Le nozze di Figaro

Mozart Le nozze di Figaro opera to libretto by Lorenza da Ponte. Directed 2012 by Michael Grandage at Glyndebourne. Stars Sally Matthews (Countess Almaviva), Audun Iversen (Count Almaviva), Vito Priante (Figaro), Lydia Teuscher (Susanna), Isabel Leonard (Cherubino), Ann Murray (Marcellina), Andrew Shore (Bartolo), Sarah Shafer (Barbarina), Colin Judson (Don Curzio), Alan Oke (Don Basilio), and Nicholas Folwell (Antonio). Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Glyndebourne Chorus (Chorus Master Jeremy Bines). Directed for TV by François Roussillon; produced by George Bruell and Toni Hajal. Sung in Italian. Released 2013, 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.