"Actor: La Scala Orchestra"

• I Vespri Siciliani - Teatro Alla Scala | DVD | (24/09/2004) from £10.02   |  Saving you £-0.03 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Riccardo Muti conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala.

• La Fanciulla Del West | DVD | (21/05/2004) from £15.25   |  Saving you £-5.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Puccini's Wild West opera based on Belasco's play The Girl of the Golden West has the California gold rush as its dramatic backdrop for a story in which Minnie the only woman in a mining camp gambles on her one chance of happiness. Lorin Maazel conducts a fine cast in Jonathan Miller's 1991 production of the compelling and evocative opera which Puccini himself considered his best work. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Don Giovanni - Mozart | DVD | (23/04/2004) from £9.77   |  Saving you £0.22 (2.20%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A performance of the Mozart opera Don Giovanni.

• La Boheme - Puccini | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La Boheme - Recorded live at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi Milan February 2003 - Staged by the Teatro all Scala.

• Puccini: Madama Butterfly -- La Scala/Maazel | DVD | (31/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This 1986 production of Madama Butterfly strives, with its Japanese director and designer, for authenticity in the Japanese setting, yet is somehow entirely Italian at the same time. Yasuko Hayashi's Cio-Cio-San is surprisingly tough, rejecting the arguments of her uncle and the marriage broker with more anger than usual, and her suicide is as much a moral statement of integrity as a sentimental gesture. Accordingly, Dvorsky's sexually magnetic Pinkerton is even less sympathetic--you can see what she sees in him, but he is arrogant and a user, except when he is being lyrical--and Zancanaro's Sharpless, the consul who expedites Pinkerton's betrayal of his wife but develops his own compassion for her, is all the more complex and interesting. The production has real charm as well as authenticity on its side; the staging of the love duet is impressive in its use of shadow and delicate light. Maazel's interpretation has a forceful energy that the recording impressively conveys. --Roz KaveneyOn the DVD: The DVD has scene selection, and subtitles in German, French and English; the menu adds Spanish.

• Giselle | DVD | (15/05/2000) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Alolphe Adam's Giselle is the first of the great classical ballets and this production was choreographed by Patrice Bart and filmed at La Scala in Milan.

• Lucia Di Lammermoor | DVD | (21/05/2004) from £13.79   |  Saving you £-3.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Donizetti's great tragedy is his undisputed masterpiece of melancholic romanticism with the doomed love between Lucia and Edgardo retold from Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor. The 1992 production heightens the story's powerful libretto with its dramatic visual design and first-class musical performances. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Attila - Verdi | DVD | (22/10/2004) from £13.79   |  Saving you £-3.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Attila Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)Ricardo Muti conducts a fine cast in the powerful and atmospheric 1991 production of Verdi's ninth opera whose story of the heroic tussle between Ezio a Roman general and Attila the Nordic invader was written for the 1846 Teatro la Fenice season and premiered there to huge acclaim. Unlocked from the archives of RAI televvision this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.Sung In Italian

• Puccini - La Boheme, Madama Butterfly | DVD | (02/12/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  La Boheme: Recorded in the San Francisco Opera House in 1988, this performance of Puccini's La Boheme contains an international cast of singers and players. ; ; Madama Butterfly: Puccini's classic opera which was completed in 1904. This performance is the 1986 La Scala production.

• La Donna Del Lago - Rossini | DVD | (22/10/2004) from £9.15   |  Saving you £0.84 (8.40%)   |  RRP £9.99

  La donna del lagoGiachino Rossini (1792-1868)Director Werner Herzog and conductor Riccardo Muti combine with the finest of casts to lavish Rossini's rarely performed Neapolitan masterpiece set in feudal sixteenth-century Scotland with the genius it deserves. June Anderson is an outstanding Elena (the Lady of the Lake) in the 1992 production of the melodrama based on Sir Walter Scott's poem. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Adriana Lecouvreur - Cilea | DVD | (22/10/2004) from £13.74   |  Saving you £-3.75 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Adriana LecouvreurFrancesco Cilea (1866-1950)Cilea's four-act opera of jealousy and tangled love first performed in Milan in 1902 is based on the true story of Adriana Lecouvreur an 18th-Century actress at the Comedie Francaise whose rival for the love of Maurizio count of Saxony is the married Principessa di Bouillon. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this 1989 classic recording comes from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Verdi: Otello -- La Scala/Muti | DVD | (19/09/2003) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (150.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Riccardi Muti conducts a performance of Otello at the La Scala Theatre before the start of a three year renovation project.

