DVD Videos

Giuseppe Verdi, especially known for his numerous opera compositions, is doubtless one of the most famous romantics, and his 200th birthday is currently celebrated around the world. Arthaus Musik wants to take this anniversary as an occasion to release the most brilliant Verdi-productions from the extensive catalogue in a series of opera box sets.

This second Verdi Opera Selection Box includes the unforgettable Aida from Milan starring Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Chiara as well as Nabucco with Leo Nucci and Simon Boccanegra with Plácido Domingo in the title role.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 (Aida, Simon Boccanegra) + DTS 5.1 (Nabucco)

Picture Format: 16:9 (Nabucco, Simon Boccanegra) / 4:3 (Aida)

DVD Format: 3x DVD 9 & 1x DVD 5 / NTSC

Subtitle Languages: IT (Original Language), GB, DE, FR, ES (Nabucco) / + Korean (Simon Boccanegra) / DE, GB, FR, NL, ES (Aida)

Running Time: 435 mins + 78 mins (Bonus Aida)

Richard Wagner’s oeuvre is impressive. Even during his lifetime it was clear that his visions for music theatre were ground-breaking and unique.

2013 sees Wagner’s 200th birthday – an important occasion for Arthaus Musik to recognize and honour him. The catalogue contains three outstanding opera productions which will now be released together in this exclusive Wagner Collection DVD Box. Besides the legendary Lohengrin from Vienna with Plácido Domingo in the title role, you will find the sensual production of Tannhäuser by Nikolaus Lehnhoff from Baden-Baden as well as the recent spectacular and provocative staging of Rienzi at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Sound Format: PPCM Stereo (Lohengrin) + DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 (Tannhäuser, Rienzi)

Picture Format: 16:9 / 4:3 (only Lohengrin)

DVD Format: 5 x DVD 9 & 1 x DVD 5, NTSC

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

Running Time: 580 mins + 84 mins (bonus)

FSK: 12

A showcase for – and a love letter to – a century of amazing music” is how the creator of The Enchanted Island, Jeremy Sams, described this spectacular operatic pasticcio of music by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Purcell and others. Premiered at the Metropolitan in New York on New Year’s Eve 2011, it stars Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Danielle de Niese and Plácido Domingo, and is conducted by William Christie.

New Year’s Eve 2011 brought the world premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera of a spectacular and star-studded opera, The Enchanted Island. With a story based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was not the work of contemporary composer, but instead drew on works by figures of the Baroque era – Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Purcell, Campra, Ferrandini, Leclair and and Rebel. Devised by the British writer, librettist and translator Jeremy Sams, the piece revived the 18th century tradition of the pasticcio, taking arias from a variety of different sources and setting them to a new libretto.

If the work itself was an exotic hybrid, the cast comprised thoroughbreds. The leading roles were assigned to Joyce DiDonato as the sorceress Sycorax, David Daniels as the magician Prospero, Luca Pisaroni as Sycorax’s son Caliban and Danielle de Niese as Prospero’s spirit aide Ariel, while, making a special appearance as King Neptune and rising from the watery depths of the ocean to the bubbling strains of Handel’s Zadok the Priest, was the indefatigable Plácido Domingo. Meanwhile, a cornucopia of rising talent filled the roles of the opera’s six young lovers – Lisette Oropesa, Layla Claire, Elizabeth DeShong, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Paul Appleby and Elliot Madore – while the conductor was that established master of baroque opera, and an essential figure in the Virgin Classics catalogue, William Christie.

The sumptuous production, designed by Julian Crouch and blending 18th-century theatrical techniques with advanced video projections, was by Phelim McDermott.

Handel is the dominant figure among the composers enlisted by Jeremy Sams, and The Enchanted Island repurposes numbers from his operas (including Alcina, Ariodante, Partenope, Semele, Tamerlano and Teseo), his oratorios (Hercules and Judas Maccabaeus) and his cantatas.

The New York Times described the opera as an ”inventive concoction” and a “fanciful, clever and touching pastiche”, while the Associated Press found it “irresistibly entertaining. It's a light-hearted romp with enough fizz to send a dozen champagne corks popping.” Among the praise for the singers, the New York Times spoke of David Daniels’ “transfixing blend of melting sound and forceful delivery and the Financial Times described how “Joyce DiDonato cackled, curled and soared with virtuosic flair in the bitchy-witchy spasms of Sycorax”; the Wall Street Journal felt that “the best moments came from Ms DiDonato, a tragic heroine adrift in a sea of comedy.”

Jeremy Sams, writing about The Enchanted Island in The Guardian in January 2012, a couple of weeks after its premiere, said: “On New Year's Eve, we opened at the Met. The production, by Phelim McDermott, is sumptuous, and the cast quite simply the finest in the world. As for the piece, well, many New Yorkers have taken it to their hearts. Purists have been suitably and predictably outraged. My only hope is that it should be seen for what it is: a showcase for – and a love letter to – a century of amazing music.”

