Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Kurt Weill Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny opera to libretto by Bertolt Brecht. Directed 2010 at the Teatro Real by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa of La Fura Dels Baus. Stars Jane Henschel (Leocadia Begbick), Donald Kaasch (Fatty "the bookkeeper"), Willard White (Trinity Moses), Measha Brueggergosman (Jenny Smith), Michael Köning (Jim MacIntyre), John Easterlin (Jack O'Brien/Tobby Higgins), Otto Katzameier (Bank-Account Bill), and Steven Humes (Alaska-Wolf Joe). Pablo Heras-Casado conducts the Orquesta y Coro del Teatro Real, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, and the Coro Intermezzo (Chorus master Andrés Máspero). Sceneography by Alfons Flores; costumes by Lluc Castells; lighting by Urs Schönebaum. Directed for TV by Andy Sommer; produced by François Duplat. The original German text by Brecht was translated into English by Michael Feingold, and this is sung in English! There are subtitles in English, Spanish, French, and German. We assume the German subtitles would be the original text from Brecht. 16-year old Released 2011, disc 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.