"Actor: Angela Denning"

• Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots | DVD | (26/01/2001) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  As grand opera goes, few examples of the form have the inherent grandeur of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. The dramatic backdrop is Mérimée's account of the 16th-century St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of thousands of French Calvinists under the Catholic regime. The trick, insofar as there is one, is the way in which the attendant upheaval is reflected in the smallest detail of the lives of the main protagonists. This Berlin Opera production of 1991 carries this process several stages further, embedding--and there really is no other word to describe the thoroughness of the process--the narrative into an indeterminate, hyper-condensed 20th-century setting. While this approach has its own pitfalls, such as the silent "pre-overture" which proposes an unsubtle comparison between the oppression of the Catholics and the persecution of the Jews in wartime Germany, it would be churlish to let them detract from what is a robust and highly memorable performance of this sometimes unfashionable opera. The usual trailer for other Arthaus DVDs is appended. --Roger Thomas

• Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) -- Vienna/Chailly | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £33.73   |  Saving you £-8.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun--partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm--but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic. Anne Murray is an ideal Angelina, equally good at the heroine's witty intelligence and at the complexity of her emotional situation--loyal to the family that mistreats her. Francisco Araiza is an attractive Don Ramirez; the byplay between him and his servant Dandini (Gino Quilico)--in the duet "Zitto, zitto. Piano, piano", for example is for once genuinely amusing. Parts like Don Magnifico were the late Walter Berry's stock-in-trade--his occasionally menacing portrayal is far richer and more interesting than a mere buffoon. On the DVD: As usual with Arthaus Musik, an excellent production and performance is left to sink or swim without any detailed production notes either on the disc or in the leaflet. The sound is standard PCM stereo and the picture ratio 4:3. There are instructions in French, German, English and Spanish and subtitles in all of those languages plus Italian. --Roz Kaveney