A film by REINER E. MORITZ

Music on television has come in various guises over the last 50 years. It was already part of the programme mix at the very beginning and is still around, more sophisticated than ever, live and event driven and at it’s best reaching millions – at any rate more people than those experiencing music in opera houses, concert halls or other venues. Television has been instrumental in popularizing music, preserving precious moments of music making and helping to create music and performances which would not exist without it.

“When music lovers like you lean back today and enjoy a live broadcast from La Scala in Milan, a “Last Night of the Proms”, a “New Year´s Concert” from Vienna or any other Gala they benefit from enormous technical developments over the last fifty years or so and a breed of practitioners who are as virtuosic in handling today´s audiovisual recording equipment as the artists they sort of immortalize for you. While technology advances content ends to get more popular because of the ratings game. In any event television has played a significant role in popularizing classical music since it started. And think about the value of its archives, unless they have been destroyed by penny pinching executives. Isn´t it wonderful that we can watch the very first images of a regular television service in 1936, a Toscanini performing, a Leonard Bernstein with his knowledge and charisma attracting young people to classical music or a Stravinsky conducting his own “Firebird”? And that we have become used to expressive close-ups, behind the scenes material and cameras used like a “fly on the wall”? Even if staging for the camera is more or less out, we do enjoy every bit of live music on the box which slowly turns into your home cinema. And for us practitioners, television still remains a bit of an adventure.” Reiner E. Moritz

Recorded live in 1978

Set Design by WILLIAM DUDLEY

Arthaus releases on DVD another gem from the archives of Austrian Television. The outstanding production of Verdi’s Masked Ball at the Salzburg Festivals 1989 and 1990 was Herbert von Karajan’s legacy to the Festival. Supported by a cast of superlative actor-singers in opulent scenery, Sir George Solti agreed to conduct the opera at short notice after Karajan’s unexpected death in 1989.

The production had been expected to be a highlight in Karajan’s series of Verdi operas at Salzburg. Karajan’s celebrated ability to unite a cultivated sound with dramatic effects was known to create extraordinary and highly acclaimed opera events.

For Un ballo in maschera Karajan planned something unusual: He would not set the opera in colonial Massachusetts, as the censors had forced Verdi to do when he was composing the work, but in Stockholm in the 1790s at the court of King Gustav III of Sweden, as Verdi had originally conceived his work. Together with the film director John Schlesinger and his stage team, Karajan developed a concept that promised theatrical splendour equal to the musical excellence that the conductor and the handpicked cast of singers would surely provide in collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. But this was not to be: stage rehearsals had already begun for the opening performance of the 1989 festival when Karajan died on 16 July. Therefore it was extraordinarily lucky that a conductor of Sir Georg Solti’s standing, was prepared to undertake the task just a week before the premiere, and with the whole world watching. He and the staging by Hollywood film director John Schlesinger was acclaimed by audience and press alike.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Subtitle Languages: GB, DE, FR, ES, IT, CN

Running Time: 145 mins

FSK: 0

Arthaus presents a Hommage to one of the most outstanding and charismatic operatic artists in the last 50 years: Plácido Domingo.

Box Set Plácido Domingo including legendary documents available now.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo (Carmen, Lohengrin) / PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 (Il trovatore)

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: 1 x DVD 5, 3 x DVD 9 / PAL

(Carmen, Lohengrin) / NTSC (Il trovatore)

Subtitle Languages: GB, DE, FR, IT, ES / GB, DE, FR, IT (Lohengrin)

Running Time: about 500 mins

FSK: 12

NVC Arts/Warner Classics is delighted to announce the release of the fourth volume of DVD boxed sets showcasing some of the greatest recordings of Plácido Domingo’s career on stage. This volume features full-length performances of verismo operas, including Andrea Chénier from The Royal Opera Covent Garden, El Gato Montés from Los Angeles Music Center Opera, and Pagliacci from Washington National Opera.

Bonus: This volume is complemented by a 1-hour bonus DVD in which Plácido Domingo speaks at length, with passion and fervour, about each of the roles he sings in these three operas.

The Metropolitan Opera’s Peabody and Emmy Award®-winning series The Met: Live in HD has excited audiences around the globe. Four highly-requested productions from the past two years are now available on DVD for the first time. These four stunning releases contain recordings of recent acclaimed Metropolitan Opera productions, taken from state-of-the-art, high-definition transmissions broadcast live from the stage of the Met, and include backstage interviews with the cast and production crew.

TECHNICAL INFO:

Sound: PCM Stereo/ DTS Sound

Screen Format: 16:9

Region Code: 0 (All regions)

Subtitles: French, German, Spanish and English

Recording Date: February 6, 2010

Approximate Running Time: 2 Hrs 29 Min