DVD Videos

Set Designer George Tsypin

Costume Designers Martin Pakledinaz & Helen Siebrits

Lighting Designer James F. Ingalls

Iolanta is a one act lyric opera, sung in Russian, by Tchaikovsky. Performed in the style of a nineteenth-century Italian melodrama, the scenes have a recitative introduction followed by a single arioso, aria, duet or chorus.

Persephone is a three act melodrama, sung in French, by Stravinsky. It is a story of regeneration, symbolised in Sellars use of dancers from the Cambodian dance company, Amrita Performing Arts.

Peter Sellars, one of the most innovative creators on today's stage, has linked these two productions by using the same stage setting, instantly archaic yet modern, and lit by rich colours to define the journey from darkness to light.

Set by ANDREAS REINHARDT

BANNED – FORGOTTEN

Of all the successful composers of opera in the 1920s, it is perhaps Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) whose career took the most surprising turn following the banning of his works as “degenerate” in Germany. In 1934 he was invited by Max Reinhardt to Hollywood, where Korngold turned the new genre of fi m music on its head. No composer before or since ever achieved such a prominent position within film production. Instead of the director or producer deciding on a scene’s musical accompaniment, it was Korngold’s score that determined the timings and dramatic sequences of the camera positions.

Even today Korngold is best known as a composer of film scores. Despite the many successful performances of works such as his violin concerto and his chamber music, today only Die tote Stadt has survived as a rarity on the programmes of the world’s major and medium-sized opera houses. Götz Friedrich’s production played no small part in this survival, for not only was it shown in Berlin and Vienna, it was also shipped to Los Angeles and more recently, in 1995, loaned to Ghent, to the theatre which in 1967 was bold enough to stage only the second production of the work after the Second World War.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Subtitles: DE (Original Language), GB, IT, FR, ES

Running Time: 130 mins

FSK: 0

Set & Costume Designer Heike Scheele

Lighting Designer Anders Poll

Dramaturgy Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach

Stefan Herheim, one of the worlds’ most sought after operatic directors, superimposes the modern over the traditional in this dramatic and thought provoking new version of Puccini’s La bohème.

Freedom, love, and even death all demand a price that must be paid and the opera opens with Mimì (Marita Sølberg) dying of cancer in a modern intensive care unit; the overture begins just after the ECG machine displays its unmistakable flat green line.

With Norway’s internationally renowned Eivind Gullberg Jensen conducting, the production reaches superb heights of operatic drama.

The Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, which has been devoting itself to the research and performance of Pergolesi‘s music for years now, had his operas recorded live at the annual Music Festival in Jesi.

Released on these DVDs are two productions from Jesi of one almost forgotten opera, Il prigionier superbo, and one of Pergolesi’s most popular works, La serva padrona, combined like they were at the original premiere. Il prigionier superbo tells the story of two rival kings and a princess in distress. In order to strengthen his power, Metalce imprisons his rival Sostrate. Further, he tries to obtain Rosmene’s love. Proud like her father Sostrate, she persistently thwarts the tyrant, while on the other hand she forces herself to hate her beloved Viridate. La serva padrona is the short comedy of Serpina and Uberto: the wily maidservant, hell-bent on her willing to become the mistress of the house, thinks up a plan in order to convince her master to marry her.

Both operas were directed by Henning Brockhaus, who placed Il prigionier superbo within a contemporary setting inside a cave and La serva padrona in a circus. The casts both brilliantly show their versatile voices in numerous virtuosic arias accompanied by the Baroque specialists of the Accademia Barocca de I Virtuosi Italiani, conducted by Corrado Rovaris.

Subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish and Korean

Picture Format: 16:9

Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1

Running Time: 177 minutes

Region Code: 0

Staged by Pier´Alli

Oberto was the first of Verdi’s operas to be staged and was heard for the first time at La Scala, Milan, in November 1839. As a young and unknown composer, Verdi was subject to the rules then governing the opera industry in Italy. Even so, there are already many scenes in this early work that reveal unmistakable signs of the composer’s individual style.

