Cyrano de Bergerac

Franco Alfano Cyrano de Bergerac opera to a libretto by Henri Cain. Directed 2007 by Michal Znaniecki at the Palau de les Arts 'Reina Sofia' Valencia. Stars Plácido Domingo (Cyrano), Sondra Radvanovsky (Roxane), Arturo Chacón Cruz (Christian), Rod Gilfry (De Guiche), Corrado Carmelo Caruso (Ragueneau), Roberto Accurso (De Valver), Javier Franco (Carbon), Itxaro Mentxaka (La Duègne/Sister Marthe), Nahuel di Pierro (Le Bret), Silvia Vázquez (Lisa/A Nun), Miguel Sola (Lignière), Juan José Navarro (The Musketeer), Juan Felipe Durá (A Cook), Antonio Lozano Mora (First Sentinel), Antonio Gómez Cano (Second Sentinel), Amadis de Murga (Montfleury), and Rubén Belmonte (A Spanish Officer). Patrick Fournillier conducts the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and the Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana (Chorus Master Francesc Perales). Stage design by Michal Znaniecki; costumes by Isabelle Comte; lighting by Boguslaw Palewicz. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in French. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

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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.