Rusalka — HDVDARTS

Dvořák Rusalka opera to libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil. Directed 2012 by Stefan Herheim at De Munt/La Monnaie in Brussels. Stars Myrtò Papatanasiu (Rusalka), Pavel Černoch (Prince), Annalena Persson (Foreign Princess), Willard White (Vodnik, the Water Goblin), Renée Morloc (Jezibaba), Ekaterina Isachenko, Younghee Kim, Nona Javakhidze (3 Wood Nymphs), Julian Hubbard (Hunter and Priest), André Grégoire (Butcher), and Marc Coulon (Policeman). Adam Fischer conducts La Monnaie Symphony Orcestra and Chorus (Chorus Master Richard Lewis). Sets by Heike Scheele; costumes by Gesine Völlm; lighting by Wolfgang Göbbel; videos by Fettfilm Berlin; dramaturgy by Wolfgang Willaschek. Sung in Czech. Released 2014, disc has has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

This is a revival of Herheim's 2008 premiere Rusalka production. It appears to be a colorful, modern, surreal telling of the story with intellectual challenges for the audience.

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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.