"Actor: Andrea Gruber"

• Wagner: Gotterdammerung -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £12.24   |  Saving you £11.01 (100.27%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Under the baton of James Levine, Gotterdammerung ("The Twilight of the Gods") has a narrative drive that reminds us that, of all the individual operas in Wagner's Ring cycle, this is the one most about human emotions and the one in which its heroes are pulled into a world where they are most vulnerable to them. Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried and Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde never, in a sense, stand a chance: they are innocents who allow themselves to be manipulated not merely by the villainous Hagen, but by the ordinary venality of Gunther and his sister Gutrune, who goes along with a dirty little scheme to get what she wants, and is destroyed by it. As the tempter figure Hagen, Matti Salminen dominates the stage whenever he is on it; he is one of those basses whose voice and scowl seem to come from somewhere deeper than his large boots: rarely have the summoning of the vassals, or the oath of vengeance he, Gunther and Brunnhilde swear against Siegfried seemed so utterly his triumph. Jerusalem is almost perfect as Siegfried in spite of the gravelly quality of his heroic tenor: he has a glorious innocence even when the character is tricked into desecrating his true love; Hildegard Behrens is magnificent as Brunnhilde, both in her anger at Siegfried's apparent betrayal of her and in her redemptive understanding of how she has to atone for his death. Other Gotterdammerungs may be more monumental, but few make you care so passionately. On the DVD: Gotterdammerung comes with menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese and with a picture gallery of the production. Awkwardly it is presented in (American) NTSC format, not PAL, and with a visual aspect of standard TV 4:3. More impressive is the choice of PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1; the sound is admirably clear and well-balanced. --Roz Kaveney

• Nabucco - Verdi | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £12.98   |  Saving you £12.01 (92.53%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Verdi's breakthrough work which spurred his ascension to becoming the master of Italian opera during his lifetime Nabucco marks his achievement of the linguistic and expressive goals that he had so striven for. Premiering in Milan in 1842 the opera was an immediate success. The story tells of the Israelites led by high priest Zaccaria and their invasion by Assyrian king Nabucco. Daniel Oren conducts.