"Actor: Dawn Upshaw"

• Adams: El Nino | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £25.90   |  Saving you £-0.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  John Adams set out to write an oratorio about the Nativity of Christ; but as he worked on it, El Nino became a more dramatic piece than he intended, flowering into a staged opera in which the oratorio's free-flowing singer's identity becomes an effective statement of a mystical point. Dawn Upshaw and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson--singing a mixture of biblical texts and Spanish/Mexican poetry--are both Mary and at the same time all women. The same is true of the dancer Daniela Graca, the women of the chorus and the young Hispanic-American woman who has her child and argues with her boyfriend in contemporary LA. Willard White is both Joseph and Herod, while the trio of counter-tenors are Angels and Shepherds and Kings. Because the work was written in close consultation with director Peter Sellars, it is a remarkably collaborative vision of music and staging. This is a gloriously sung piece, which continues Adams' voyage through minimalism into a lush tonal style still informed by minimalist simplicity, but it is also an impressive piece of theatre in which every physical gesture has a musical cue. This production from the Chatelet Theatre, Paris, under the baton of Kent Nagano, is more or less definitive. On the DVD: Unusually for an Arthaus Musik release, this DVD comes with an extended documentary in which Adams, Sellars, Nagano and Upshaw talk insightfully about the creation and nature of the piece. Sellars is particularly impressive in his talk of opera as the art form for a multicultural era. The picture format is 16:9 and the viewer is offered a choice of PCM stereo or Dolby Digital for the audio.--Roz Kaveney

• Theodora - Glyndebourne Festival Opera | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  This production of Handel's tragic and moving oratorio took Glyndebourne by storm when it was first staged in 1996. Sellars took Handel's tale of self-sacrificial love between a Christian virgin and a Roman imperial bodyguard in fourth century enemy occupied Antioch and by resetting it in modern-day America transformed it into a timeless parable of spiritual resistance to tyranny and persecution.

• Henryk Gorecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £13.28   |  Saving you £0.71 (5.10%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Although written in 1976 the 3rd Symphony by Henryk Grecki only came to real prominence in 1992 with Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman via Elektra Nonesuch records. Tony Palmer director of music-related documentaries and films went to Poland to shoot this work in 1992. It involves a complete uninterrupted performance of the 3rd Symphony with camera attention moving between the orchestra Dawn Upshaw the sporano and the Composer interviewed in h

• Wagner: Siegfried -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £19.19   |  Saving you £2.80 (14.59%)   |  RRP £21.99

  James Levine makes Siegfried, sometimes the problem child among the four operas of Wagner's Ring cycle, attractive and interesting. He is aware of the darker side of some of the comic scenes--the seemingly benevolent dwarf Mime carries the weight of Wagner's many prejudices--but manages to keep them uneasy rather than positively sinister thanks to the finally judged performance of Heinz Zednik. Siegfried Jerusalem is admirable as Siegfried, full of boyish enthusiasm during the reforging of the sword, and of authority in his confrontations with the dragon and with Wotan. (The dragon itself is, as so often, an unfortunate compromise between realism and stylisation.) James Morris is extraordinary in Wotan's scenes here, his combination of injured pride and relieved joy when Siegfried demonstrates, by shattering his spear, that Wotan has entirely lost control of events is exemplary. This is an opera whose many and various scenes are all preludes to its emotional core: the love duet which comes when Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde. Jerusalem and Hildegard Behrens convey both the innocence and the ardor of this duet; while Levine gets extraordinary playing from the Metropolitan Opera orchestra throughout, but especially here, where a chamber-like delicacy applies to much of the music. On the DVD Siegfried on this disc is a recording of the 1990 Metropolitan Opera production and comes with both menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese as well as a picture gallery. Awkwardly it is presented in (American) NTSC format not PAL, and the visual ratio is standard TV 4:3. Better is the choice of sound formats--PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital and DTS digital--which provide a spacious acoustic that gives proper weight to the climaxes, and an appropriate delicacy to Wagner's subtler passages. --Roz Kaveney

