Opera

• Offenbach: Des Contes D'Hoffmann | DVD | (25/04/2001) from £19.85   |  Saving you £6.40 (34.43%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Unfortunately the qualities that make Jacques Offenbach's operetta The Tales of Hoffmann an irresistible melodic profusion of wit, dash and unfailing high spirits are only in evidence in the playing of the Lyon Opera Orchestra under Kent Nagano: operetta, more than its serious cousin, continues to be fair game for the whims of producers and designers. In this case an excellent cast including Daniel Galvez-Vallejo as Hoffmann, Natalie Dessay as Olympia, Brigitte Balley as Nicklausse and Isabelle Vernet as Giulietta, as well as Gabriel Bacquier who sings three roles, are obliged to perform Offenbach's operetta in a lunatic asylum designed by Philippe Starck as a three-dimensional grey set, topped with barbed wire. The production by Louis Erlo adapts and cuts scenes to fit this concept, so the tavern scene where Hoffmann sings his celebrated number "The Legend of Kleinzack" disappears, as do the chorus who are banished to the wings. In this environment there's no room for charm or even a kind of mad-hatter behaviour. The cast are reduced to stereotypes and of necessity singularly unlovable ones. What a wasted opportunity. The sound is excellent as it is on two fillers: a short film of Penderecki conducting his choral work, The Seven Gates to Jerusalem from the Midem festival at Cannes and a trailer for a Lyon Opera House production of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust. --Adrian Edwards

• La Clemenza Di Tito - Mozart | DVD | (03/01/2006) from £4.99   |  Saving you £25.00 (501.00%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Commissioned for the coronation of Leopold II in Prague Mozart's last opera is a deep humane reflection on relationships power and forgiveness. With the composition of some of the most beautiful passages in his oeuvre Mozart has succeeded in giving this opera seria both a noble sobriety and transparent instrumentation to which this commanding production by the Hermann partnership does full justice on all levels. Susan Graham's most extraordinary Sesto and Christoph Pregardien's Superb Tito set the standard for this riveting Opera National de Paris Performance conducted by the outstanding Sylvain Cambreling.

• Rossini: Semiramide | DVD | (31/12/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Bel canto can be translated as "pretty singing", and that definition seems tailor-made for this production, which offers grace, charm, and a fine-tuned sense of style in abundance to compensate for its limited psychological and emotional impact. The four principal singers are all specialists in the bel canto style and this opera has played a key role in building their substantial reputations. For its sweeping musical imagination and technical wizardry, Rossini's epic about royal assassination and misdirected lust in the ancient Babylonian Empire deserves a place in any inclusive opera collection, and we are not likely to have a better video recording of Semiramide in the foreseeable future. June Anderson has an attractive appearance and sounds exactly right in the music's florid melodic lines. But she is not dramatically compelling as the wicked queen who had her husband killed and fell in love with a man who turned out to be her long-lost son, Arsace. Marilyn Horne rose to the highest levels of international fame in the role of that conflicted son, and her presence alone would be enough to give this video classic status. Her voice was a bit past its prime when this performance was recorded in 1991, but still there is no other voice quite like it, no other voice so suited to Rossini's heroic mezzo roles. Samuel Ramey is a close bass counterpart to Anderson: great tone, agile florid singing, and a rather wooden but visually appealing stage presence. Sanford Olsen has a small role and sings it near perfectly. James Conlon gets excellent musical results; John Copley's staging is massive and static. --Joe McLellan, Amazon.com

• Prokofiev: War and Peace (La guerre et la paix) -- Paris Opera/Bertini | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £9.62   |  Saving you £21.63 (258.73%)   |  RRP £29.99

  From the opera National de Paris TDK presents Prokofiev's monumental opera War and Peace in a tremendous production directed by Francesca Zambello.Based on Tolstoy's famous novel War and Peace is an opus of exceptional scale. Over 70 figures make up the enormous lyrical formation. The story tells of the fate of a Russian aristocrat who is overcome with shock at Napoleon's invasion. The core of the drama set against the backdrop of the war is the passionate love between the young Natacha Rostov to the Prince Andrei Bolkonski.

• Macbeth | DVD | (02/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Verdi - Macbeth (Sinopoli Orchestra/Chorus DOB)

• La Cenerentola | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £2.86   |  Saving you £16.39 (1,024.38%)   |  RRP £17.99

  La Cenerentola is Rossini's version of the popular Cinderella story an entertaining mixture of comedy pathos coloratura fireworks and masquerade.

