DVD Videos

“I've fallen in love with new Glyndebourne's new Susanna and Figaro, Alison Hagley and Gerald Finley” The Observer

“Pure magic ... Bernard Haitink conducted the LPO in an eloquent performance, beautifully played, and beautifully audible in the excellent new house” Opera

“Gerald Finley and Alison Hagley are well-matched as the servant couple and Renee Fleming's creamy Countess is a joy.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“When this staging was presented in 1992, in various theatres, Gardiner decided to be his own director because he didn't trust any available alternative to be faithful to Da Ponte's and Mozart's original. In the circumstances his was a sensible decision because his deeply discerning stage interpretation perfectly seconds his own musically perceptive reading. His keen understanding of what this endlessly fascinating work is about is made plain in his absorbing essay in the booklet.
The first advantage of this film of the opera is Carlo Tommasi's ravishing décor that accords with what the libretto predicates, conjuring before our eyes 18th-century Naples overlooked by Vesuvius. Then Gardiner's direction makes all-too-clear the emotional turmoil engineered by Don Alfonso's cynical plans to test the ladies' constancy. At all times it's responsive to the music, except when members of the cast march through the stalls and when certain scenes are more sexually explicit than would have been contemplated in Mozart's age.
Amanda Roocroft's Fiordiligi is intrepidly sung, her tone always firm and gleaming, and she acts expressively. She's partnered, as originally intended, by a soprano Dorabella. Rosa Mannion proves an apt foil for her sister, and is deliciously flighty when falling for her 'Albanian' lover.
Rainer Trost is the young, fluent, eager Ferrando who makes the most of his taxing music, although his second aria, 'Ah! lo veggio', is here excluded.
His vulnerable portrayal is a nice contrast to Rodney Gilfry's macho Guglielmo. The four voices blend well in the many ensembles.
In the pit, Gardiner's direct, big-scale yet sensitive conducting is the engine-room of the performance, superbly sustained by his periodinstrument band. Peter Mumford's video direction is faultless; so is the sound picture. All in all, it would be amazing if any successor surpasses this DVD's achievements on all sides.
Recommended without reservation.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The traditional approach to staging nicely matches the freshness and imagination of the period performance, with uniforms from the Napoleonic period and Ferrando and Guglielmo in disguise dressed identifiably as Albanians...Visually, the whole production consistently heightens the impact of the opera” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“A wonderfully warm and detailed picture of the great pianist...a superlative production throughout...Brendel in Portrait is an exemplary DVD” Billboard Magazine

“The main element in this double-disc tribute is the 70-minute portrait, 'Man and Mask', directed for television by Mark Kidel. This takes the great pianist to many of the haunts of his early life, as well as showing him relaxing at home in Hampstead. His first recital came in Graz in 1948, and received glowing notices, when he concentrated on works with fugues, including the Brahms Handel Variations and a sonata of his own which boasted a doublefugue at the end.
In Vienna he recalls making his first recording for Vox, a coupling of Balakirev's Islamey, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Stravinsky's Petrushka suite. Later, on the day after his début at Queen Elizabeth Hall, he had offers of recording contracts from three major companies.
All this is amplified by clips from archive performances and a separate half-hour conversation with Sir Simon Rattle in rehearsal for Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 4, offering fascinating revelations from both pianist and conductor.
On the second disc comes a recital recorded at The Maltings, Snape, crowning this revealing issue with masterly performances of three of Brendel's favourite works.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“In the largely pre-TV 1940s the Central Office of Information leavened its government propaganda films with 'improving' cultural subjects, and so preserved images of legendary performers such as Dame Myra Hess, at her morale-raising wartime recitals in the... National Gallery, intense but graceful in Beethoven's Appasionata and a chunk of Mozart concerto. Equally poignant is Dennis Brain... debonairly playing a Beethoven horn sonata... Deservedly famous is The Instruments of the Orchestra, for which Britten created his Purcell variations. Sir Malcolm Sargent introduces the instruments as crisply as he conducts the wartime LSO...” BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 ****

“An absorbing nostalgic trip back to the 1940s; but more than that it is a very good tutorial for newcomers to orchestral music and to the ballet.” MusicWeb International