"Actor: Roberto"

• Bay Of Blood | DVD | (22/07/2002) from £8.08   |  Saving you £-2.09 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Highly influential Italian slasher flick has people brutally murdered in an isolated house. Extremely violent semi-incoherent but visually impressive offering from cult director Bava. Essential for cult horror fans.

• Ascent To Heaven | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £17.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (11.12%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A newlywed couple dash back from their honeymoon when the groom's mother falls ill. However upon their return they discover that his brothers have been neglecting their duty to care for mum preferring to plot the spending of the inevitable inheritance. What follows is a long bus ride to get his old dear's will changed to the contrary where temptation faces him at every turn.

• A Breath Of A Scandal | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Austrian Princess Olympia is in a quandary. Olympia is betrothed to an unloving buffoonish Prussian prince named Ruprecht. Then she meets Charlie a mining engineer from the States and falls in love with him. It looks like she may have to follow her heart not tradition and say ""I do"" to the charming American. Will she really go through with it? Or will the conventions of royalty dictate her groom?

• Aida | DVD | (21/05/2004) from £4.99   |  Saving you £25.00 (501.00%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Daniela Dessi Elisabetta Fiorillo Fabio Armiliato Juan Pons and Roberto Scandiuzzi lead the cast in the renowned period production filmed in 2003 against the historic paper trompe-l'oeil sets painted between 1936-45 by Josep Mestres Cabanes the last representative of the old Catalan school of stenography.

• Gounod: Romeo et Juliette | DVD | (19/11/2001) from £24.19   |  Saving you £10.80 (44.65%)   |  RRP £34.99

  A performance of Gounod's opera 'Romeo Et Juliette' in five acts recorded live at The Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

• Falstaff - Giuseppe Verdi | DVD | (04/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The present recording was made at a performance in Busseto Verdi's birthplace in the Emilia Romagna region. There in 2001 a whole series of events marked the 100th anniversary of the composer's death. This Falstaff performance along with Aida staged by Franco Zeffirelli constituted the high point of the impressive anniversary celebrations. The small 328-seat Teatro Verdi built in Verdi's lifetime provided the ensemble of La Scala Milan under its principal conductor Riccardo Muti with a particularly captivating backdrop and the mainly young singers including 31-year-old shooting star Ambrogio Maestri in the title role exciting young tenor Juan Diego Florez as Fenton and internationally acclaimed Barbara Frittoli as Alice - gave superb performances.

• Verdi - La Traviata (Maazel, Gheorghiu) | DVD | (01/09/2008) from £20.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (24.95%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La TraviataLive from the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, 2007

• Django 2: Der gnadenlose Rachefeldzug - Franco Nero kehrt zurück in einem actiongeladenen Western voller Vergeltung und Gerechtigkeit | Blu Ray | (25/09/2024) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Donizetti: Lucie de Lammermoor - Lyon National Opera | DVD | (15/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Based on one of Walter Scott's most melodramatic novels, what is arguably Donizetti's best tragic opera is here presented in its French version, Lucie de Lammermoor. The hapless Lucia (Patrizia Ciofi) tries to refuse the marriage to a minister that will rescue her family's fortunes in favour of her beloved, the family's worst enemy Edgard (Roberto Alagna). Predictably this all ends in many deaths and the audience's tears. Evelina Pido and the Orchestre Nationale de Lyon tear through the fairly unsubtle score with considerable brio and they and the cast are admirable in the opera's quieter more thoughtful moments--the famous Act Two sextet and Lucia's mad scene, in which Ciofi is solidly excellent rather than deeply memorable. Alagna turns in his usual high-gloss performance as Edgard and manages to make his final aria more moving than the quality of the piece deserves. This is an idiomatic and effective performance in a solid made-for-TV production, albeit one that never comes across as notably original. On the DVD: Lucie de Lammermoor is presented on disc in 16:9 ration with Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS or LPCM stereo sound options. It has subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. --Roz Kaveney

