"Actor: Brigitte Balleys"

• L'Orfeo - Monteverdi | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £5.85   |  Saving you £24.14 (412.65%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Intense and refined performances by an inspired cast led by a profound and commanding John Mark Ainsley as the legendary tragic musician are sustained with fluent ease and obvious affection by the ensemble under Stephen Stubbs.The beautifully styled evocative stage production rich with Pierre Audi's trademark symbolism accentuates the solemn serenity of Monteverdi's most famous work to create a moving and timeless experience.

• Offenbach: Des Contes D'Hoffmann | DVD | (25/04/2001) from £19.85   |  Saving you £6.40 (34.43%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Unfortunately the qualities that make Jacques Offenbach's operetta The Tales of Hoffmann an irresistible melodic profusion of wit, dash and unfailing high spirits are only in evidence in the playing of the Lyon Opera Orchestra under Kent Nagano: operetta, more than its serious cousin, continues to be fair game for the whims of producers and designers. In this case an excellent cast including Daniel Galvez-Vallejo as Hoffmann, Natalie Dessay as Olympia, Brigitte Balley as Nicklausse and Isabelle Vernet as Giulietta, as well as Gabriel Bacquier who sings three roles, are obliged to perform Offenbach's operetta in a lunatic asylum designed by Philippe Starck as a three-dimensional grey set, topped with barbed wire. The production by Louis Erlo adapts and cuts scenes to fit this concept, so the tavern scene where Hoffmann sings his celebrated number "The Legend of Kleinzack" disappears, as do the chorus who are banished to the wings. In this environment there's no room for charm or even a kind of mad-hatter behaviour. The cast are reduced to stereotypes and of necessity singularly unlovable ones. What a wasted opportunity. The sound is excellent as it is on two fillers: a short film of Penderecki conducting his choral work, The Seven Gates to Jerusalem from the Midem festival at Cannes and a trailer for a Lyon Opera House production of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust. --Adrian Edwards

• L'Incoronazione Di Poppea - Monteverdi | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £16.10   |  Saving you £13.89 (86.27%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Almost four decades before creating his Poppea Monteverdi wrote in the preface to his fifth book of madrigals The modern composer must create his works solely on the basis of the truth - a credo to which the music of his final opera is utterly faithful.Poppea is a potent work from opera's first true creator and pioneering genius. The fact that at the close of this highly charged 'dramma in musica' he allows evil to triumph over good (albeit temporarily) has frequently led to his being decried as amoral.Monteverdi's timeless masterpiece which creates a deep involvement in performers and audiences alike is brilliantly captured in this High Definition live recording of Pierre Audi's moving and beautifully style production from Het Muziektheater Amsterdam in 1994.

• Monteverdi: L'Orfeo | DVD | (02/09/2013) from £12.55   |  Saving you £2.44 (19.44%)   |  RRP £14.99

  John Mark Ainsley leads the cast in Pierre Audi's production of Monteverdi's opera, recorded live at De Nederlandse Opera in 1997. Other cast members include Brigitte Balleys, Michael Chance, David Cordier and Mario Luperi. The conductor is Stephen Stubbs