• Tristan Und Isolde - Wagner/Daniel Barenboim | DVD | (16/07/2007) from £17.50   |  Saving you £4.49 (25.66%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Daniel Barenboim conducts Bayreuth's landmark 1983 production of Wagner's quintessential Romantic music-drama Tristan Und Isolde. The great Wagnerian singers Ren'' Kollo and Johanna Meier perform the title roles in Wagner's romantic masterpiece. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's celebrated Bayreuth production is filmed on the Festspielhaus stage with six cameras and in digital sound to recreate the unique intensity of a live performance in studio quality. With its exceptional cast of singers - plus the thoughtful staging by Ponelle and the musical expertise of Daniel Barenboim - this DVD is one of the finest Tristan and Isolde productions ever

• Herbert von Karajan: Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 | DVD | (31/03/2008) from £14.69   |  Saving you £10.30 (70.12%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Beethoven:Symphony No.9

• Mozart: Don Giovanni -- Zurich/Harnoncourt | DVD | (12/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  In this Zurich Opera House staging of Mozart’s darkly comic cautionary fable Don Giovanni the lighting and stage design keep the characters shaded in half-shadow: even Zerlina’s wedding feels like a subdued affair here, and the Don’s banqueting room is a suitably gloomy venue for the Stone Guest’s climactic visit for a spot of dinner and damnation. Both this staging and video director Brian Large’s filming play no tricks with the audience’s expectations, opting for a largely traditional presentation of this tragedy of swaggering bravado, cuckolded lovers and revenge from beyond the grave. Nikolaus Harnoncourt brings all the sensitivity of his historically informed approach to the orchestra pit. Heading a very strong cast are Rodney Gilfry, defiantly strong-voiced but also haughtily handsome as the seducing Don, and Cecilia Bartoli, a mercurial presence as Donna Elvira. Their scenes together crackle and fizz, even when Bartoli’s extremely ripe vibrato contrasts a little uncomfortably with Harnoncourt’s authenticity. Liliana Nikiteanu makes for a pretty, naïve Zerlina, convincingly torn between her Masetto (Oliver Widmer) and the animalistic attraction of the Don. Laszlo Polgar’s Leporello is wheedling and base, but still the inheritor of his master’s charisma; Isabel Rey and Roberto Sacca are solid as the colourless moralists Anna and Ottavio; while Matti Salminen’s powerful Commendatore isn’t expected to do anything more than stand still and declaim. Overall this is an excellent musical performance, unexceptionally staged. On the DVD: Don Giovanni on disc has a good 24-minute "Behind the Scenes" feature, including interviews with Cecilia Bartoli, Harnoncourt, Gilfry and Isabel Rey. There’s also a trailer for other ArtHaus releases. The 16:9 picture sometimes struggles to bring definition to the dimly lit sets; sound though is crisp and clean PCM stereo or Dolby 5.1. There are subtitles in five languages. --Mark Walker

• Philomena Begley - Live in Concert | DVD | (03/03/2008) from £12.88   |  Saving you £-4.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Recorded at The Whitehall Theatre, Dundee 1990

• Giacomo Puccini - La Boheme | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £22.11   |  Saving you £4.14 (19.86%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Puccini: La Boheme (Severini SFOO Pavarotti Freni)

• Boulevard Solitude (Sub Ac3 Dts) | DVD | (17/09/2007) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Hans Werner Henze:Boulevard Solitude

