"Director: Jean Francois Jung"

• Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges (L'Amour des Trois Oranges) | DVD | (12/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The production of this DVD - which involved top-ranking artists to direct perform and provide the musical accompaniment - was recorded in 1989 at the Opera National de Lyon. The outstanding quality of the production is evidenced not least by the recording made as part of the series of live performances and rated by Gramophone magazine as record of the year in 1990. Directed by Louis Erlo (assisted by Alain Maratrat and with set design by Jacques Rapp and costumes by Ferdinando Bruni) the wit and speed of the opera come across strongly in the transfer of the medium of DVD (video direction by Jean-Francois Jung). Kent Nagano directs the performance led by Gabriel Bacquier (the King of Clubs) Jean-Luc Viala (the Prince) Georges Gautier (Truffaldino) Catherine Dubosc (Ninetta) and a host of other outstanding artists.

• Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande | DVD | (09/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Debussy's great literary opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, based on Maeterlinck's dramatic reading of the classic tale of sibling rivalry, was first performed in 1902. This 1988 production was recorded at the Opéra National de Lyon, swapping a traditional medieval forest setting for a fin de siècle Castle Allemonde in which the characters wander through vast, shadowy and empty halls. The cast features Colette Alliott-Lugaz as a mercurial Mélisande and Francois le Roux as a Byronic Pelléas, with José van Dam as his brother Golaud, the austere fly in the ointment. Little actually happens on stage. The characters circle each other, describing events and emotions which they only half understand. Often, their recitative is introspective rather than a means of external communication. The drama is played out in the landscape of the mind, punctuated and emphasised by Debussy's remarkable, brooding and atmospheric score. At times, it becomes the swirling stuff of nightmare, an aspect to which John Eliot Gardiner's assured conducting pays close attention. The opera might come to its inevitable end, but there is a strong sense that these ghost-like figures are doomed to repeat their tragic tale endlessly. Uncomfortably haunting stuff, with moments of breathtaking beauty. --Piers Ford