DVD Videos

This DVD, centered on the dazzling German soprano Diana Damrau, complements a ravishing recital with a fascinating documentary.

In March 2013, Damrau achieved “a daring victory” (in the words of the New York Times) when the Metropolitan Opera witnessed her first-ever performances of Verdi’s La traviata. In recent years she has made the transition from glittering, stratospheric roles such as Mozart’s Queen of the Night and Strauss’ Zerbinetta to lyrical heroines of greater emotional complexity, such as Gilda in Rigoletto, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Lucia di Lammermoor. A series of triumphs at the Met have made her a favourite singer in New York – as she is in other leading opera houses around the world.

In the documentary, Diana Damrau – Diva Divina, the soprano explains that, when she was just 12 years old, it was La traviata (in Franco Zeffirelli’s lavish 1982 cinematic version) that inspired her to make a career in opera. The documentary, directed by Beatrix Conrad, follows Damrau over the course of nine months, covering operatic performances and rehearsals in Geneva, New York, Paris and Munich, recitals, recordings and the arrival of her first child, Alexander.

The recital, filmed at the impressive Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, pairs Damrau with the French harpist Xavier de Maistre in an exquisite selection of songs by Schumann, Fauré, Debussy and Strauss. Among the best-loved items in the programme are: Schumann’s ‘Widmung’; both Fauré’s and Debussy’s settings of Verlaine’s poem ‘Clair de lune’; Fauré’s ‘Après un rêve’; a harp arrangement of Debussy’s piano Arabesque No 1; Strauss’ ‘Morgen‘ and ‘Ständchen’ and, among the encores, the famed Bach-Gounod ‘Ave Maria’.

In the course of 2013, Damrau and de Maistre will also perform together in concert seasons in Washington D.C., Paris, Geneva, Lyon, Reykjavik, Hamburg, Munich and London and at festivals in Menton, Gstaad, Schwarzenberg and Grafenegg.

Reviewing the performance in Baden-Baden – for which the audience joined Damrau and de Maistre on the stage, rather than being distanced from them in the expansive auditorium – the Badische Neueste Nachrichten wrote of Damrau as a recitalist “whose vocal material and abilities as a storyteller approach perfection”, while the Badisches Tagblatt said:” Damrau’s diction is a pleasure, her vocal flexibility amazing. She sings phrases with ample breath, while her nuanced shadings create subtle changes of mood from song to song.” Die Rheinpfalz described the “gentle, sometimes ethereal tones of the harp” as being in perfect harmony with the “exceptionally subtle and detailed vocal art of the soprano … particularly exceptional are the delicate tracery and colours of Diana Damrau’s singing. Her shaping and accenting of the text is meticulous, her phrasing is of great sensitivity and her dynamics are richly nuanced, yet her song performances are never mannered, rather always full of lyrical feeling.”

Major stars of the international opera stage come together with the Chor und Orchester of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, under the internationally acclaimed conductor Donald Runnicles, in this opera gala in aid of the German AIDS Foundation.

Highlights from operas by Rossini, Verdi, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Delibes, Sartori are performed by world-class musicians from around the globe.

Heading the star-studded line-up were established artists of the calibre of Adrianne Pieczonka, Vivica Genaux and Simone Kermes, while the younger generation is represented by tenors Francesco Demuro, Antonio Poli and Teodor Illincai, as well as the exciting soprano Kristin Lewis and mezzo-soprano Anna Smirnova. The result was truly an evening to remember.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sound format DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Runnning time: 75 mins

Set design EDOARDO SANCHI

Costumes SILVIA AYMONINO

Choreography NIKOS LAGOUSAKOS

Lighting PAOLO MAZZON

Here from the iconic Verona arena is Charles Gounod’s masterpiece Roméo & Juliette, performed there for the first time since 1977. This new production was entrusted to Italian director Francesco Micheli, making his arena debut, who opted for a personal, highly original version: “An arena within the Arena, like a blood-red Elizabethan theatre. A senescent world that will not let its own children live.”

Juliette is sung by Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze, in a return to one of her early roles at the Salzburg Festival. Stefano Secco, often heard at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and other international venues, is Roméo. Artur Rucinski interprets Mercutio, Romeo’s friend and the rival of Jean-François Borras’s Tybalt. The page Stéphano is sung by soprano Ketevan Kemoklidze. The Orchestra and Chorus of the Arena di Verona are conducted by Fabio Mastrangelo.

A Magical Match Made in Moscow.

In June 2008, Dmitri Hvorostovsky invited Sondra Radvanovsky to be his guest star in the prestigious Moscow concert series "Hvorostovsky and Friends," with conductor Constantine Orbelian and the Philharmonia of Russia. This glamorous occasion, captured on film for Russian television, marked these artists’ first-ever musical collaboration -- and proved to be a historic event that documented for posterity one of those all-too-rare instances of magical artistic alchemy between two great opera stars. Their electrifying performance was an instant sensation, and a potent preview of the two stars’ effusively acclaimed later appearances together in Il Trovatore at Covent Garden, The Met and The San Francisco Opera.

Delos recorded the live concert, to be released later as the critically-acclaimed CD, "Verdi Opera Scenes" (DE3403). The Russian TV show, featuring their national baritone hero and his dazzling guest, was broadcast throughout the Russian Federation. Upon obtaining that film footage, Delos collaborated with California film editor Steve Scoville, who expertly synched the footage with Delos's concert audio. The result, available for the first time on this DVD, takes the viewer/listener to Moscow's Great Hall for the concert’s most unforgettable moments, with stunning "you are there" sonic and visual impact.

TOTAL TIME: 42 MIN + 16 MIN Bonus Interview with Maestro Orbelian

Described as “the great Verdian bass” (Le Figaro) and a “Mefistofele who stood out over all the others” (Der Neue Merker), Carlo Colombara brings some of the most famous bass rôles to life in this wide-ranging programme. Emotions range from the pride of Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, through the terrors of Verdi’s Attila, to the tender recollections of Rachmaninov’s Aleko. Mephistopheles strides powerfully through both Gounod and Boito’s operas, and Rossini’s comic wit contrasts with the darkness of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.

In 1986 he won the prize for the best Italian singer in the G. B. Viotti Competition and the following year he won the As.Li.Co competition before making his début at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome in Ernani. His subsequent career has brought appearances in the most important theatres of the world, in Tokyo, London, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, New York, Zurich, Barcelona, where he now lives, Verona and elsewhere.

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.

This production resuscitates Gounod’s largely forgotten opera Mireille. A triumph for Marc Minkowski, conducting at the Opéra National de Paris, it attracted more than 1 million viewers when broadcast on TV!

No competition on DVD or Bluray.

In 1859, a young Provençal poet, Fredéric Mistral, wrote his masterpiece, Miréio, a vast epic love poem. Gounod, whose Faust was created that year, read Mireille shortly after publication and went to Saint-Rémy de Provence to meet Mistral. Gounod was charmed by the originality of the work, the story being much less contrived than many of those on the operatic stage at the time. The opera has had a difficult career and was revised and altered several times. In 1939, Guy Ferrant and Henri Busser, disciples of Gounod, restored the five-act original and Mireille was finally restored from dancing on a fine midsummer's morning, to the gripping scene in the desert-like Crau region.

BONUS INCLUDES interviews with Marc Minkowski, Nicolas Joel & Christophe Ghristi [26’53]

Production de l’Opéra National de Paris

NTSC 16:9, Sound : DTS 5.2,

Language: Fr, Subtitles: Fr, Eng, Ger, Spa, It

2h 32min

A star-studded benefit concert to celebrate Ioan Holender’s farewell after 19 years as the director of one of the world’s leading and most famous opera houses. The highly acclaimed cast was headed by brilliant singers such as Diana Damrau, Natalie Dessay, Angelika Kirchschlager, Waltraud Meier, Anna Netrebko, Pjotr Beczala, Plácido Domingo, Thomas Hampson, Leo Nucci, Thomas Quasthoff, Ramon Vargas and many others. No fewer than twelve conductors including Marco Armiliato, Bertrand de Billy, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano and Franz Welser-Möst led the way through a program lasting over four hours at the fully-packed Wiener Staastoper.

Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese

David McVicar's spectacular 2004 production of Gounod’s Faust, featuring a divine cast of opera’s superstars: Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Bryn Terfel, Simon Keenlyside and Sophie Koch.

McVicar is one of the most innovative and in-demand directors, and his lush, haunting realised vision of Faust received glorious praise. The production revels in a gothic, seamy Second French Empire setting, with the Act V ballet “haunting the imagination long after” (The Independent).

“This is opera at its grandest and best” The Wall Street Journal