La Belle Hélène

Offenbach La belle Hélène opera to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Directed 2014 by Renaud Doucet. Stars Jun-Sang Han (Pâris), Peter Galliard (Ménélas), Jennifer Larmore (Hélène), Viktor Rud (Agamemnon), Rebecca Jo Loeb (Oreste), Christian Miedl (Calchas), and Anat Edri (Bacchis). Gerrit Priessnitz conducts the Philharmoniker Hamburg and the Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper (Chorus Master Eberhard Friedrich). Set and costume design by André Barbe; lighting design by Guy Simard; choreography by Renaud Doucet; dramatic advisor was Kerstin Schüssler-Bach. Directed for TV by Marcus Richardt. Sung in French. Released 2015, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio Sound. Grade: NA

This is a comic opera inspired by Homer. It’s not considered an operetta. Here’s a trailer from the Staatsoper Hamburg:

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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.