"Actor: Franz Grundheber"

• Opera Night 2007 - Deutsche Oper Berline - For The German Aids Foundation | DVD | (03/03/2008) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Chorus Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin Orchestra Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin Conducted By Lawrence Foster Live from the Deutsche Oper Berlin

• Strauss: Elektra | DVD | (03/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Richard Strauss's wildest and most passionate opera gets an almost ideal performance in this 1989 production with three great female singers at the height of their powers. Marton is terrifyingly unreasonable as Elektra, determined to mourn her dead father in the face of her mother who had him killed, and to hope and pray for the vengeance that her brother will one day bring. Told he is dead, her emotional collapse is equally total, and her eventual self-destructive dance of triumph is a bittersweet ecstasy of anger and joy. Studer gives the sometimes underplayed role of the normal, compromising "feminine" sister the weight and sympathy Strauss intended it to have. Fassbaender is electric as Clytemnestra, collapsing under the weight of her guilt and paranoia, but still scarily sexy and regal in her manipulation of those around her. Abbado's conducting is electric--from the opening "Agamemnon" chords to the final dying fall of Elektra's dance, he never puts a foot wrong or misjudges the pacing of this most difficult of opera scores. The DVD has subtitles in English, German and French. --Roz Kaveney

• Weber: Hunter's Bride | DVD | (02/09/2013) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (-8.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Hunter's Bride is a film opera based on the romantic opera Der Freisch�tz by Carl Maria von Weber. Dreams and hopes of young people are told in this exquisite fairy tale. Max and Kaspar, both hunters, fight side by side in the Napoleonic Wars, as well as each other to conquer Agathe's love. European cultural history becomes visible in an opulent historical panorama and one of the most beautiful pieces of music. The pictures of Norwegian director of photography Harald Gunnar Paalgard give a sp...

• Berg: Wozzeck | DVD | (15/11/2001) from £34.31   |  Saving you £-9.32 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The bleakness of Berg's operatic masterpiece Wozzeck is relatively easy to bring off: the plot, after all, tells of a man who is bullied, cuckolded and mocked by the society around him. What are harder to realise are the gallows humour and pitch-black comedy--and it's those qualities, along with the brilliant acting and edge-of-seat orchestral playing, that make this 1987 Vienna Staatsoper staging a stunning televisual operatic production. Everything works: the simple yet evocative sets translate effortlessly to the small screen, the pacing of the 15 short scenes is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and the singing is beautifully focussed. Baritone Franz Grundheber is vocally and dramatically outstanding as Wozzeck, cringing and shuffling around the stage in a bewildered hang-dog manner and yet never losing sight of the character's humanity. Hildegard Behrens (Marie) has rarely sounded better, and switches between Straussian lushness and spiky sluttishness with ease. The direction is also full of wonderful touches, such as Wozzeck squeezing the Captain's nose while he's shaving him (and making his voice sound like a kazoo), and the musicians of the on-stage band being fully integrated into the tavern scene. Ironic, emotionally rich, musically faultless--this one's got it all. On the DVD: the production works beautifully on DVD, and bar one or two moments in the second tavern scene (Act 3, Scene 3) the voices rarely move out of microphone range. There are subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish and four trailers for other Arthaus DVD operas, but no other special features. --Warwick Thomson

• Elektra | DVD | (05/04/2000) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

• Hunter's Bride | Blu Ray | (04/09/2013) from £20.10   |  Saving you £2.88 (16.83%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Hunter's Bride is a film opera based on the romantic opera Der Freisch�tz by Carl Maria von Weber. Dreams and hopes of young people are told in this exquisite fairy tale. Max and Kaspar, both hunters, fight side by side in the Napoleonic Wars, as well as each other to conquer Agathe's love. European cultural history becomes visible in an opulent historical panorama and one of the most beautiful pieces of music. The pictures of Norwegian director of photography Harald Gunnar Paalgard give a sp...

• Daniel Barenboim - Berg - Wozzeck | DVD | (28/01/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Alban Berg's devastating 20th century masterpiece Wozzeck is a complex psychodrama based on the play by Georg Bchner following the harrowing story of a private soldier who having fathered a child by his mistress descends into madness and murder. This highly-acclaimed production of Wozzeck staged by Patrice Chreau and conducted by Daniel Barenboim was recorded live at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1994. There is fine singing from Franz Grundheber in the title role and the top-quality cast also includes Waltraud Meier as Marie Graham Clark as Hauptmann Gnter von Kannen as the Doktor and Mark Baker as the Tambourmajor. Unlike many other productions which take a stark view of the opera Chreau's staging presents a more human view depicting Wozzeck and Marie as the tragic poor battered and exploited by the world because of their position in society.

• Herbert Von Karajan - Beethoven Symphony No. 9 In D Minor Op. 125 Choral | DVD | (01/05/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor Op 125 'Choral' plus the final chorus from Schiller's 'Ode To Joy'. Recorded in Berlin in September 1983.