DVD Videos

“Graham Vick's 1992 staging is worthy of this extraordinary score. He reflects exactly the highly charged emotions and sense of brooding menace pervading the composer's re-enactment of Pushkin's story, thus creating a compelling psychodrama that compels both eye and ear. Davis catches most, if not all, of the score's romantic sweep and inner, dislocating turbulence, although the impassioned undercurrents are better achieved in the Kirov video, conducted by Gergiev (below). Yuri Marusin is the crazed Herman incarnate. Whether or not you can accept his often off-pitch singing is a personal matter. As his Lisa, Nancy Gustafson, offers a portrayal of an impressionable girl driven to distraction and suicide by the unhinged behaviour of her lover. She sings the part in warm, passionate tones.
Peter Maniura's video direction catches every facial expression of both characters and of Felicity Palmer's electrifying Countess. Sergei Leiferkus is elegant and commanding as the free-loving Tomsky. Dimitri Kharitonov is the soul of rectitude as Yeletsky and brings a bronzed tone to his lovely aria. Marie-Ange Todorovitch is an attractively palpitating Pauline.
Picture and sound are exemplary.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“[Yuri Marusin] is the part from beginning to end...Felicity Palmer's Countess is particularly fine. Andrew Davis holds all the threads together magnificently and gets an impressive response from his singers and the LPO.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition **/***

“a bravura display fom Joan Sutherland as Leonora, bringing the rarest combination of weight and flexibility to the role...Though the rest of the cast may not be so starry, they all sing with firmness and clarity to make it an exceptionally satisfying performance, with Richard Bonynge persuasively idiomatic” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition **/***

“This is a 1984 studio re-creation, with the original cast, of John Copley's ENO production.
Mackerras's performing edition is by no means literally 'authentic'; arias are removed, including much of Sextus's role, recitatives are trimmed, and much of Caesar's role is transposed – inevitably, since it was written for the exceptionally low contralto castrato Senesino.
The result is no travesty, however: it's fast-moving and dramatically satisfying, and conducted by Mackerras in the same spirit.
Copley also strives to avoid tedium, for instance backing da capo passages with stage activity – sometimes rather obviously. However, his staging, combining John Pascoe's warm-hued, vaguely 18th-century designs with more naturalistic acting, translates quite well to the screen – not least because the singers are so committed.
Janet Baker displays great Handelian affinity. She not only delivers these difficult, florid arias with fiery élan and appropriate ornament, but infuses them with a real emotional intensity that sweeps one over the credibility gap.
Sarah Walker makes the lachrymose Cornelia almost as intense, and Valerie Masterson carries off Cleopatra's gorgeous music with admirable if slightly self-conscious virtuosity and a kittenish seductiveness reminiscent of Vivien Leigh.
Della Jones is a splendid Sextus, and John Tomlinson a thunderously melodramatic Achilles.
Though James Bowman's hooting tone is rather obtrusive, he plays Ptolemy as a petulantly Farouk-ish villain to fine comic effect.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Janet Baker sings and acts commandingly in the title-role...[Jones, Bowman and Tomlinson] are all ideal in their roles, with Michael Stennett's sumptuous cotumes adding to the success of the production. Sir Charles Mackerras paces the music masterfully...The full, vivid studio sound makes this one of the very finest of the invaluable series of ENO opera recordings in English” Penguin Guide