Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk on Blu-Ray

Previously released on DVD, the Netherlands Opera recording of
Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Aaron Copland’s score for The City

This disc neatly captures a central dichotomy of the career of composer Aaron Copland.

Tosca at Torre del Lago, 2007

Opera festival DVDs often seem to be produced as tempting advertisements meant to induce viewers to consider a trip to that festival for the next season.

Covert resistance to Hitler — Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus

An anti-facist, anti-war opera written in Germany while the Nazis were in power? K A Hartmann’s Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend was a brave act of conscience, even though the opera wasn’t publicly performed until 1948.

Verdi’s Falstaff (Glyndebourne 2009) on Blu-Ray

Much of the fascination of the new DVD of Verdi’s Falstaff (Glyndebourne 2009) lies in the Richard Jones’s updating: the action takes place in 1946.

Otello (Salzburg Festival 2008) on Blu-Ray

There are two reasons why you need to see the new Otello DVD (Salzburg Festival 2008).

Madama Butterfly, NYCO

Once again, as in L’Etoile, Mark Lamos’s staging and
Robert Wierzel’s lighting nearly steal the show in the City Opera’s
revival of Madama Butterfly.

Harrison Birtwistle: The Minotaur

Premiered on 15 April 2008, The Minotaur is Harrison Birtwistle’s latest opera, and it stands well with the composer’s other stage work.

Eva Marton in Puccini and Strauss

At one point in her career, Eva Marton appeared poised to be the true inheritor of Birgit Nilsson’s legacy roles: Wagner and Strauss’s most dramatic heroines, as well as key Italian roles (Puccini in particular).

Debussy’s PellÈas et MÈlisande

Five years after the premiËre of PellÈas et MÈlisande, Wilhelm
Worringer published the twentieth century’s first great treatise on
abstraction in art: