Author: James Sohre

Videos from the Bayreuth Festspiele typically feature the highest quality audio and video of any live performance documents.

The back cover description of this Medici Arts DVD can fairly be called misleading, though not dishonest.

Although this DVD comes on the Naxos label, an earlier CD version of the same performance went under the Dynamic label, specialists in rare repertory.

Dear non-German speaking Opera Today reader — what’s your first guess as to the meaning of the biggest word in the title of this obscure Johann Strauss operetta?

Will the 22nd century still see the opera-loving world as fascinated by the ongoing saga of the Wagner family as the 20th did and the 21st does?

The only thing truly operatic in this work is the use of the word “opera” in the title.

Besotted admirers of certain lesser-known operas of debatable merit sometimes include conductors, singers and opera house managers with the power to get their cherished rarity on stage.

While the cover of this Decca two-DVD set mirrors that of Cecilia Bartoli’s 2007 CD, Maria, the contents are not identical.

Reading the articles in the booklet for this set, it becomes clear that librettist Colin Graham was the driving force behind this opera’s creation.