DVD Videos

Students: Hayley Wolfe (Violin) & Marisa Gupta (Piano)

Maxim Vengerov is recognised as one of the world's most exciting and brilliant violinists. His exceptional talent emerged when he was very young. He gave his first recital at the age of five and went on to win First Prize in the Junior Wieniawski Competition when he was ten years old, confirming his promise as a violinist of rare talent. Still in his mid-thirties he is now acknowledged throughout the world as one of the great musicians of our time. He is also an outstanding teacher and is Professor of Violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Perceptive, entertaining and always sensitive to the individual personality and ability of his pupils, he has an extraordinary ability to convey his insights into the music and inspire his students.

In this masterclass, he works on the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Sonata no 4 in A minor.

Directed by Anais Spiro

The Verbier Festival is one of the most prestigious classical music events in the world. The quality of the participating artists and the originality of the programs have established the festival as a culmination of the Classical Music season.

In 2013 the Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

This DVD shows highlights from the Verbier Festival 2012.

Gabor Takácz-Nagy is considered one of today’s most authentic exponents of Hungarian Music. He has been the Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra since 2007.

Gabor Takácz-Nagy has been the recipient of the “Excellencia” prize from Pizzicato Magazine and the Liszt Prize.

In 2012 he was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Picture format DVD: 16:9

Sound formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Runnning time: 51 mins

Directed by Corentin Leconte and Isabelle Soulard

The Verbier Festival is one of the most prestigious classical music events in the world. The quality of the participating artists and the originality of the programs have established the festival as a culmination of the Classical Music season.

In 2013 the Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary.

This DVD presents highlights from the Verbier Festival 2012 with the outstanding conductors Charles Dutoit and Manfred Honeck.

Charles Dutoit, the Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra since 2009, has won more than 40 international awards including two Grammy Awards, the Grand Prix du Président de la République and the German Music Critics Award.

Picture format DVD: 16:9

Sound formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Runnning time: 88 mins

Paul Taylor is widely considered to be one of the foremost American choreographers of the 20th century. Paul Taylor is among the last living members of the second generation of America’s modern dance artists. He has continued to win acclaim for his recent creations as well as stagings of his earlier works. As prolific as ever, he may propel his dancers through space for the sheer beauty of it, or use them to wordlessly illuminate war, spirituality, sexuality, morality and mortality. This programme was recorded in 2012 at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris and is composed of two ballets.

First performed in 1988 to music from Bach’s Brandenburg concertos 3 and 6. 'Brandenburgs' is cast for a man and three women, plus an ensemble of five men. In an unusual stroke for Taylor, he uses the male quintet as a proper corps de ballet - that is, they frame the action and move only as a group, anonymously. The sharp hierarchical distinction between soloists and ensemble accounts for one aspect of the dance’s classical feel. More important, though, is the ensemble’s attitude toward the soloists.

Set to Francis Poulenc’s 'Gloria', the dance was inspired by the life and work of 19th-century American writer Walt Whitman, who revered body and soul as one and who famously loved all with equal ardour. It depicts the experiences of an artist described in a line from Whitman’s 'Leaves of Grass': “I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul.”

Choreography PAUL TAYLOR

Costumes: SANTO LOQUASTO

Lighting: JENNIFER TIPTON

HD recording Théâtre National de Chaillot, Festival Les Étés de la Danse 2012

Sir Peter Hall’s outstanding 1979 Glyndebourne Festival Opera production of Fidelio remains remarkably faithful to the way Beethoven intended the opera to be. The stage directions of the original version – completed in 1814 after two revisions – are followed exactly by Sir Peter Hall. Yet he still manages to inject fresh excitement and suspense into Fidelio with John Bury’s original lighting and design providing a perfect framework for the drama and conflicts that centre on political intrigue and repression.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Bernard Haitink.

Don Florestan has been falsely imprisoned for threatening to expose the evils of governor Don Pizarro. While he starves to death with other political prisoners his wife, Leonore tries to find him. She disguises herself as the young man, Fidelio, and wins the confidence of the gaoler, Rocco and his daughter Marzelline.

