Il turco in Italia

Rossini Il turco in Italia opera to libretto by Felice Romani. Directed 2009 by Elisabetta Courir (after Egisto Marcucci) at the Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova. Stars Simone Alaimo (Selim), Myrtò Papatanasiu (Donna Fiorilla), Bruno de Simone (Don Geronio), Antonio Siragusa (Don Narciso), Vincenzo Taormina (Prosdocimo, a Poet), Antonella Nappa (Zaida), and Federico Lepre (Albazar). Jonathan Webb conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Carlo Felice (Chorus Master Ciro Visco). Set design by Emanuele Luzzati; costumes by Santuzza Cali; choreography and mimic art by Giovanni Di Cicco; lighting by Luciano Novelli; piano by Sirio Restani. Directed for TV by Andrea Dorigo. Sung in Italian. Released 2010, disc has 7.1 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.