• Verdi - Falstaff / Graham Vick, Bernard Haitink, Royal Opera House | DVD | (10/10/2001) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Graham Vicks production of Falstaff opened the new Covent Garden Royal Opera House, and was not to everybody's taste; the garish primary colours of the costumes, especially Falstaff's unusually hideous get-ups, go several steps beyond the Breughelian effect Vicks intended. The staging is effective--the complicated counterpoint of the ensembles is reflected in unobtrusive blocking that keeps the vocal lines clear and separate, especially in the final fugue. Bryn Terfel's Falstaff is a memorable creation, self-mocking and self-aggrandising at the same time--so much so, in fact, that he almost does not need the vast prosthetic body he has to wear for the part. Desiree Rancatore is an admirably sweet-toned Nanetta; Bernadette Manca di Nissa an appropriately sardonic Mistress Quickly; Roberto Frontali as Ford, in his Act 2 scena, perfectly distils and parodies every jealousy aria ever written, including Verdi's own. Haitink's conducting is exemplary in the lyrical passages, gets almost everything out of the fast and furious comic sections. --Roz Kaveney On the DVD: The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is powerful and filled with detail, capturing the excitement of the performance and the atmosphere of the Royal Opera House superbly. The anamorphically enhanced 1.77:1 widesceen image is very clear, and while given the source inevitably not up to the highest feature film standards, is among the best live classical titles yet released on DVD. The bold colours are particularly well realised, though the red lighting of the Garter Inn scenes causes the image to falter a little. There are optional subtitles in English, French and German. These are presented directly over the picture and would be easier to read had they been a little larger, or outlined in some way. The special features consist of a brief synopsis by James Naughtie, taken directly from the original television broadcast, a minute-long "comment" by conductor Bernard Haitink and short but interesting interviews with Bryn Terfel and director Graham Vick. Finally there is a nine-minute episode from the series of short BBC films, Covent Garden Tales on the 1999 modernisation of the Royal Opera House. --Gary S Dalkin

• Wagner - Das Rheingold | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £13.28   |  Saving you £0.71 (5.35%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This film is the one existing record of Karajan's Salzburg Ring on video. Made in 1978, with imagination extra film sequences to complement the original stage production for the Easter Festival, it brings to life the epic grandeur of Karajan's concept, with the fallible gods, headed by Thomas Stewart's nobly-sung Wotan, depicted in all their mythic majesty.

• Il Ritorno D'Ulisse In Patria - Monteverdi | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £8.92   |  Saving you £6.07 (40.50%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Il Ritorno D'Ulisse In Patria - Recorded At The Glyndebourne Festival Opera 1973.

• Don Giovanni - Mozart | DVD | (13/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Though performed in the original Peter Sellars' production of Don Giovanni relocates Mozart's dramatic morality-tale to the dark streets of Harlem deep within the turbulent world of late-twentieth-century America.

• 100 Premiership Goals - Vol. 1 | DVD | (26/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  100 Premiership Goals 15th Anniversary Edition Vol 1

• 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

• Hans Werner Henze ; Der Prinz Von Homburg | DVD | (18/10/2002) from £10.53   |  Saving you £15.72 (169.58%)   |  RRP £24.99

  An opera in three acts by one of Germany's most important contemporary composers - Hans Werner Henze. Musical direction comes from Wolfgang Sawallisch.

• Offenbach: La Belle Helene -- Paris/Minkowski | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £11.02   |  Saving you £15.23 (156.05%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Jacques Offenbach's 19th century parody of life under the yoke of Napoleon III, La Belle Hélène, has always seemed as tongue-in-cheek as the material could go. This new staging from the Théâtre Musical de Paris' 2000 season proves you can always go further. As if the social comment and knowing musical allusions (eg: Wagner's Tannhäuser) weren't enough, now via director Lauren Pelly's imagination Helen (Dame Felicity Lott) becomes a modern sexually frustrated woman dreaming the entire scenario. In her dream she is singled out as the most beautiful woman on Earth (prompting vain delusions to rival Snow White's wicked stepmother) as reward for Pâris (Yann Beuron) choosing Venus as most beautiful Goddess off Earth. Act 1 takes place in the bedroom and bed of Helen and ineffectual husband/king Ménélas (Michel Sénéchal). Here the fusion of costumes worn by High Priest Calchas (François Le Roux) seems incongruous until the archaeological dig setting of Act 2 turns everything into a dream. From then on, the analogy of bed as throne, the sheep costumes and male and female swimsuit parade followed by synchronised stage "swimming" of Act 3 all take on greater significance. Les Musicians du Louvre give a tremendous performance under Marc Minkowski's baton (which you often see popping into frame), particularly in the centrepiece duet between Lott and Beuron for their "Dream of Love". Contemporary makeovers of opera often lose sight of the original's intentions, but this update certainly preserves the spirit of Offenbach's vision. On the DVD: A choice of Stereo, Dolby 5.1 or DTS is a testament to the careful staging of this production, as is the video's multi-camera edit. In fact, the 25-minute behind-the-scenes documentary reveals the DVD was conceived as part of the staging. Four interviews make this a most welcome supplement, with Dame Lott having the most to say. --Paul Tonks