• I Due Foscari | DVD | (20/08/2004) from £9.19   |  Saving you £0.80 (8.71%)   |  RRP £9.99

  I due FoscariGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)Renato Bruson takes the role of the Venetian Doge - Francesco Foscari - in Verdi's dark three-act tragedy based on a drama by Lord Byron set in 15th century Venice. Giandrea Gavazzeni directs the 1988 La Scala production of a work that is hailed among the best of Verdi's early operas and that led him to a career of operatic immortality. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Puccini: Tosca -- La Scala/Muti | DVD | (02/12/2002) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-15.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Tosca was revived to great acclaim at La Scala in this 2000 production, which built on Luca Ronconi's 1996 version with musical direction from principal conductor Riccardo Muti and Lorenza Cantini's nightmarishly distorted set. Puccini's most recorded opera is loved and derided in equal measure for its high-octane dramatics, rich arias and the fire-spitting exchanges of the eponymous heroine and her wily tormentor Scarpia. Under Muti, the music takes precedence over the self-conscious theatricality of the book. As a result, some high dramatic points--the stabbing, always tricky, and Tosca's suicide, equally dicey--are underplayed here. Singers of the calibre of Maria Guleghina and baritone Leo Nucci can be relied upon for rounded, controlled performances. Guleghina eschews the ferocity of Callas for a less stately, earthier honesty and enjoys moments of great delicacy, particularly in a sweet "Vissi d'arte". And her grief at Cavaradossi's death is searing. The key to Tosca, though, is the ambivalent relationship between the singer and the chief of police. Scarpia is probably the most toxic antihero in opera, and Nucci could do with a touch more virulence. Even so, this is a fascinating production that strips away much of the traditional artifice and gives real insight into the complex emotions that make the opera so compelling for its devotees. On the DVD: Tosca, like so many operas recorded in the theatre, here relies on the performances to compensate for the camera's inability to convey the overall majesty of the production. The 16:9 anamorphic picture format gives no more than a hint of the crushing power of Cantini's set. Happily, the choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 surround sound means there is no compromise on the sound front. Orchestra, chorus and principals unite in a fluid homage to Puccini's score. There are no extras on the DVD. One minor niggle: careless editing of the booklet notes means that Puccini briefly becomes Verdi in the description of the opera's genesis. --Piers Ford

• La Chauve-Souris - Strauss | DVD | (21/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Strauss: La Chauve-Souris

• Claudio Abbado In Rehearsal | DVD | (17/05/2002) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Claudio Abbado in Rehearsal has the eminent conductor rehearsing Verdi's Requiem Mass both at the La Scala Opera House and the church of San Marco in Milan where Verdi's choral masterpiece was first performed. This new performance was given in 1985 to mark the 200th birthday of the Italian national poet Alessandro Manzoni, with whom Verdi shared aspirations for a united Italy. The camera dwells a good deal on Abbado, whose concentration seems well nigh tangible as he raises his arms and throws out his chest to communicate the power of Verdi's music. Abbado takes much care with his soloists, gives strong leads, checking the reverberant acoustic of San Marco with a lift of the head during the thunderous "Dies Irae". We eavesdrop on a piano rehearsal with two of his soloists as he keeps the rather musically wayward mezzo on course and works with Samuel Ramey, his bass, to intensify his hushed delivery of "More stupebit" ("Death and nature stand aghast"). We also see Monserrat Caballe, who can float a note pianissimo like no other soprano, have an unexpected fit of the giggles when beginning her "Libera me". Some reservations in director Norbert Beilharz's treatment of the "Lux Aeterna" require comment. His concept of juxtaposing a well-dressed audience with pictures from tombstones and statues as a reminder of the transience of human life grows wearisome after a while, as does his commentary and translation of the Latin, already on screen as subtitles, which masks some of the most poignant music in the score. On the DVD: Claudio Abbado in Rehearsal has one major disappointment: the lighting. Neither the San Marco Church or the interior of La Scala is well lit. There are brief trailers for three other ArtHaus Musik productions, including a film about Callas and Abbado conducting the Mozart Requiem in a splendid baroque church in Salzburg where the brilliance of the picture, stunningly lit, really shows up the deficiencies of this film. To hear Abbado conduct the Verdi Requiem where everyone performs as though their lives depended on it, try the version he recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2001. --Adrian Edwards

• Verdi - Aida, La Traviata | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Performed at La Scala in Italy 'Aida' is Guiseppe Verdi's famous grand opera at its very best. 'La Traviata' is Peter Hall's production and comes from the 1988 Glyndebourne Festival under the musical direction of Bernard Haitink.