Elisabeth Söderström portrays the courageous Leonore in such a riveting and outstanding performance that alone is worth the whole show. Elizabeth Gale as Marzelline and Curt Appelgren as Rocco bring this unique production to perfection.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9 / NTSC

Subtitle Languages: DE (Original Language), GB, FR, ES

Running Time: 128 mins

FSK: 0

A new release of EuroArts successful series My Favourite Opera. Here we study the results of involvement with a specific role. We witness musical and stage rehearsals in 1991, listen to what the artists have to say about the work in progress and share in private moments.

“I can feel deep into Giulietta’s soul” explains Katia Ricciarelli. The world famous and distinguished Italian star soprano fascinates as Giulietta in Vincenzo Bellini’s I capuleti e i Montecchi alongside Diana Montague (as Romeo), Dano Raffanti (Tebaldo), Macello Lippi (Capellio) and Antonio Salvadori (Lorenzo).

This opera is inspired by the tragic love story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It is an opera about power, hate, jealousy, rivalry, love. The role of the Giulietta was one of the high points of Katia Ricciarelli’s career.

Katia Ricciarelli is best known for her roles in Rossini, Verdi and Puccini Operas but also appeared on screen and won the best actress prize Nastro D’Argento for her role in Pupi Avati’s La seconda notte di nozze.

This intimate portrait of a great opera singer also reveals how an opera production at the highest level is created.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sound format DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Languages: English, German, French

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 58 mins

Recorded live at Philharmonie Berlin on 21 June 2010.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung summed up this highly acclaimed performance of Bruckner's monumental Fifth Symphony by saying: “Both Bruckner’s belief in God, as it majestically wells up out of the chorale of the Fifth, and his deeply tragic world view, collide with one another in Barenboim’s interpretation”. The operatic experience of the conductor was almost tangible, revealing the “sheer dramatic instrumental battle between Bruckner’s God and the Devil – between heaven and hell – without betraying Bruckner’s unerring sense of striking proportions.” The release of this “contrapuntal masterpiece” (as Bruckner, not without pride, referred to this work) is part of Daniel Barenboim’s Bruckner cycle with the renowned Staatskapelle Berlin.

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sound Formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Dolby Digital 5.1

DTS 5.1

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 76:49 min

Disc Format DVD: DVD-9

The Dresden Staatskapelle has a living Bruckner tradition, stretching back a century and more, which is lovingly curated by its new music director, Christian Thielemann, who is himself a powerful advocate for the composer’s symphonies as the pinnacle of the Austro-German tradition; and in particular for the Wagnerian resonances of the Seventh, whose Adagio was shaped by news of Wagner’s death in Venice. Hugo Wolf was also deeply affected by that news; his songs, like Bruckner’s symphonies, can be seen as oblique reflections on the influence of Wagner, especially when sung, as they are here by Renée Fleming, with the utmost delicacy and intimacy.

Christian Thielemann’s first concert as Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Both Thielemann and Fleming are renowned interpreters of Romantic repertoire.

Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in 1884 to universal acclaim & established him as a serious composer of symphonic music, Wolf’s Songs were composed four years later.

Wolf was a great admirer of Bruckner and both idolized Wagner, whose influence is felt in the 7th Symphony.

Running time: 106 minutes

Subtitles N/A

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

The Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opens a new series of DVDs released by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute presenting outstanding artistic events.

The first disc in the series is a recording of a solemn mass celebrated on 17 October 2010 at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, where traditionally on the anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s death, in front of his heart, a recreated funeral service is combined with Mozart’s Requiem, which in accordance with the composer’s wishes was performed at his funeral in Paris. During Chopin Year, this event gained a special dimension: the Requiem was treated to a masterful rendition by the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, the Collegium Vocale Gent and Accademia Chigiana Siena choirs, and the soloists Christina Landshamer, Ingeborg Danz, Robert Getchell and Matthew Brook, under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, recorded for the first time ever in its liturgical version, and in its original period sound.

Produced in HD film technology, preserving the highest possible sound quality, it conveys in a sophisticated way the unique atmosphere of both the ceremony and the venue.

This release also inaugurates the cycle ‘Romantic Requiem’, comprising recordings of funeral masses by nineteenth century composers to be performed in front of Chopin’s heart at Warsaw’s Holy Cross Basilica. The Institute will shortly be issuing Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, also under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe.