All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Don Giovanni (Juan): A Film by Kaspar Holten
Mozart: | Don Giovanni, K527 Sung in English (translation by Kasper Holten and Mogens Rukov) |
A truly unique filmed version of Mozart’s famous opera - an intense, vibrant and energetic take on a timeless drama, shot on location in Budapest, Hungary. Every scene and every single detail has been adapted so that it fully exploits the film media’s great power to create emotional presence, making use of the full visual vocabulary of modern cinema, following such unorthodox inspirational sources as The Bourne Trilogy and Traffic, while at the same time maintaining the exceptional live experience of opera, since the actors really sing on set. Juan is a famous artist and notorious playboy, thanks to his ability to become just what any woman dreams of. He turns his own life into a megalomanic work of art, playing the game of seduction like no other, driven by a manic restlessness that pushes him forward through an endless stream of conquests, betrayals, sex and eventually murder, with death lurking as the only possible outcome. A portrayal of male sexuality in the 21st century, taken to the extreme, DON GIOVANNI reveals how the blessing of an endless appetite for life and a will to conquer the world, might in reality turn out to be the path to ruthless destruction and eventually self-destruction. Audio: Dolby Stereo & Optional 5.1 Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Feature Running Time: 102 mins Region: 2, PAL Contains sex and nudity “a pacey (if slightly cheesy) drama complete with sexy escapades, a car chase, and hospital scenes...Funnily enough, it all sort of works. This is partly because the singers are not only musically good, they can also carry the close scrutiny of the camera lens...Holten gives a lucid account of his motivations for the film in the 'Extras' section.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 **** “The well-chosen cast, led by Maltman's assured, sexy Juan, truly look and sound great...But perhaps the ultimate achievement of the Roal Opera House's Kasper Holten in his first feature film...is to make an 'opera film' that really doesn't look like singers standing around a street in costumer wondering why they're not in a theatre. Even if you're phobic about 'modern' productions, give this a go.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013 “It’s all rather ingenious, and will no doubt launch a thousand undergraduate musicology essays...There’s a lot to admire in the technical achievement the film represents, and, as an exploration of the possibilities of opera as film, it’s undoubtedly fascinating; but it is so, one feels, precisely because it demonstrates the limits of that hybrid genre.” Opera, December 2012 “Holten trades too knowingly, at times, on the narrative disparities between the opera and his film. But this is much more erotic than many stagings of the piece, and by the end we really do understand the nature of Juan's unsettling sexual hold...That's ultimately due to Maltman's charismatic artistry and Holten's filming of it, both of which are sensational.” The Guardian, 13th December 2012 **** “here are sex and violence, speeding cars, and plenty of rough language. Maltman himself supplied the translation, which fits the updated setting supremely well but won’t appeal to maiden aunts...Holten has created a film that treats the opera with the respectful kind of disrespect that leaves the work’s core intact. And the performances are mostly riveting...Go on, be brave, give this adventurous Giovanni a whirl.” The Times, 29th September 2012 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
“Amazing production of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, a work of art in itself… Magnificent as the set is, this will also be a Don Giovanni to listen to for the orchestra. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are so good that they can generate almost demonic energy from the lighter timbres of period instruments. Vladimir Jurowski has rarely sounded more inspired”. Opera Today “The graceful purity of Kate Royal as Elvira ... gave lustre to Mozart's kaleidoscopic masterpiece”. The Scotsman “Suavely ruthless, Finley was both steely monster and molten charmer, singing with a firmness, clarity and stylistic elegance that I can’t easily imagine surpassed”. The Telegraph For this 2010 production, the first new staging of the opera in 10 years, Glyndebourne welcome back the winning team of director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown with Festival Music Director, Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Set at a time of seismic social and cultural change - in a Fellini-esque vision of post-war life - Jonathan Kent's urgently propulsive production offers a 'white-knuckle rollercoaster ride' through the events of the Don's last day as they unfold in and around Paul Brown's magical 'box of tricks' set. In the title role we also welcome back the great bass-baritone Gerald Finley. He has sung Don Giovanni to worldwide acclaim in New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Budapest and Prague. Finley is joined by Luca Pisaroni (Guglielmo in the 2006 Festival’s Così fan tutte) as Leporello, Kate Royal (the Governess in Jonathan Kent’s 2006 staging of The Turn of the Screw) as Donna Elvira, and the young Russian soprano Anna Samuil making her UK opera debut as Donna Anna. Bonus features include rehearsal and backstage footage, interviews with the production staff and cast as well as a glimpse into the costume, design and technical departments at Glyndebourne. The DVD will feature English, French and German subtitles. The production will be revived next summer at the 2011 Glyndebourne Festival. Kate Royal is an exclusive EMI Classics artist since 2006. She has made two solo recordings: Kate Royal with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Edward Gardner and Midsummer Night with the Orchestra of English National Opera/Edward Gardner. As a guest artist, she has recorded discs for the label with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Le Concert d’Astrée/Emmanuelle Haïm and Paul McCartney. Kate Royal's new album ‘A Lesson in Love’ (released in 2011), is an intimate recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau charting a young girl’s journey of love and loss through a combination of German lieder, English and American songs and French melodies. Kate Royal returns to Glyndebourne in Summer 2011. Designer Paul Brown “this Don, played by Gerald Finley, is a master of self-control: hands in tailored pockets and operating with a steely indifference to all...And Finley give this vision vocal assurance matching the clarity of Jurowski's conducting and the momentum generated by Kent within the ever-shifting Pandora's box of a design...Kate Royal is a deeply serious, thrillingly sung Donna Elvira, Anna Samuil an equally classy, flaring soprano of a Donna Anna.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 **** “Gerald Finley is vocally and theatrically mesmerising as a dashing Giovanni, and he's matched by Kate Royal on splendid form as the abandoned Elvira and Anna Virovlansky a charming and fresh-voiced Zerlina. Vladimir Jurowski takes the orchestra at quite a lick, adding energy and fizz to proceedings.” Classic FM Magazine, August 2011 *** “[Finley's] assumption is completely convincing...his fear before the confrontation with the Commendatore in the supper scene is palpable. Finley sings as well as he acts, apart from an oddly unhoneyed serenade...The singing is fine and the OAE play like angels.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2011 “Finley is a Don of remarkable self-assurance and narcissism, his impeccable diction and technically flawless singing an extension of this monstrous character...Pisaroni's great acting occasionally makes his singing imperfect, but the voice is grand and there will be few complaints...[Samuil's] singing is big-boned, fearless and has a nice unpredictability to it...The [OAE] plays with fire and passion...[Jurowski's] reading keeps the listeners on the edge of their seats.” International Record Review, July 2011 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527Recorded at the Haus für Mozart during the 2008 Salzburg Festival
Claus Guth - staging Wild animals live in the woods. Robbers hide there. Mystery is at home there. And, when the woods are on the stage of Salzburg’s Haus für Mozart, a notorious ladies’ man and his unsavoury accomplice can also find shelter there. For here, in the dense forest planted by director Claus Guth, is the home of the rugged macho Don Giovanni, who, assisted by Leporello, lures the ladies with the heady scent of danger. In Guth’s almost cinematic Salzburg Festival production, every character in Mozart’s most realistic opera seems to carry a back-story of thwarted love and frustration. Everyone appears to be seeking either salvation or damnation in the woods – a compelling concept that removes the opera from its traditional pseudo-Seville squares and palaces. And when Don Giovanni is played by Christopher Maltman, it’s no wonder that Donna Anna (Annette Dasch), Donna Elvira (Dorothea Röschmann) and even Zerlina (Ekaterina Siurina) are ready to throw themselves at his feet. With a physique as striking as his full-bodied baritone voice, Maltman embodies Don Giovanni as an almost reluctant seducer, a man fated to bring misery to women and, ultimately, to himself. Next to Maltman, it is Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott who rivets the audience in this production: Schrott’s Leporello is an event in his own right, the event of the Salzburg Don Giovanni (Die Welt). Under Bertrand de Billy, the Wiener Philharmoniker play with refreshing verve and spirit. Picture format BD: 1080i Full HD - 16:9 Sounds formats BD: PCM 2.0, PCM 5.1 Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Subtitles: Italiano, English, Deutsch, Français, Español, 日本語 Running time: 177 mins Audience: all “The cast is top-drawer, with strong voices. There should be law against performing Mozart without Dorothea Röschmann, who here sings the crazed Elvira with real bite and zeal...Christopher Maltman and Erwin Schrott are two of the finest actors I've ever seen on an opera stage...They never break character and have clearly bought into Guth's interpretation hook, line and sinker” International Record Review, November 2010 “Christian Schmidt designs a crepuscular forest for Claus Guth's dark contemporary take on the opera...It's very much the women who have got a grip here. The rhythmic rigour of Dorothea Roschmann's Elvira splendidly embodies her fortitude...Giovanni and Leporello (superbly sung by Christopher Maltman and Erwin Schrott) are, by contrast, wrecks of men” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ***** “Giovanni's story...becomes a tale of fighting against imminent death, and Christopher Maltman plays it with convincing desperation. The singing is uniformly excellent, the acting of a high calibre, and Bertand de Billy's fast tempi keep the action taut...a fresh take on a great work.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 **** “[Guth's] shabbily sombre, drug-fuelled, blood-bespattered take on Mozart's dramma giocoso (rarely indeed has the opera seemed less jocose) exerts a perverse fascination, not least for the interplay between the charismatic pairing of Maltman and Schrott...all the singers throw themselves wholeheartedly into Guth's Konzept.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2011 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527Vienna version, 1788Director: Vincent Boussard; Costumes: Christian Lacroix; Designer: Vincent Lemaire and Lighting: Alain Poisson
After the success of Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, René Jacobs' CD recording of this centrepiece of the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy offered us his reflections on Classical opera and garnered serious acclaim worldwide. Performed at the Innsbruck festival in August 2006 and filmed in Baden-Baden, this production is nourished by his thoughts on Don Giovanni as taboo-breaker but still respects Mozart's intentions as closely as possible. In the documentary Looking for Don Giovanni, the director Nayo Titzin follows the creation of this production in the search for musical truth. A blu-ray version will be released later this year. “The sets are extremely simple, the voices not powerful but fresh, and there's a spontaneity about most of the show.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 *** “The Lacroix-dressed cast in Innsbruck performed as a true ensemble. Johannes Weisser was an energetic Giovanni, Marcos Fink a huge hit as the hapless Leporello. Alexandrina Pendatchanska fully inhabited the role of Elvira and Sunhae Im was a remarkable Zerlina, bringing a touch of wiliness to the character’s vulnerability.” Gramophone Magazine | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527Live Recording from The Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1977
Since its debut in 1934 the Glyndebourne Festival has put a focus on Mozart operas and developed a great competence in staging them. Mozart’s operas seem to be made for the small but fine opera house in Glyndebourne and it’s not surprising that the 1977 Don Giovanni, one of Mozart’s great masterpieces, was a huge success. This production is conducted by Bernard Haitink who holds the opinion, that no other composer had more opera in his blood than Mozart. It has been proven, for example, that Mozart had no overture for Don Giovanni until the evening before the premiere in Prague and wrote it down in just one night. Like the premiere’s success of the opera in Prague in 1787 the Glyndebourne’s version staged by Peter Hall was praised by audience and critics alike: “We witness a lively and wide-awake ensemble piece that has easily survived all these decades, and still manages to teach many directors the art of playing theatre.” (WDR) With outstanding performances by Horiana Branisteanu, Benjamin Luxon, Stafford Dean and Leo Goeke this production is a real highlight. Sound Format: PCM Stereo Picture Format: 4:3 DVD Format: DVD 9 / NTSC Subtitle Languages: IT (Original Language), GB, DE, FR, ES Running Time: 174 mins FSK: 0 | 
| | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | My Favourite Opera: Ruggero Raimondi
My Favourite Opera – a new series of EuroArts: Here we study the results of involvement with a specific role. We witness musical and stage rehearsals in 1992, listen to what the artists have to say about the work in progress and share in private moments. World famous bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi returns to his birthplace of Bologna to perform the title role in Mozart's masterwork "Don Giovanni" at the historic Teatro Comunale - a role he has performed over 400 times world-wide. He worked alongside conductor Riccardo Chailly and stage director Luca Ronconi as well as a distinguished cast of fellow singers. As the production develops he takes time out to reflect on his career with his family in the beautiful Italian countryside, coaches students at the Bologna Conservatory who are themselves studying Don Giovanni, and reflects on the character of another great operatic Don, Massenet’s Don Quichotte, inspired by Cervantes’ immortal Don Quixote. This intimate portrait of a great opera singer also reveals how an opera production is created at the highest level. Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3 Sound formats DVD: PCM Stereo Region code: 0 Languages: English, Italian Subtitles: German, French Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 58 mins “Whilst the process of getting an opera onto the stage is interesting, even more so are the insights the film gives into Raimondi himself...As such I think it should interest all opera-lovers as well as Ruggero Raimondi admirers, and at a reasonable price.” MusicWeb International, April 2013 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Gramophone Magazine