Future Releases

Christopher Hogwood conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a distinguished cast including Danielle de Niese and Charles Workman in Wayne McGregor's new production of Handel's opera in which The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet appear in a rare and beautifully crafted collaboration. Filmed with High Definition cameras and recorded in true surround sound.

“Charles Workman and Danielle de Niese had bags of vocal and personal charm in the title roles, with strong contributions from Matthew Rose as Polyphemus and Paul Agnew and Ji-Min Park as attendant shepherds; among the dancers, special praise to Lauren Cuthbertson as Galatea's frolicking nymph. …An evening of exquisite sensual pleasure.” The Telegraph

Extra features:

Illustrated synopsis

Cast gallery

Documentary: Staging Acis and Galatea

Running time 110 mins

Region code All regions

Video codec: AVC/MPEG-4

Disc size: BD50

Picture format 1080i High Definition / 16:9

Sound format 2.0 PCM & 5.0 DTS Master Audio

Menu language EN

Subtitles FR/DE/ES (extra features only)

Choreographer: Kenneth MacMillan

Edward Watson takes the role of Crown Prince Rudolf in Kenneth MacMillan's compelling ballet which lives out the final eight years of Rudolf’s life with its relentless downward spiral of political intrigue, drugs and murder. It culminates with the suicide pact at the hunting lodge - known as Mayerling - between Rudolf and his 17-year-old mistress, Mary Vetsera (Mara Galeazzi). Filmed in high definition and recorded in true surround sound.

“…while Mara Galeazzi as Mary Vetsera nearly stole the show with her natural conviction, exuberance and authoritative technique, the evening belonged to Watson as Rudolf, one of the most challenging male roles ever created.” Sunday Express

Extra features:

Illustrated synopsis

Cast gallery

Principles in rehearsal with Edward Watson & Mara Galeazzi

Short feature on costumes

Running time 157 mins

Region code All regions

Video codec: AVC/MPEG-4

Disc size: BD50

Picture format 1080i High Definition / 16:9

Sound format 2.0 PCM & 5.1 DTS Master Audio

Menu language EN

Subtitles FR/DE/ES (extra features only)

The first performance at the Vienna State Opera of Verdi’s rarely played drama of love and deadly intrigue. Musically superb, it has a protagonist possessed of a virginal tone in both timbre and expression, three of the best Italian male singers of their generation, first-rate singers in the secondary roles, and a conductor at home both north and south of the Alps and thus ideally suited to the work. It took a long time – more than 120 years – before Vienna’s opera fans were able to experience Verdi’s Luisa Miller (based on the spoken drama Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller) in its original Italian. This first performance did not take place until January 1974, though the impressive cast assembled for it could be said to have made up for the fact. It is this production that can now be heard on CD. Under the baton of Alberto Erede, the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera gave a superb performance such as is sadly all-too-rare for Verdi’s early and middle-period works. The instrumental tone is supple and full of colour across the whole orchestra, which plays as it were in ‘high definition’, whether at dramatic climaxes or when accompanying the singers. But the protagonists themselves could hold their own too. Lilian Sukis sang the title role of the bourgeois girl Luisa – innocence personified, but doomed by the intrigues of her lover’s aristocratic family. Sukis was from Canada and had already in the 1960s sung at the New York Met. She here gives impressive proof of why she also acquired an excellent reputation in Europe as a lyric soprano. Her slender, but always open, floating voice is a joy in this portrayal of a young girl; here, any artificiality or affectation in the high notes would have been doubly damning. The role of the count’s son Rodolfo is played with lyric-dramatic aplomb by Franco Bonisolli, though without sacrificing nuance or elegance of tone in favour of his brilliant top notes. Giuseppe Taddei was ideal for the role of Miller, finding just the right tone for both the tender love of Luisa’s father and for his anger at those whom society has placed above him, and who misuse their position shamelessly to their own advantage. The villain in question, Count Walter, was given music by Verdi that was almost too “beautiful” for him, though this is no problem in Bonaldo Giaiotti’s authoritative characterization. And that even this powerful man is manipulated by his own secretary is evident from the portrayal by Malcolm Smith, whose bass voice is no less memorable. This extravagantly gifted team of singers is completed by Christa Ludwig as Rodolfo’s fiancée, Federica. She has a brief role with just two appearances, but Ludwig’s unmistakeable mezzo-soprano allows her to convey in succinct fashion the human aspect of this character, swaying as she does between sympathy and jealousy.

Janacek left only a few piano masterpieces, their language forming a sort of dreamlike counterpoint to his fantastic operatic repertoire. Slavka Pechocova’s playing reflects the rigour of her first teacher, Martin Hrsel, and the almost-Impressionistic expressiveness of her second, Professor Ivan Moravec, in a new, highly spirited, recording of Janacek’s Piano pieces which should be acclaimed as one of the most promising of the year so far. She made her Proms debut at the Proms last year with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jirí Belohlávek in Martinu’s Concerto for 2 Pianos.

Evgeny Kissin came to international attention aged 12, playing Chopin's piano concertos in Moscow with the Moscow State Philharmonic. He is undoubtedly one of today's most prominent pianists. His five Chopin albums on RCA Red Seal presented here in this limited edition box set are a breathtaking testimony to this artist's great sensitivity and technical perfection that serve Chopin's repertoire so well. From the moving Fantaisie Op.49 that opens the first album to the thrilling final Polonaise Op.53, Kissin takes us on a romantic journey where intensity of mood and delicate virtuosity are perfectly combined.

Bruhns was one of Buxtehude’s most talented pupils, impressing his contemporaries with his skills as an organist just as much as with his talents as a violinist and as a singer. He died at the age of 32, leaving five organ pieces (RIC204) and twelve sublime Cantatas that form an evident link between Buxtehude’s religious music and J.S. Bach’s. This programme is rounded off with the cantata Erbarm dich by Lovies Busbetsky, another Buxtehude pupil, which formed the inspiration for one of J.S. Bach’s chorale preludes.

Although it seems that he was born in Rome, Giovanni Felice Sances received his training as a singer and as a composer in Venice. He went on to make his career in the service of three successive emperors in Vienna, entering the Imperial Chapel and going on to become one of the principal composers of that venerable institution. The sacred works recorded here are primarily from his first volume of motets; they reveal the talents of a composer who was well acquainted with not only the most modern compositional techniques but also with polyphonic style. His training as a singer also enabled him to write for the human voice with undeniable skill, giving as much pleasure to the singers themselves as to those who listen.

Recording locations: Recorded live: Paris/Zürich, July 2000

Cantatas for the second and third Sunday after Trinity, recorded live in July 2000.

Performing to an audience of more than 1200, we join Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists at the halfway point of their Bach Cantata pilgrimage for a concert in one of the great architectural landmarks of Catholic Europe, the Basilisque Saint-Denis (Basilica Cathedral of Saint Denis).

Featuring internationally acclaimed soloists including James Gilchrist, Lisa Larsson, Daniel Taylor and Stephen Varcoe, the programme opens with BWV 2 Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (Oh God, look down from Heaven), based upon Martin Luther’s German hymn adaptation of Psalm 12. The psalm describes how easily man is led astray by heresy and Bach deals with such grim subject matter by resorting to composing in an archaic motet style. The result is austere beauty and has the engrossing quality of ritualised worship. There then follows BWV 10

Schütz’s superb motet Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (The heavens are telling of God in glory) follows. This is a motet that John Eliot remembers fondly, since it is a work he has known since he was six and he can still hear his father’s ringing tenor declaiming its powerful text. The concert ends with Bach’s prodigious cantata, BWV 76 Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, a lengthy and complex bipartite cantata, comprising fourteen movements and divided into two equal parts.

We then head to Zürich to hear Gardiner and his Monteverdi forces perform within the stunning Fraumünster Kirche, distinctive for its slender, blue spire. They open with the two-part Weimar Cantata BWV 21 Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (I had much affliction), considered to be ‘…one of the most extraordinary and inspired of Bach’s vocal works’, as stated by John Eliot Gardiner in his booklet note. There then follows BWV 135 Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder (O, Lord, I poor sinner). This is superb music and Bach concludes with a rousing ‘Glory to God’, to the Passion chorale by Cyriakus Schneegaß (1597).

With only two cantatas for this Sunday in existence, the concert ends with Bach’s so-called Triple Concerto, BWV 1044 (Concerto for flute, violin and harpsichord). Despite its similarity to Brandenburg Concerto No.5, it seems to inhabit a different stylistic milieu to that of Bach’s other concerti – one much close to that of his eldest sons.

“This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer