DVD Videos

The incomparable Anna Netrebko follows Deutsche Grammophon’s acclaimed, best-selling 2008 audio release of La Bohème.

This DVD is a new production of the Puccini favourite, staged at Salzburg 2012.Tenor Piotr Beczala rocks as Rodolfo, Mimì’s lover. Massimo Cavalletti sings Rodolfo’s friend Marcello with uncommon finesse and beauty of tone. Nino Machaidze is a moving Musetta.

The robust orchestration of this popular opera verges on the ethereal as Mimì’s life slips away. Throughout his reading, conductor Daniele Gatti strikes the perfect balance between sentiment and sentimentality, vigour and fragility, the specter of untimely death and the quick and young it haunts.

The New York Times wrote, “You don’t often hear Mimì sung with such vivid character and sheer charisma.”

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

With her sensational role debut at the Vienna State Opera, superstar diva Anna Netrebko displays a performance of rare vocal and dramatic power. The Russian soprano sings the role of the unjustly accused second wife of British King Henry VIII, ‘veering between indignant fury and tender righteousness’ and demonstrating a new level of confidence in her technique with excellent ‘passagework, particularly in trills, and seamless runs even to the lowest notes’ (Opera News).

The performance also stars DG mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, in ‘a fantastic display of bel canto’ (Opera News) as Anna's rival Giovanna Seymour. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo brings his beautifully dark tone to the role of Enrico and young Italian tenor Francesco Meli sings the demanding role of Lord Percy with a ‘youthful virility’ (Agence France Press), promising great things for the future. On the podium Evelino Pidò 'drew playing of unusual precision and refinement...making every note matter' (Financial Times).

A red hot ticket at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010/2011 was Donizetti’s comic gem, Don Pasquale, with Anna Netrebko reviving Norina, the part that made her a star in New York. Opera summed up the simple truth: “. . . everyone adored her”.

John Del Carlo’s impressive singing and acting chops as the Don are given every boost by Otto Schenk’s hilarious staging and James Levine’s witty conducting. Leading this opera for the first time at the Met, the renowned maestro demonstrates that his gifts suit Donizetti as perfectly as Wagner. Mariusz Kwiecień and Matthew Polenzani scintillate as Malatesta and Ernesto.

When Norina slaps Pasquale, the old man sees how deluded he has been to believe that the young beauty loves him. The San Francisco Chronicle paid homage to this turning point thus: “Netrebko captures the moment that gives the opera a heart it otherwise would lack”.

Filmed in November 2010, the DVD features backstage intermission interviews caught during the hubbub of performance.

A star-studded benefit concert to celebrate Ioan Holender’s farewell after 19 years as the director of one of the world’s leading and most famous opera houses. The highly acclaimed cast was headed by brilliant singers such as Diana Damrau, Natalie Dessay, Angelika Kirchschlager, Waltraud Meier, Anna Netrebko, Pjotr Beczala, Plácido Domingo, Thomas Hampson, Leo Nucci, Thomas Quasthoff, Ramon Vargas and many others. No fewer than twelve conductors including Marco Armiliato, Bertrand de Billy, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano and Franz Welser-Möst led the way through a program lasting over four hours at the fully-packed Wiener Staastoper.

Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese

Having dazzled opera audiences from St. Petersburg to L.A. as Lucia, Anna Netrebko triumphantly returns to the Metropolitan Opera in this touchstone coloratura role. Mariusz Kwiecien’s Enrico delivers theatrical truth with a matchless baritone, the lustre of polished mahagony.

This Met performance of director Mary Zimmerman’s “imaginative staging . . . And nuanced portrayals” (Times) is a tour de force of music and theatricality.

STEREO: PCM / SURROUND: DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

Subtitles: Italian/German/English/French/Spanish/Chinese

Features two of opera’s biggest superstars, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, in the roles they have performed to live audiences all over the world.

Comprehensive and successful commercial run in cinemas, screening in all major towns and cities across the UK and Ireland, and opening in London’s Barbican Centre and Apollo West End to outstanding figures.

Exclusive DVD bonus features, including in-depth interviews with stars Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón and director Robert Dornhelm, behind-the-scenes of La Bohème, limited edition collector’s booklet and more.

“Succulently dramatic… a tribute to the stars’ power” The Times

“breathtakingly dramatic and emotional… full to the brim with some of the best vocal talents of today” Opera Now

“beautifully sung all round” Philip French, The Observer

“the world’s finest soprano-tenor team… Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón don’t only sing with beauty and power; they can also act” The Evening Standard

Following the artistic and commercial success of their last DVD project, La Traviata from the 2005 Salzburg Festival, opera superstars Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón bring their combined talents to Jules Massenet’s Manon. Netrebko was born to play the title role: her voice and body language capturing the fluctuating personality of the complex Manon, one minute girlish, the next introspective. “She is a real stage animal, constantly reacting to what is happening around her”, wrote Opera of her performance. Villazón is compelling as Des Grieux, expressing all the burning passion of the doomed lover in his burnished, supple tenor.

This is a production with a distinct Hollywood touch: first-time opera director Vincent Paterson has previously worked with Madonna, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney and staged several Broadway musicals. He has already enjoyed great success with his first classical DVD project for DG: The Woman – The Voice featuring Anna Netrebko.

Given his show-business background, Paterson interprets Manon as a Hollywood cinematic tale for the opera stage with Massenet’s colourful music as a kind of soundtrack. The press raved about the opera event of the year in Berlin, while the live public screening of one of the performances in the square in front of the opera house attracted an audience of more than 20,000 people. Musically, the production is equally accomplished.

This is a Manon that will appeal across the spectrum: to lovers of opera, movies and Hollywood. A glittering production filled with beautiful people with gorgeous voices!

Additional features: Produced in HD, length 170 min., to be released in NTSC 16:9 widescreen; audio is in 5.1 DTS surround sound & PCM stereo. Bonus: “The Making of Manon” (20 min., in stereo sound only).

Directed by Brian Large.

The highly acclaimed gala concert celebrating the 2006 Mozart anniversary from the Salzburg Festival featuring some of the world´s top singers, including exclusive DG artists Anna Netrebko, Magdalena Kozena, Patricia Petibon and Rene Pape with the Wiener Philharmoniker under Daniel Hardingat last on DVD!

Held in the Felsenreitschule on 30 July 2006 at the start of the Salzburg Festival, the gala performance represents the full spectrum of the Mozart festivities through a selection of arias and orchestral works

Celebrated soprano Anna Netrebko lives up to her reputation as a fiery dramatic diva with her passionate rendition of Elettra's aria D'Oreste, d¡'Aiace from Idomeneo, while Magdalena Kozena, who was acclaimed for her performance as Idamante in the festival's production of the opera, sings the duet S'io non moro a questi accenti with Ekaterina Siurina as Ilia

Other highlights include renowned baritone Thomas Hampson Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo from Cosi fan tutte and Rene Pape's spirited rendition of Leporello's famous catalogue aria from Don Giovanni

As well as providing superb accompaniments, the Wiener Philharmoniker makes a contribution of its own to the programme with the overtures to Don Giovanni and Idomeneo, and concluding the performance with the Prague Symphony, K. 504

Filmed in HD, released in 16:9 widescreen; audio in PCM and 5.1 DTS Surround Sound

First DVD release

SUBTITLES: Italian (Original Language), German, English, French, Spanish