Ballo in maschera

Verdi Un ballo in maschera opera to libretto by Antonio Somma. Directed 2012 by Massimo Gasparon (after Pierluigi Samaritani) at the Teatro Regio di Parma Verdi Festival. Stars Francesco Meli (Riccardo), Vladimir Stoyanov (Renato), Kristin Lewis (Amelia), Elisabetta Fiorillo (Ulrica), Serena Gamberoni (Oscar), Filippo Polinelli (Silvano), Antonio Barbagallo (Samuel), Enrico Rinaldo (Tom), Cosimo Vassallo (Un Giudice), and Enrico Paollilo (UnServo D’Amelia). Gianluigi Gelmetti directs the Orchestra e Coro Del ITeatro Regio di Parma (Concert Master Martino Faggiani). Sets and costumes by Pierluigi Samaritani; lighting by Andrea Borelli; choreography by Roberto Maria Pizzuto. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2013, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Mark Mandel gives this but faint praise in the September 2013 Opera News. Robert J Farr was lukewarm in his assessment for musicweb-international.com. But Robert Cummings writing for classical.net calls this title one of the 5 best opera videos for 2013.

There are a bunch of bootleg videos on YouTube about this Ballo, but we found no official trailer. Please let us know if there is a good official trailer out about this Blu-ray.

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Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.