Blu-ray
Bizet: Carmen in 3D (The Royal Opera)
Christine Rice (Carmen); Bryan Hymel (Don José); Aris Argiris (Escamillo); Maija Kovalevska (Micaëla); Elena Xanthoudakis (Frasquita); Paula Murrihy (Mercedes); Harry Nicoll (Le Remendado); Adrian Clarke (Le Dancaine); Nicolas Courjal (Zuniga); Dawid Kimberg (Morales);
"This staging lends itself specially well to film in many ways. It’s as colourful as the music ... Rice’s dark good looks make her a good choice for the part. Her singing is precise and attractive ... Argiris’s Escamillo is much deeper than the usual flashy image...Kovalevska’s Micaëla on the other hand was superb from beginning to end." (Opera Today)
Britten: Billy Budd (Glyndebourne)
John Mark Ainsley (Captain Vere); Jacques Imbrailo (Billy Budd); Philip Ens (Claggart);
"Elder's unerring sense of theatre puts him absolutely at one with the stage in every episode. He's clearly the guiding spirit of this Billy Budd. The production has been directed with laudable unobtrusiveness by Michael Grandage...Video director Francois Rousillon does exceptional work here, with the precision of HD a constant pleasure. Opus Arte's recorded sound is superb." (International Record Review)
Britten: Death In Venice (English National Opera)
John Graham-Hall (Gustav von Aschenbach); Andrew Shore (Traveller/Elderly Fop/Gondolier/Barber/ Hotel Manager/Player/Dionysus); Tim Mead (Apollo); Sam Zaldivar (Tadzio); Laura Caldow (The Polish Mother); Mia Angelina Mather/Xhuliana Shehu (Her Two Daughters); Joyce Henderson (The Governess); Marcio Teixeira (Jaschiu, Tadzio’s friend); Deborah Warner (Director); Edward Gardner (Conductor);
"Edward Gardner necessarily conducted the score as if he believed in every note of it; there is every reason to think that he did." (Seen and Heard International)
Britten: Gloriana (The Royal Opera)
Susan Bullock (Queen Elizabeth I); Toby Spence (Earl of Essex); Patricia Bardon (Countess of Essex); Mark Stone (Lord Mountjoy); Kate Royal (Lady Rich); Jeremy Carpenter (Sir Robert Cecil); Clive Bayley (Sir Walter Raleigh); Brindley Sherratt (Ballad Singer); Paul Daniel (Conductor); Richard Jones (Director);
"[Director, Richard Jones] paints the picture with a delicate brush and an affectionate humour which also allows deeper emotion to shine through: his staging of the apotheosis in which reality dissolves into a hallucinatory newsreel is both moving and surprising..." (The Daily Telegraph)
Britten: Peter Grimes (Teatro alla Scala)
John Graham-Hall (Peter Grimes); Francesco Malvuccio (Boy); Susan Gritton (Ellen Orford); Christopher Purves (Captain Balstrode); Felicity Palmer (Auntie); Ida Falk Winland (First Niece); Simona Mihai (Second Niece); Peter Hoare (Bob Boles); Daniel Okulitch (Swallow); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Mrs Sedley); Christopher Gillett (Rev. Horace Adams); George Von Bergen (Ned Keene);
"... the thrilling baton-wielding of Robin Ticciati, whose enthusiastic yet disciplined conducting earns him a standing ovation from a La Scala Orchestra that emerges as polished, urgent and surprisingly at ease with Britten’s score. There is strength from first to last among the soloists, three of whom (Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Christopher Gillett and Stephen Richardson) would go on to repeat their roles this year at the centenary staging of “Grimes on the (Aldeburgh) Beach”. As Grimes, John Graham-Hall is every bit as intense as he was in ENO’s recent revival of Britten’s Death in Venice." (Classical Source)
Britten: The Rape of Lucretia (English National Opera/Aldeburgh)
Sarah Connolly (Lucretia); Christopher Maltman (Tarquinius); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Bianca); Mary Nelson (Lucia); Leigh Melrose (Junius); Clive Bayley (Collatinus); Orla Boylan (Female Chorus); John Mark Ainsley (Male Chorus); Paul Daniel (Conductor); David McVicar (Director);
"... the cast is so superb and Paul Daniel's conducting so sure-footed. Every element in Britten's score needs to glow with beauty. The 13 ENO instrumentalists deliver gloriously. Christopher Maltman's ferocious, magnetic Tarquinius distils all the charisma and youthful sexuality that the music describes. Sarah Connolly's Lucretia is powerful and robust yet strangely sexless, almost boyish. The opera is a feast of musical moments. The simplicity and directness of McVicar's staging ensures that every detail in text and vocal lines gets attention, and McVicar uses the Coliseum's wide stage space brilliantly." (The Evening Standard)