors, who played a hugely important role in the revival of opera as a theatrical art form. A brilliant artist who directed over 190 productions during the course of his career, he was equally committed to the works, their creators, the ensemble and the audience.

When Walter Felsenstein is offered to shoot an adaptation of the story about Fidelio/Leonore in the early fifties, he accepts. Together with Hanns Eisler, he develops a whole new version of the story by changing, cutting out and rearranging parts of the text. The overture is incorporated into the filmic adaptation and tells the prelude of the story. In doing this, Felsenstein uses the medium in a whole new way. The music is not only there to accompany the images; Fidelio is not meant to be an operatic film but a musical film. However, the project is weighed down with diffi culties from the very beginning, as it is temporarily uncertain as to how the project should be financed. Although the finished film provokes some fierce political controversy, it is a success among the public. Looking back sixteen years later, Felsenstein commented: “It is the only music film I have ever made – even though it had its faults. The other films were basically stage performances adapted and arranged for the cinema. They were intended to document Felsenstein productions at the Komische Oper and were modified to make them suitable for filming, but were still based on theatrical productions. My only real music film was Fidelio.”

“Arthaus’s scholarly and imposing ‘Walter Felsenstein Edition’ offers a fascinating glimpse of an important moment in operatic history now vanished.” The New York Times

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Picture Format: 4:3

Running Time: 84 mins

FSK: 0

Menu Language: GB, DE, FR, ES

Subtitle Languages: GB, DE, FR, ES

Region Code: 0

Bonus:

Short documentary about the Wihan Quartet filmed and edited by Alice Nellis

Here are the greatest moments from the “ultimate in galas” (Opera), a “roof-rattling vocal display and the kind of cheering and free-flowing, heartfelt emotion on both sides of the footlights that opera evinces more than any other art form” - New York Times

The gala celebration immediately catches the attention with spectacular performances by stars such as Dame Joan Sutherland, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Alfredo Kraus and many others

“The world's most famous opera singers [in] a dazzling sequence of performances” - New York Times

“It's always a privilege to sing at the Met, but this is something very special. I don't think there's ever been anything this grand in the history of opera” - Luciano Pavarotti

This product features an awesome roster of international star conducters: from James Levine, Leonard Bernstein and Thomas Fulton to Jeffrey Tate, Richard Bonynge

2 DVDs LIVE from the Met from October 22, 1983

NTSC · 16:9, PCM stereo

Region code: 0, FSK: all audiences

Booklet notes: English

Running time: 100 mins

For the 15th Verbier Festival, which took place from July to August 2008, Medici Arts filmed the majority of the concerts in the Salle Medran (2000 seats) and the Verbier Church (500 seats). Some of the best performers in the world of classical music came together including Martha Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky and rising star Yuja Wang in this 'best of' the 2008 festival.

The only DVD of Grigory Sokolov, an exceptional artist, famously reclusive, is once again available. In the 40 years since the 16-year-old Sokolov was awarded first prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1966, the world has been blessed with what one American critic recently called "a kind of pianism, musicianship and artistry one thought had vanished forever". Championed at a young age by Emil Gilels and a prominent figure on the Russian music scene since his early teens, Sokolov has gained an almost mythical status amongst music-lovers and pianophiles throughout the world. Sokolov has amazed everyone again and again with the enormous breadth of his repertoire and his huge, almost physical musical strength. Visa problems have again made Italy-based Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov cancel a London booking. After last year's Barbican concert was called off at short notice came the news that he would not be visiting the Royal Festival Hall on 29th April as planned.

"Sokolov, although a well-kept secret, is for many the greatest pianist alive today. Youthful celebrities with fast fingers, designer gear and slick photos pall beside such gigantic artistry, for Sokolov is a pianistic Dostoyevsky, his music-making vast in scope, visionary and revelatory, squeezing out every last drop of meaning." Jessica Duchen, International Piano Sept/Oct 2006

"There can be few virtuosi with fingers to touch his" The Sunday Times

Region Code: NTSC 0

Picture Format: NTSC 16:9

Sound Format: PCM-STEREO

Disc Format: DVD9

No of Discs: 1

Run Time: 123 mins

Released: 2009-06-01

In 2008 Gramophone named the present-day Staatskapelle Dresden one of the ten best orchestras in the world. Under its current principal conductor, Fabio Luisi, this venerable ensemble deploys its sumptuous sonorities on Mahler's grandiose First Symphony in a performance fulsomely praised in press reviews. The Austrian pianist Margarita Höhenrieder has enjoyed acclaim as the result of her successes in a whole series of international piano competitions.Among these awards was first prize in the prestigious Busoni Competition in Bolzano.

Bonus Documentary: Margarita Höhenrieder - Portrait of an Artist

At the Salzburg Mozartwoche in 2000, the Hagen Quartett excelled in Beethoven's very last String Quartet, first performed only after the composer's death, a highly demanding and very complex work. For Mozart's famous Clarinet Quintet, written for his gifted friend Anton Stadler, they joined forces with the phenomenal clarinetist Sabine Meyer, who "enhances the dazzling splendour of the quartet with a warm and graciously noble voice", as an Austrian newspaper wrote. The Hagen Quartett is regarded internationally as one of the foremost string quartets, praised for their unique, finely nuanced timbre and the engaging immediacy of their ensemble playing.

The Places

Northern Italy has been ruled by various powers over the centuries. The Southern Tyrol, seen here, retains much of its Austrian past, with some regions predominantly German-speaking and others Italian. Scenes are shown of the Dolomites, the strangely shaped rock formations, a typical castle and mountain lakes. There are also views of the neighbouring Swiss-Italian canton of Ticino.

The Music

Music for the tour is by Beethoven, with his Violin Concerto, written and first performed in Vienna, and one of his two Romances for solo violin and orchestra, independent pieces perhaps intended as slow movements for another concerto that was never completed.

Booklet Notes: English, German, French

Thunderous applause and loud cries of "bravo" greeted the première of Beethoven's Fidelio at the inaugural performance of the first opera season in Valencia's new Palau de les Arts. With this spectacular production directed by Pierluigi Pier'Alli, Valencia has put itself back on the map of the international opera world. Dominating the activity on stage are two of today's most distinguished German singers,Waltraud Meier and Peter Seiffert, who have left their mark above all on Wagner interpretation, and the great Finnish bass Matti Salminen who stamped his forceful character on his role as the jailer Rocco.

"Everything she does is unforgettable…" The Guardian (Waltraud Meier)