DVD Videos

“The best performance comes from Nathan Gunn as Papageno, with his irrepressible energy and sense of comic timing...Matthew Polenzani and Ying Huang make a believably young pair of lovers. The production is a visual delight, with its bright colours, puppets and masks. It is, predictably, entirely politically correct. James Levine's conducting is well-judged, save for a funereal 'Tamino mein!' Give this to your children, then take them to the opera house.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011

“The orchestral playing is impeccably groomed, opening with a fast and fiery account of the Don Giovanni overture followed later by a dynamic Idomeneo overture and finishing with an accomplished Prague Symphony. The vocal contributions are less even and, except in the case of the two Russian artists, marred by some ugly face pulling to produce particular vowels. The Russians sing magnificently too, Anna Netrebko nearly bringing the house down with Elettra's 'fury' aria from Idomeneo and Ekaterina Siurina scoring as Ilia with her fresh tone and simplicity of manner.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 ***

“A performance realised to Glyndebourne's highest standards - the chorus and stage brass are Bayreuth-level, the casting immaculate (they can all really sing these parts) and Belohlávek's conducting balanced with a Goodall-like attention to the filigree detail of Wagner's new-wave scoring.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2008

“Stemme's fiery Irish princess is even finer than on the Domingo CD… Gambill's burly Tristan projects a darker, more resigned intensity… Pape's black-voiced Marke rightly dominates the stage… Karneus is a passionate, lusciously sung Brangäne. Lehnhoff's Glyndebourne production doesn't outclass Daniel Barenboim's magnificent video... But those looking for a Tristan with warmth and immediacy will find it certainly shares Barenboim's benchmark recommendation.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2008 *****

“I don’t think that I have ever witnessed a more perfect realisation of a Wagner opera than this superb Tristan und Isolde. …[Jirí Belohlávek] is scrupulous with the score, and takes his time over it: the pauses and silences are immense and there is no factitious attempt to whip up excitement by speeding. …a great and unforgettable occasion” The Telegraph

“The filming of each act begins annoyingly with a Star Wars storyline pan-in on the words 'Tristan und Isolde', 'Act 2' etc, using up the preludes. After that, however, comes a performance realised to Glyndebourne's highest standards – the chorus and stage brass are Bayreuthlevel, the casting immaculate (they can all really sing these parts), and Belohlávek's conducting balanced with a Goodall-like attention to the filigree detail of Wagner's new-wave scoring.
Old-style analyses of the music used to talk about the 'glance' motif. Lehnhoff's staging deploys a series of heartbreaking glances: Stemme's Isolde when Karnéus's Brangäne tells her she's taken the love draught, Stemme again when Tristan arrives in Act 2, Pape's Marke as he sees the lovers together and, at BrokebackMountain-level, Skovhus's Kurwenal as he cradles Gambill's Tristan then breaks away, half in fear of his lord's death, half in fear of his feelings for him. In fact, has a Tristan ever been so deeply loved by his lady and squire as here, or felt so wretched at betraying his king? And is Skovhus actually the greatest Kurwenal yet recorded? Roland Aeschlimann provides a geometrically attractive whorl of a standing set, concentric wooden circles telescoping towards a constantly varied horizon: a ship, a spaceship, everywhere, nowhere – perfect. The lighting (Robin Carter and Aeschlimann) has a genuine physical presence and seems to reinvent the colour blue. At the point of Isolde's almost belated arrival in Act 3, a surreal, Ingmar Bergman-like atmosphere permeates events: she arrives from behind on high as a figure of death and wraps him in a black cloak, while Skovhus's poignant Kurwenal gets a non-realistic, Brechtian centre-stage for his fights and death.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Thank goodness for no quirky ideas...The singers are all outstanding, led by James Morris's warmly genial Sachs...and by Ben Heppner, who is an equally convincing Walther...Mattila not only looks gorgeous but sings ravishingly as Eva, while Sir Thomas Allen's characterisation of Beckmesser is all his own...Levine's conducting holds the performance together richly” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****

“both [Heppner and Eaglen] are vocally at their peak, singing like angels, totally unstrained and finely focused. The young René Pape as King Mark is formidably impressive too, with Katarina Dalayman a superb Brangäne...Levine brings out the power and concentration of this epic, drawing brilliant playing from the Met. Orchestra” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“there is no doubting the powerful authority that characterizes Barenboim's direction of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto from the keyboard. Perhaps rather unexpectedly, the magic really starts with a reading of Boulez's Notations I-IV and VII (finishing with II), whose intoxicating allure and expressivity is strongly reminiscent of the kind of sound Karajan generated in his classic Second Viennese School recordings of the 1970s.” International Record Review, January 2012

“Here's a treat for Expressionism junkies...dominated by Theorin's extraordinary heroine, a Brunnhilde gone seriously to seed, a real tour de force of concentrated energy, vocal stamina and dramatic power, who occupies most of the very well-made film in close-up. Daniele Gatti gets marvellous sounds from the Vienna Philharmonic, all the score's fever and neurosis but also its tenderness... There's really not a weak link here” Opera Now, Summer 2011 *****

“Elektra's Freudian creepiness constantly attracts sensationalist productions, so it's a pleasure to report just how fine this 2010 Salzburg staging is. Daniele Gatti's conducting is powerful enough, but never loses sight of the score's eerie lyricism and sombre glow, which Nikolaus Lehnhoff's staging embodies to atmospherically...Among Elektras on DVD this, along with Karl Böhm's historical performance, must rank among the best” BBC Music Magazine, October 2011 *****