Here's info about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, performance art, and paintings. On our home page you see the latest stories. Go to the Alphalist (left navigation bar) to see our archives with hard-to-find critical reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.
June 1, 2024. After 14 years of working as weekend warrior on this website (2008 to 2022), my day job forced me to pause this project until I can retire and get back into my home theater. The website now has pretty solid coverage of Blu-ray discs of fine arts titles published thru the end of 2022. We remain the only website that slices the entertainment that way (best of the best). Our coverage is spotty for 2023 and nil for 2024.
After 2022, the publishers of fine-arts Blu-ray titles slowed down. The industry has covered most of the best stuff. For example, we now have reviews on 10 versions of Swan Lake from good ballet houses.
During the last 14 years we screened 2000+ Blu-ray title fine-arts recordings that might meet our high standards. We excluded nearly a third of these titles as “impostors” mostly for poor content or quality. We now have about 1450+ line items on the Alphalist. And we also have a list of titles we excluded for poor quality. And see our Special Stories for special recommendations about the best titles.
Finally, here a tip about reading our home page. Full reviews are at the top. The latest items are at the bottom. The current latest new item is the Bruckner 11 Box Set with the Vienna Phil conducted by Thielemann.
Hank McFadyen
Read MoreRachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 2 concert. Performed 2022 at the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern as part of the Lucerne Festival. Riccardo Chailly conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Features pianist Mao Fujita. The full program is as follows:
Directed for TV by Ute Feudel; produced by Paul Smaczny; Director of Photography was Nyika Jancsó. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A for the piano concerto and B for the symphony.
Fujtia, about 24 at the time, is excruciatingly polite and self-effacing. He opened this show before a festival audience with a lot of empty seats. When he first appeared I wondered: can he really do this? But when he plays, he has both brilliant skill and a magnetic personality: half imp of the perverse and half kid in a kandy store. You become convinced that what you are seeing is the greatest thing that ever happened to him. The audience slurped him up and rewarded him with an instant standing ovation. Probably none of this would come across from a CD—hurry for Blu-ray!
In the symphony performance it was fun to see my two favorite brass players sitting side by side (Reinhold Friedrich on trumpet and Jörgen van Rijen on trombone) among other familiar faces. Something else you can’t get from a CD.
But this performance of the symphony suffers from dvditis, that evil tendency to chop the video up into (1) too many short clips with too many closeups of the musicians and the conductor and (2) not enough long-range shots of sections and the whole orchestra.
The industry is still too bogged down with old DVD habits. But the time is coming when Blu-ray will finally take over the market and DVD will be recognized as obsolete. Then the industry will have to shoot all the orchestral classical canon over again for viewing with high-def TVs. So for dvditis I reduce the grade on the concerto from A+ to A and the grade on the symphony from A+ to B.
I decided not to include a bunch of screen shots with this story as I found a couple of videos that do this well enough. One of them even offers free screening of the entire title (at least for a while).
Read MoreSleeping Beauty ballet. Music by Tchaikovsky. Directed and choreographed in 2022 by Christian Spuck at Opernhaus Zürich. Stars Michelle Willems (Aurora), Esteban Berlanga (Prince Désiré), Lucas Valente (King), Inna Bilash (Queen), William Moore (Carabosse), Jan Casier (Lilac Fairy), Cohen Aitchison-Dugas, Matthew Bates, Dominik White Slavkovshý, Wei Chen, and Mark Geilings (Faries) as well as many other dancers from Ballett Zürich and the Junior Ballett. Robertos Šervenikas conducts the Philharmonia Zürich. Set design by Rufus Didwiszus; costume design by Buki Shiff; lighting design by Martin Gebhardt; dramaturgy by Michael Küster and Christian Spuck. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer; produced by Paul Smaczny. Released 2023, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A- with the ‽ designation.