• L'Amour De Loin - Saariaho | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Kaija SaariahoL'Amour De LoinOpera in five acts

• Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress | DVD | (20/11/2001) from £22.39   |  Saving you £2.60 (11.61%)   |  RRP £24.99

  When this Salzburg Festival production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress hit the stage in 1996, the reviews in the British press were red hot. Unfortunately Peter Mussbach's staging, though it has moments of theatrical flair, doesn't translate smoothly to the small screen in this live recording: his grand visual metaphors--an aeroplane that never takes off and stage-hands in anti-Enlightenment monkey costumes--look somewhat pinched. But Sylvain Cambreling's pacy conducting and the central performances come across with 1,000-watt energy. Dawn Upshaw is outstanding as Anne Trulove, bringing as much careful detail to her acting as she does brilliance to her vocal technique; and her performance of the Act I aria and cabaletta, "No word from Tom ... I go, I go to him", must rank among the best ever recorded. Jerry Hadley, dressed as a mullet-haired "yoof" in heavy-metal T-shirt and jeans, doesn't quite have the clarity and vocal agility of, say, Philip Langridge as Tom Rakewell, but the amusing yobbishness of his acting suits his louder redder-blooded performance beautifully. Rich-voiced Jane Henschel is hilarious as Baba the Turk, and uses her large frame with dainty, tippy-toe comic effect. On the DVD: the production is judiciously directed by Brian Large: there are plenty of carefully placed reaction shots, unobtrusive camera movements and there's an overall sense of a highly charged live performance. The recording levels, though generally excellent, occasionally offer a muffled phrase or two. There are subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish but no other special features. --Warwick Thompson

• Leonard Bernstein's New York | DVD | (26/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This documentary draws on the recollections of the great Broadway stars of Leonard Bernstein's time and those of a new generation of American musical theatre artists who feel indebted to the legacy of one of New Yorks greatest musical personalities. Bernstein could not resist expressing the raw vitality of the city of New York in his music mixing Latin American dance rhythms and big band jazz with 'cool jive' and expressive love songs. Tony Award-winner Mandy Patinkin and Grammy Award-winner Dawn Upshaw lead an all-star cast to re-enact scenes from his greatest works including West Side Story Wonderful Town and On the Town. Brilliantly filmed in the very New York locations celebrated by the songs - Coney Island Central Park Times Square - these performances chronicle the city in all its variety and excitement.

• Voices Of Our Time - Dawn Upshaw | DVD | (20/08/2004) from £15.49   |  Saving you £4.50 (22.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dawn Upshaw - Voices Of Our Time (With Gilbert Kalish)

• Adams - El Nino (Chatelet) | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Adams - El Nino (Chatelet)

• John Adams - American Classic | DVD | (24/11/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  John Adams is America''s most frequently performed living composer. He has managed the considerable feat of writing accessible music that still surprises and challenges its listeners. In the words of the New Yorker he is ''the man who takes the agony out of modern music''. Though he is not the only composer who has combined a classical education with a pop sensibility he is the one who has made the synthesis stick. Richly harmonic his music embraces just about every style from Minimalism to Mahler rock to jazz hymns to Liberace but always winds up sounding like Adams. Adams is also one of music''s most controversial figures - thanks to opera. Nixon in China started a whole new genre in modern opera. The Death of Klinghoffer dealt with the 1985 hijacking of a cruise liner by four Palestinian terrorists. Now made into a feature film it is one of the most contentious operatic works written in over a century. Ironically Adams started out hating opera but his own musical development made him the perfect composer for it. This profile of the man who led contemporary music out of the cul-de-sac of the avant-garde and revitalised modem opera centres on a major interview filmed at his home outside San Francisco. There are contributions from stage director Peter Sellars librettist Alice Goodman and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and extensive performance extracts from Nixon in China and El Nino. His orchestral compositions Shaker Loops The Chamber Symphony and Gnarly Buttons are also featured.