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)

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

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates 25 years at Lincoln Center.

The cast-list for the evening reads like a Who's Who of 20th-century opera.

Thrill to “hours and hours of glorious opera...A triumphant celebration of virtuosity (Toronto Globe and Mail) as New York’s legendary opera company celebrates its first quarter century at Lincoln Center with “one of the most exquisitely refined and extravagant assemblages of vocal artistry the Met stage has yet hosted” (New York Times). “Not just another night at the opera” (Los Angeles Times), this extraordinary gala features complete acts from three favorite works, starring dozens of the world’s greatest singers, all conducted by Met music director James Levine.

Here are the greatest moments from the “ultimate in galas” (Opera), a “roof-rattling vocal display and the kind of cheering and free-flowing, heartfelt emotion on both sides of the footlights that opera evinces more than any other art form” - New York Times

The gala celebration immediately catches the attention with spectacular performances by stars such as Dame Joan Sutherland, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Alfredo Kraus and many others

“The world's most famous opera singers [in] a dazzling sequence of performances” - New York Times

“It's always a privilege to sing at the Met, but this is something very special. I don't think there's ever been anything this grand in the history of opera” - Luciano Pavarotti

This product features an awesome roster of international star conducters: from James Levine, Leonard Bernstein and Thomas Fulton to Jeffrey Tate, Richard Bonynge

2 DVDs LIVE from the Met from October 22, 1983

Classic, all-star performance of one of the great Verdi operas, featuring Pavarotti in one of his most celebrated roles. Available for the first time on DVD, the complete opera of the classic 1980 production by Elijah Moshinsky of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, filmed live from the Metropolitan Opera. This was an eye-catching and thought-provkoing production. Moshinsky staged the action in pre-revolutionary 1774 Boston.