Spuck has been an important choreographer, primarily in Stuttgart and Zürich, since 1996. We have reviewed 5 ballet HDVDs from Spuck on this website mostly from his productions for Ballet Zürich. His Sleeping Beauty premiered in 2020, but closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The show on this disc was recorded in June 2022. Spuck recently became artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin for the 2023/24 season, where he will serve the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin, and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Spuck likes to inject classical ballet and music titles with jarring psychological twists. A bizarre twist here is his creation of 3 mother/father time characters who are always available as the set turns. They have long hair and skirts like women but have beards. They do little other than sit, appear weird, and sometimes slowly look at their oversize watches . . .
Read MoreAnna Karenina ballet. Choreographed 2017 by John Neumeier to music from Tchaikovsky, Alfred Schnittke, and Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam. Inspired by the Tolstoy novel but set in modern times. Recorded 2022 at the Hamburg State Opera. Stars Anna Laudere (Anna Karenina); Edvin Revazov (Alexie Vronski); Ivan Urban (Alexie Karenin); Aleix Martínez (Levin); Emilie Mazoń (Kitty); Marià Huguet (Seryozha); Karen Azatyan (A Muzhik); Patricia Friza (Dolly); and Florian Pohl (Stiva). Nathan Brock conducts the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra. Staging, sets, costumes, and lighting by John Neumeier; Anna Karenina dressed by Akris-Albert Kriemler; video and graphic designs by Kiran West; assistant set designer was Heinrich Tröger. Directed for TV by Myriam Hoyer. Especially good bonus feature. Ballet runs 225 minutes and Bonus runs 67 minutes. Released 2023, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+.
Forget about our usual desire to see long ballet clips showing the whole stage and whole bodies of the dancers. Here Neumeier and film director Myriam Hoyer set out to make a motion picture to be shown first on TV. This show has many details that will please those who know Tolstoy’s novel or do their homework. If you get this under control, you can take reading Anna off your bucket list and move on to something like Brothers Karamazov . . .
Read MoreHandel Theodora opera to libretto by Thomas Morell. Directed 2022 by Katie Mitchell at the Royal Opera. Stars Julia Bullock (Theodora), Jakub Józef Orliński (Didymus), Ed Lyon (Septimius), Gyula Orendt (Valens), Joyce DiDonato (Irene), and Thando Mjandana (Marcus). Harry Bicket conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera and the Royal Opera Chorus (Chorus Master William Spaulding). Actors/dancers are Holly Weston and Kelly Vee. Other actors are Aquira Bailey-Browne, Ben Clifford, Sarah Northgraves, and David Rawlins. Set design by Chloe Lamford; costume design by Sussie Juhlin-Wallén; lighting design by James Farncombe; movement direction by Sarita Piotrowski. Directed for TV by Peter Jones. Sung in English. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C
Theodora is usually considered an oratorio or a dramatic oratorio. But if you bring in Katie Mitchell, it’s going to be an opera. Mitchell’s modern-times overlay was controversial, but most critics who saw this live were ecstatic about the cast and the music. Handel wrote an Organ Concerto in G Minor for performance with Theodora. The organ piece was usually performed by Handel as a bonus extra, perhaps at an intermission. The Royal Opera here cuts the Organ Concerto.
Katie Mitchell likes to divide her stage into little boxes that get shifted around . . .
Read MoreSpringtime in Amsterdam is a unique performance art piece recorded in 2021-2022 as a motion picture. The book is by Christof Loy, who dreams up a complex story built on 18 pieces of popular music from operettas, musical theater, and national song books. Naxos calls this “joyful”, and there is much humor here. But the overwhelming moral weight of the project is our concern for the fate of the abused woman Theresa. Her pain is excruciating, and this is underscored by Loy’s ironic use of relatively lightweight music. Seven opera singers created roles in this production. Loy rewards six of them by naming each of their characters in the book after the singers who created the roles: Annette Dasch is Annette; Thomas Oliemans is Thomas; Theresa Kronthaler is Theresa; Norman Reinhardt is Norman; Henk Poort is Henk; Sunnyi Melles is Sunnyi. The small role of Matthias is played by Barry Atsma. Loy requires all his singers to be ready to sing, speak, dance, and act at movie-star levels. It also seems that half the artists in Amsterdam got into this somehow, and there are exhaustive credits for all of them in the keepcase booklet. Marko Letonja directed the Chorus of the Dutch National Opera, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metropole Orchestra, and the Dutch String Collective. The motion picture was directed by Loy. Stef Kwinten was director of photography. Sung in Dutch, English, and German. Released 2023, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+ with the ‽ and 💓 designations. . .
Read MoreThe Taming of the Shrew ballet inspired by the Shakespeare play. Music by Kurt-Heinz Stolze after Domenico Scarlatti. John Cranko choreography (created 1969) performed 2022 by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Stuttgart State Theatre. Stars Elisa Badenes (Katherina), Jason Reilly (Petruchio), Veronika Verterich (Bianca), Martí Fernández Paixà (Lucentio), Alessandro Giaquinto (Gremio), Fabio Adorisio (Hortensio), Angelina Zuccarini and Daiana Ruiz (Two Ladies of the Street), Rolando D’Alesio (Battista), and Matteo Crockard-Villa (Innkeeper/Priest). Wolfgang Heinz conducts the Orchestra of the State Theatre Stuttgart. Set and costume design by Elizabeth Dalton; artistic supervision by Reid Anderson. Disc includes an especially nice bonus extra with helpful discussion by members of the production team. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer. Released 2023, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+
This is a sparkingly new production of one of the rarest creatures in the garden of the arts—a comic classical ballet. It follows closely the basic structure of Shakespeare’s war of wits and barbed tongues. But how do you do this with artists who don’t speak and women on point? Well, with brilliant acting, clever staging and props, vaudeville-style physical comedy, and every other trick in the book including even a juggling act with a lute . . .
Read MoreThe Dante Project ballet. Original music by Thomas Adès. Book and choreography by Wayne McGregor. Stars Edward Watson (Dante); Gary Avis (Virgil), and Sarah Lamb (Beatrice) supported by many dancers of the Royal Ballet. Stage and costume designs by Tacita Dean; lighting by Lucy Carter and Simon Bennison; staging and assistant choreography by Amanda Eyles, Jenny Tattersall, and Mikaela Polley. Koen Kessels conducts the London Symphony Orchestra (Sergey Levitin concertmaster), Simon Halsey conducts the London Symphony Chorus. Directed for TV by Ross MacGibbon. Released 2023, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C-
Every great ballet starts with great music. The music here was composed by Thomas Adès specifically for this production. It is all appropriate for the action taking place on the stage. But it is uniformly acerbic and dissonant with lots of percussion, brass, and noise. If you are a fan of Adès or of this style of music, you will be pleased. I don’t like his style. An hour and 45 minutes of Adès is a strain for me no matter how good the dancing is.
The best thing about this show is . . .
Read MoreEine Winterreise performance art work seen 2022 at Theater Basel, Switzerland. Based on music by Franz Schubert. Staged by Christof Loy. Stars are:
Anne Sofie Von Otter, who sings, acts, speaks, and dances (a bit) as Schubert’s Soul
Nicolas Franciscus, who acts, dances, and speaks as the Doppelganger, i.e. Schubert as a man
Giulia Tornarolli, who dances and acts the role of Viola, who represents Schubert’s circle of adoring admirers
Kristian Alm, who acts the role of Schober, Schubert’s bohemian friend, who probably introduced Schubert to The Courtesan
Matilda Gustafsson, who dances and acts as The Courtesan, who probably infected Schubert with syphilis
Kristian Bezuidenhout, who plays himself as Pianist
Claudio Rado, who appears briefly as Violinist
Set and costumes by Herbert Murauer; lighting by Roland Edrich; dramaturgy by Niels Nuijten. Directed for TV by Friedrich Gatz. Sung in German. Released 2023, disc has only stereo sound. Grade: A
The recording of this piece has 25 tracks of Schubert music . . .
Read MoreGrigory Sokolov at Esterházy Palace concert. Sokolov plays three Haydn sonatas, 5 Schubert Impromptus, and encores. Released 2022, this title includes 2 CD sound-only recordings plus a Blu-ray disc. The Blu-ray disc has a video of the concert (lasts 2 hours) directed by Nadia Zhdanova. The full concert is as follows:
Haydn Piano Sonata No. 32
Haydn Piano Sonata No. 47
Haydn Piano Sonata No. 49
Schubert Impromptus 1-4 from D. 935
Schubert Impromptu 4 from D. 899 (encore)
Rameau Le rappel des oiseaux (encore)
Schubert Hungarian Melody (encore)
Chopin Prelude No. 15 “Raindrop” (encore)
Griboyedov Waltz in E minor (encore)
Debussy Des pas sur le neige (encore)
The blu-ray disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+
Sokolov is a Russian who is mostly interested in solo live piano recitals, which he performs usually on tour . . .
Read MoreStarstruck ballet. Music by George Gershwin and Chopin. Choreography by Gene Kelly as reconstructed and embellished by Christopher Hampson. Directed 2021 by Oscar Sansom at the Scottish Ballet. Stars Sophie Martin (Star Ballerina/Aphrodite), Christopher Harrison (Choreographer/Zeus), Bruno Micchiardi (Pianist/Eros), Javier Andreu (Sweetheart Man/Lifeguard), Roseanna Loney (Sweetheart Woman/Girl with Ponytail), and Nicholas Shoesmith (Stagehand). Also features dancers Aisling Brangan, Grace Horler, Grace Poulley, Melissa Parsons, Kayla-Maree Tarantolo, Rimbaud Patron, Noa Barry, Hannah Cubitt, Alice Kawalek, Amy McEntee, Xolisweh Ana Richards, Anna Williams, Matthew Broadbent, James Hobley, Jamie Reid, Simon Schilgen, Eado Turgemen, Alarón Venegas, Pablo Dorado Calderon, Stevie Winning, and Helen Katamba. Jean-Claude Picard conducts the Scottish Ballet Orchestra. Designs and set by Lez Brotherston; lighting by Lawrie McLennan; artistic collaboration by Patricia Ward Kelly; guest rehearsal coaching by Alexandra Worral. No credit available for the video file. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B
Here we have a merger of classical ballet and American movie dancing. It originated in a 1960 piece called Pas de Dieux by Gene Kelly that was commissioned and performed by the Paris Opera Ballet . . .
Read MorePaquita ballet. Music by Édouard Deldevez and Ludwig Minkus, recomposed by Yuri Krasavin. Choreography by Marius Petipa revived by Sergei Vikharev and Slava Samodurov. Libretto by Paul Fouché and Joseph Mazilier. Conception by Pavel Gershenzon; musical direction by Fyodor Lednyov. Directed 2021 by Slava Samodurov at the Ural Opera Theatre, Ekaterinburg. Stars Ekaterina Malkovich (Paquita), Arsenti Lazarev (Lucien d’Hervilly), Maxim Klekovkin (Iñigo), Victor Mekhanoshin (Don Lopez de Mendoza), Kamila Beknazarova (Seraphine), Anton Guzeev (Count d’Hervilly), Nadezhda Shamshurina (Countess d’Hervilly), and dancers from the Ural Opera Ballet. Pavel Klinichev conducts the Orchestra of the Ural Opera Ballet. Set design by Alyona Pikalova; costumes by Elena Zaytseva; lighting by Aleksander Naumov; choreography assistant was Klara Dovzhik. Produced by François Duplat. Directed for TV by Bertrand Normand. Released in 2022, disc has 2.0 PCM stereo sound. Grade: A -
Paquita was the first full ballet staged by Petipa in Russia (1846). The plot is simple: The governor of Spain in the Napoleon era is trying to get a Gypsy King to kill Lucien, a young French army officer. Paquita, a gypsy girl, saves Lucien’s life. What reward can the poor Gypsy girl get for this? Turns out she was . . .
Read MoreBACH: The Art of Life (Deluxe Edition) piano solo recital by Daniil Trifonov recorded October 2021 before a live audience at the Berlin Philharmonie. The major work presented was The Art of the Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach. Other shorter pieces were:
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Johann Sebastian Bach (arr. Myra Hess)
Sonata No. 5 in A Major by Johann Christian Bach
Polonaise No. 8 in E Minor by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Rondo in C minor by Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach
Directed for TV by Andreas Morell. Sound recorded with 24-bit/96 kHz files. Audio output in PCM Stereo, 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio, and Dolby Atmos. Video recorded in 1080i High Definition. Released 2022 in a “Deluxe Edition” with two audio CDs, audio on a Blu-ray disc, and a Blu-ray video of the entire live recital by Trifonov at the Philharmonie. Grade: A+ with the 💓 designation.
Trifonov’s BACH: The Art of Life project with DG has come out in a confusing array of editions and formats with different content. It was hard for me to tell for sure from advertisements for this title whether the Blu-ray disc in fact has a HD video of Trifonov playing this music. It does.
Please note there is no DVD video of this. I think this may be the first time a classical music video has been issued by a major western publishing company in Blu-ray HD video only. This is in itself a huge milestone . . .
Read MoreJean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville Titon et l’Aurore (Tithonus and Aurora) opera to a libretto by Claude-Henri de Fusée. Directed 2021 by Basil Twist at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Stars Reinoud Van Mechelen (Titon), Gwendoline Blondeel (L’Aurore), Emmanuelle de Negri (Palès), Marc Mauillon (Éole), Julie Roset (Amour), Renato Dolcini (Prométhéé) as well as Virginie Thomas, Maud Gnidzaz, and Juliette Perret (Nymphes). William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants. Set and puppet design by Basil Twist; video design by Daniel Brodie; lighting design by Jean Kalman. Directed for TV by François Roussillon. Sung in French. Released 2021, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B+
When Italian singers in 1752 got a hit staging Pergolesi’s La serva padrona in Paris, the War of the Clowns broke out. The French counterattack was Mondonville’s Titon et l’Aurore. It premiered in Paris in 1753 (the year George Washington turned 21). The audience was mostly French soldiers. They packed the best seats to defend the local performers from partisans of Italian opera, who were forced into the upper galleries . . .
Read MoreStefano Landi La morte d’Orfeo opera to a libretto by an anonymous author. Directed 2018 by Pierre Audi at the Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam. Stars Cecilia Molinari (Teti/Nisa/Lincastro/Euridice/Euretti), Renato Dolcini (Fato/Fileno), Alexander Miminoshvili (Ebro/Giove), Gaia Petrone (Aurora/Fosforo), Rosina Fabius (Euretti), Juan Francisco Gatell (Orfeo), Kacper Szelążek (Mercurio/Bacco), Emiliano Gonzales Toro (Ireno/Apolline), Salvo Vitale (Furore/Caronte), and Magdalena Puta (Calliope/Euretti). Christophe Rousset conducts Les Talens Lyriques. Set design by Christof Hetzer; costume design by Robby Duiveman; lighting design by Bernd Purkrabek; dramaturgy by Klaus Bertisch. Directed for TV by Misjel Vermeiren. Sung in Italian. Released 2020, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+
Landi’s La morte d’Orfeo was first performed in 1619, just 12 years after Monteverdi composed his L’Orfeo. Landi takes up the story where Monteverdi left off with Orfeo mourning the second death of his wife . . .
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