• Black Samurai | DVD | (04/08/2008) from £2.68   |  Saving you £-0.69 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Jim Kelly, the star of Black Samurai, was a multi-talented martial artist perhaps best remembered for his role in Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Black Samurai is essentially a vehicle for his fighting skills in which he plays a secret agent out to retrieve his Japanese sweetheart from the drug-dealing Satanist who has abducted her to blackmail her father. His investigative skills are almost non-existent--much of the plot consists of his arriving at the villains' houses and hitting people. At the same time, the character's utter ruthlessness and the extravagant evil of the villains, the chief of whom, Jannicot, is in the habit of sicking a vulture on his enemies, are entertaining enough and the 1970s styling unselfconsciously entertaining. The director, Al Adamson, was mostly famous for his horror films, and there is a Gothic extravagance to the sets and gimmicks here: Kelly's jet-pack sequence has to be seen to be believed. On the DVD: The DVD comes with a wonderful period trailer for The Green Hornet, the usual chapter selection, biographies of Kelly and Adamson (who was murdered in 1995) and a feature which enables you to look at the fight scenes in isolation. --Roz Kaveney

• Cannibal Holocaust 2 | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £15.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (25.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jemma a reporter hires a couple of men to find a professor who is lost in the jungle and she suspects may still be alive. The two men steal a plane and the three of them head off to a place called Fort Angel. They find a guide called Garcia in a bar and off they go deeper still into the Amazon. Naturally there are a few mishaps on their way. One of them has a fish swim up his arse that has to be plucked out and amongst other things there's a bat attack during the night. After hun

• Don't Panic | DVD | (27/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  On his 17th Birthday Michael is given a present of a Ouija board by Tony his best friend. At a session Tony using a medium known to him as 'Virgil' unwittingly unlocks the evil forces of the board. Soon there is a wave of violent killings and the cheif suspect appears to be Michael who has been a witness to all the killings via premonitions and out of body experiences. Is Michael the killer and can he prove his innocence or is someone else being possessed by the evil spirit?

• Gounod: Romeo et Juliette -- film version | DVD | (04/02/2003) from £19.18   |  Saving you £5.81 (30.29%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Shakespeare's lovers never looked and sounded so good as in this romantic new film adaptation of Charles Gounod's beloved opera starring one of classical music's most popular and successful duos Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu. A spectacular medieval castle and its surrounding countryside provide the setting for this timeless tale of warring families and star-crossed lovers. Conductor Anton Guadagno leads the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra through the opera's best-loved arias and duets in this fresh interpretation of Gounod's masterwork.

• Son Of The Pink Panther | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Inspector Clouseau's biggest mistake lives on! Inspector Clouseau is back! Not the original but his illegitimate son... Unfortunatley he's a chip off the old block! Blake Edwards who expertly guided the late Peter Sellers through the most popular comedy series of all time returns after an absence of 10 years with the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni as Clouseau Jr. As the loyal courageous but totally inept young Gendarme sets off in pursuit of the kidnapped Princess Yas

• Strauss - Daphne | DVD | (04/12/2006) from £25.79   |  Saving you £-5.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Performance of Richard Strauss' opera Daphne.

• Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky | DVD | (29/08/2005) from £33.73   |  Saving you £-8.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Recorded live at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi Milan 14 April 2004La Scala's 2004 Swan Lake brings together two world stars of classical ballet in the lead roles Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle in this traditional production of Tchaikovsky's fairy story. The production comes from the Teatro degli Arcimboldi La Scala's temporary home at the time.There is certainly scope for various interpretations of the swan myth which goes back to antiquity when Jupiter took the shape of a swan and seduced Leda the wife of the king of the Spartans. The Milan production does not deny the psychological subtexts - the transformation of the girl Odette into a swan by being taken under Rothbart's huge wings in the prologue sets of black and white in the white acts and the most varied and colourful costumes in the merry ball scenes. The world of Prince Siegfried before the intrusion of Rothbart is characterised by Arcadian like pastel-colours and when Siegfried successfully fights him to free Odette from the spell the staging creates a most impressive lake scenery with roaring waters which acts as a transforming experience for Siegfried as well as Odette.Directed by Florence Clerc from Paris and Frederic Olivieri Artistic Director with the La Scala Ballet the Milan staging combines the best of both worlds in ballet: Russian classical school with the history of choreographic adaptation in the West. The filming underlines both aspects - in the expressive and soulful moments of the ballet the camera draws close to the dancers while it zooms out for the outstandingly symmetrical dancing of the swan scenes which the ballet has become so famous for.

• Django Kill If You Live Shoot | Blu Ray | (01/07/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Nicholas' Gift | DVD | (23/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  This is the extraordinary true story of a close and loving family on a sightseeing holiday in Italy in September 1994 whose lives were shattered one desolate night with the indiscriminate shooting of their little seven year old son Nicholas. As Nicholas lies dying in hospital his devastated parents take the most painful decision imaginable to donate Nicholas' organs so that other little children may receive the gift of life. What begins as an intensely private and unbelievably courageous act of love and human compassion was soon to send emotional ripples right around the world that would come to be known as the Nicholas Effect.

• L'Elisir D'Amore - Donizetti | DVD | (13/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  It's hard to think of a couple better suited to play the romantic leads in Donizetti's comedy L'Elisir d'amore than husband-and-wife team Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu. Both are charming on stage, and both have voices to die for: Gheorghiu's dark liquid tones are particularly spine-tingling, and her coloratura abilities awe-inspiring, and though Alagna has mainly concentrated on the more spinto (powerful) roles of the tenor repertoire, in 1996 when this live production was recorded his voice was just a little fresher and lighter and thus perfect for the bel canto gracefulness of Donizetti's writing. His performance of "Una furtiva lagrima", for example, is meltingly sung and free from all temptation to overplay the high notes. Frank Dunlop's 1920s-set production doesn't quite produce the belly laughs some stagings manage (in Dulcamara's patter song, for example), but has a certain small-town wistful charm nonetheless. The orchestral accompaniment under Donizetti expert Evelino Pidò is spot on, and never falls into the banal "oom-pah" trap that such simple writing can often lead to. Overall, it's a production of great charm. On the DVD: L'Elisir d'amore comes to disc with a 52-minute film on the history of the opera and its recording, with contributions from Alagna and Gheorghiu, and subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese. The Lyon opera house is particularly well set up for video recording, and Brian Large does a sophisticated job of capturing a live performance: it's hard to believe at some points that the cameras aren't actually on stage in the middle of the action. Just occasionally this leads to the singers not knowing where to look and seeming a trifle lost, but generally the performances work superbly well on the small screen. --Warwick Thomson

• Classics On A Summer's Evening - A Gala Concert From Dresden | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Classics on a Summer's Evening is an outdoor concert for an enormous audience which was staged in an architecturally striking public square in Dresden in July 1999. It features the most glamorous young husband and wife currently active on the international operatic scene, soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna. Along with these fine performances comes Giuseppe Sinopoli--before his untimely death at age 54--who was considered one of Europe's finest opera conductors, and, in the Dresden orchestra and chorus, performers who match his creative energy. The programme seems to have been selected, quite successfully, with two criteria in mind: mass popularity and opportunities to display technical brilliance. Gheorghiu and Alagna join their voices in love duets from Verdi's Otello and Puccini's Madama Butterfly that will appeal especially to the many fans who have been attracted to them as a couple. But each also sings impressive solos in some of opera's Top 40 numbers, notably the "Flower Song" from Carmen and "Elucevan le stelle" from Tosca for Alagna, and "Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly and "Pace, pace, mio Dio" from La forza del Destino for Gheorghiu. The chorus and orchestra take the spotlight powerfully in showpieces from La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Carmen and Aida, among other selections. The only problem with the show is the self-consciously chic dance numbers to themes from Carmen and Aida. --Joe McLellan, Amazon.com