L’italiana in Algeri

Rossini L'italiana in Algeri opera to a libretto by Angelo Anelli. Directed 2018 by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier at the Haus für Mozart as part of the Salzburg Festival. Stars Cecilia Bartoli (Isabella), Ildar Abdrazakov (Mustafà), Edgardo Rocha (Lindoro), Alessandro Corbelli (Taddeo), José Coca Loza (Haly), Rebecca Olvera (Elvira), and Rosa Bove (Zulma). Jean-Christophe Spinosi conducts the Ensemble Matheus and the Philharmonia Chor Wien (Chorus Master Walter Zeh). Set design by Christian Fenouillat; costume design by Agostino Cavalca; lighting design by Christophe Forey; video design by Étienne Guiol. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Richard Osborne at pages 123-124 of the 2019 Gramophone Awards Issue declares this production of L'italiana in Algeri to be “as good as any of us is ever likely to see.” Here’s a trailer from C Major:

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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.