La Favorite — HDVDARTS

Donizetti La Favorite opera to a libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz. Directed 2016 by Amélie Niermeyer at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Stars Elīna Garanča (Léonor de Guzmán), Matthew Polenzani (Fernand), Mariusz Kwiecień (Alphonse XI, King of Castile), Mika Kares (Balthazar), Joshua Owen Mills (Don Gaspar), and Elsa Benoit (Inès). Karel Mark Chichon conducts the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and the Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper (Chorus Master Sören Eckhoff). Set design by Alvideoexander Müller-Elmau; costume design by Kirsten Dephoff; lighting design by Michael Baueri. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2017, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Here's the official trailer:

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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.