La rondine — HDVDARTS

Giacomo Puccini La rondine opera to libretto by Giuseppe Adami. Directed 2015 by Rolando Villazón. Stars Dinara Alieva (Magda de Civry), Charles Castronovo (Ruggero Lastouc), Alexandra Hutton (Lisette), Alvaro Zambrano (Prunier), Stephen Bronk (Rambaldo), Noel Bouley (Périchaud), Matthew Newlin (Gobin), Thomas Lehmann (Crébillon), Siobhan Stagg (Yvette), Elbenita Kajtazi (Bianca), Stephanie Lauricella (Suzy), and Carlton Ford (Maggiordomo). Roberto Rizzi Brignoli conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Chorus Master William Spaulding). Set design by Johannes Leiacker; costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel; lighting by Davy Cunningham; choreography by Silke Sense. Sung in Italian. Released 2016, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio. Grade: NA

Gramophone awarded this an "Editor's Choice" in the August 2016 book (page 27).

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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.