Bonus: Introduction to the opera

Picture Format: 16:9, HD

Sound Format: DVD: DTS 5.1, PCM 2.0

Running Time: 134 minutes (Opera 124 minutes, Bonus 10 minutes)

Booklet: English, German, French

Subtitles: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi

Un giorno di regno is the rare case of a musical comedy by Verdi. But his second stage work proved a complete fiasco when unveiled at La Scala, Milan, in 1840 and more than half a century was to pass before he attempted a second comedy with his final opera, Falstaff. Today, conversely, Verdi’s early melodrama giocoso enjoys increasing popularity thanks to its wellspring of musical ideas and effervescent melodies.

Released for the first time on DVD!

Bonus: Introduction to the opera

Picture Format: 16:9, HD

Sound Format: DVD: DTS 5.1, PCM 2.0

Running Time: 129 minutes (Opera 119 minutes, Bonus 10 minutes)

Booklet: English, German, French

Subtitles: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Staged by Daniele Abbado

Nabucco was Verdi’s third work for the stage and proved his first great success when performed in 1842. It deals with the Hebrew’s attempts to break free from the yoke of their Babylonian oppressors and is nowadays numbered among Verdi’s most popular works, not least on account of its famous Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, which has one of the best-loved melodies in the whole history of opera.

Bonus: Introduction to the opera

Picture Format: 16:9, HD

Sound Format: DVD: DTS 5.1, PCM 2.0

Running Time: 147 minutes (Opera 137 minutes, Bonus 10 minutes)

Booklet: English, German, French

Subtitles: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Stage Designer Brian Thomson

Costume Designer Tess Schofield

Lighting Designer John Rayment

La Traviata, one of the world’s best loved romantic operas, and is performed under the stars on a floating, mirrored stage in Sydney Harbour, with the city, Opera House and Harbour Bridge acting as a stunning backdrop.

Giuseppe Verdi's captivating music is performed with the orchestra concealed in a studio beneath the stage to ensure the finest amplified sound combines with the superlative singing of the cast. With the singers discreetly miked, the recorded sound is presented here in superb quality.

Emma Matthews is continually being garnered with praise - ‘Emma Matthews could inspire the dead, turning in one of the finest readings of this role I’ve ever heard’ (International Record Review on Rigoletto), ‘As Gilda, Emma Matthews is outstanding’ (Opera Now on Rigoletto) – and doesn’t disappoint.

Includes a glittering Swarovski chandelier illuminating the stage and fireworks decorating Sydney Harbour’s sky-line, which render this production as something truly spectacular.

My Favourite Opera – a new series of EuroArts: Here we study the results of involvement with a specific role. We witness musical and stage rehearsals in 1992, listen to what the artists have to say about the work in progress and share in private moments.

World famous bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi returns to his birthplace of Bologna to perform the title role in Mozart's masterwork "Don Giovanni" at the historic Teatro Comunale - a role he has performed over 400 times world-wide.

He worked alongside conductor Riccardo Chailly and stage director Luca Ronconi as well as a distinguished cast of fellow singers. As the production develops he takes time out to reflect on his career with his family in the beautiful Italian countryside, coaches students at the Bologna Conservatory who are themselves studying Don Giovanni, and reflects on the character of another great operatic Don, Massenet’s Don Quichotte, inspired by Cervantes’ immortal Don Quixote.

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

Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3

Sound formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Languages: English, Italian

Subtitles: German, French

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 58 mins

Bringing together a collection of arias and choruses from some of the world’s favourite operas, this disc showcases the outstanding artists and productions from the stage of the Royal Opera House.

The perfect gift for anyone who loves opera.

A unique collection from one of the world’s finest opera houses, showcasing the international opera stars and famous Royal Opera House productions.

The comprehensive packaging will include a synopsis of each opera, suggestions for further exploration of the catalogue and full subtitles.

International stars featured in the collection include: Jonas Kaufmann, Renee Fleming, Simon Keenlyside, Gerald Finley and Miah Persson.

Running time: 80 minutes

Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/ES

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS