Belshazzar — HDVDARTS

Handel Belshazzar opera to a libretto by Charles Jennens. Directed 2008 by Christof Nel with Martina Jochem at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Stars Kenneth Tarver (Belshazzar), Rosemary Joshua (Nitocris), Bejun Mehta (Cyrus), Kristina Hammarström (Daniel), and Neal Davies (Gobrias). René Jacobs conducts the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor (Chorus Master Tim Brown). Sets by Roland Aeschlimann; costumes by Bettina Walter; lighting by Olaf Freese; directed for TV by Don Kent. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Here's a decent clip even if it's in SD:

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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.