"Actor: Donald McIntyre"

• Wagner - Die Walkure (Boulez, Bayreuther Festspiele) | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £26.33   |  Saving you £-1.34 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Opera in Three ActsThe Second part of Patrice Chereau's epoch-making Bayreuth Ring is a radical re-imagining of Die Walkure unprecedented in its psychological penetration.

• Strauss - Elektra | DVD | (09/10/2006) from £15.54   |  Saving you £-1.55 (-11.10%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Strauss: Elektra (Levine Metropolitan Opera Orchestra)

• Wagner - Das Rheingold (Boulez, Mcintyre, Schwarz) | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £15.04   |  Saving you £1.95 (11.50%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In Patrice Chereau's illuminating violent Bayreuth production of Das Rheingold Wotan wears the brocade coat of feudal times while the Rhine seems to be a reservoir with modern-day power station. Yet as Chereau says it could also be many other things ... perhaps a mythological presence the mythology of our time ... The gods' ascent to Valhalla (is) a defiant flight into the future.

• Wagner - Der Fliegende Hollaender | DVD | (07/04/2008) from £18.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  This vivid film of Wagner's romantic opera succeeds in conveying what has famously been called the wind that blows out at you whenever you open the score, including Daland's boat anchoring against the Sandwike cliffs, the red-sailed phantom ship, and the ghost crew rising from the dead.

• Strauss: Arabella | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Like most of his later operas, Richard Strauss' Arabella ends with a meltingly lovely duet. But then criticising Strauss for composing melodically enduring operas is as pointless as lambasting Vermeer for painting only exquisite interior scenes. Those who say Strauss never improved on Rosenkavalier may be right but when such beguiling sounds kept coming from his music for the next 30 years of his life, there shouldn't be any quibbles. Arabella is, in a nutshell, the story of a woman who cannot make up her mind about a suitor. Taped at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1994 under the baton of conductor Christian Thielemann, this production features Kiri Te Kanawa in the title role; her acting is mediocre but vocally she never forces anything and at least sounds like the perfect Arabella. Wolfgang Brendel does well with Mandryka, who finally ends up with Arabella and Marie McLaughlin makes a sympathetic younger sister to the heroine as Zdenka. Otto Schenk's production is sturdily conservative, the video transfer is acceptable if unspectacular and the sound mix is CD-quality. --Kevin Filipski, Amazon.com

• Wagner: Siegfried | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

• Wagner - Siegfried (Boulez, Bayreuther Festspiele) | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £21.41   |  Saving you £3.57 (19.38%)   |  RRP £21.99

  The opera Siegfried.

• Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen -- Complete | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £95.99

• Wagner: Das Rheingold | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £3.54   |  Saving you £22.71 (996.05%)   |  RRP £24.99

• Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg -- Australian Opera / Mackerras | DVD | (20/02/2004) from £32.38   |  Saving you £-2.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is Wagner's most life-affirming opera, a romantic comedy about life and love in 16th century Nürnberg with none of the mythological characters and settings of the composer's other operas. The story concerns a knight, Walther Von Stolzing (here sung by Paul Frey) who must win the hand of the woman he loves, Eva (Helena Doese) by competing in a competition to become the Master Singer of the city. Against him are various romantic rivals, while in the role of his eventual mentor is the shoemaker Hans Sachs (Donald McIntyre). Doese brings just the right innocent femininity to one of only two important female roles--the other is filled by Rosemary Gunn as her governess, Magdalene. Paul Frey is fine as the romantic young knight, but the opera belongs to the great New Zealand Wagnerian bass-baritone, Donald McIntyre. His performance is richly insightful as only one so steeped in the world of the composer could be. The staging is deliberately unspectacular, the colours muted to the natural earth tones of the Middle Ages, focusing all attention on the characters, drama and exhilarating music. Though running three-and-a-half hours, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an excellent introduction to Wagner's art; especially as presented in this 1990 performance in an engagingly direct and unpretentious style, one that draws the audience in and makes for highly effective small-screen viewing. On the DVD: Die Meistersinger is presented on two DVDs to maximise picture quality over the 227-minute playing time. The image is 4:3 and is typical of a 1990 live opera performance recorded on video, being perfectly acceptable while revealing all the faults of the medium. The stereo sound is very good without being exceptional. There are optional subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish but no extras. --Gary S Dalkin

• Wagner: Die Walkure -- Bayreuth | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Die Walkure is the 'first day' of Wagner's great tetra logy of music dramas Der Ring des Nibelungen.Conducted by Pierre Boulez and directed by Patrice Chereau this 1976 production commemorating the centenary of the first Bayreuth Ring has come to be seen as the most illuminating and significant of modern times.

• Wagner - the Making of Der Ring Des Nibelungen | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The partnership of Boulez Chereau and Peduzzi put Wagner's Ring back where it belonged - at the centre of controversy. By the time it was last seen on the stage of the Festspielhaus in 1980 the production had taken its place as one of the historic achievements of the Bayreuth Festival. Working closely with video director Brian Large Chereau re-rehearsed his staging for the films taped at that time to recreate the experience on screen and to preserve career-defining performances from the original cast headed by Donald McIntyre Gwyneth Jones and Manfred Jung.

• Cardillac - Hindemith/Wolfgang Sawallisch | DVD | (16/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Live from the Bavarian State Opera one of the 20th century's most gripping operas is seen in this unanimously acclaimed Munich production from 1985. The opera staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch tells the story of the goldsmith Cardillac who is unable to part with his creations and recovers the objects he has sold by murdering the purchasers. A sensation at its 1926 premiere Cardillac is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's celebrated tale of an incomparable but obsessive goldsmith and a rash of mysterious murders in the Paris of Louis XIV. The stellar cast is led by Donald McIntyre - a bass full of character and personality.