Cypres — New Titles/Journal

Ekstasis short musical “films.” Jean-Baptiste Barrière directs 6 short avant-garde audio/visual recordings:

Kaija Saariaho Nocturne with violinist Aliisa Neige Barrière (6:20)
Kaija Saariaho NoaNoa with flutist Camilla Hoitenga (8:05)
Kaija Saariaho Lonh with soprano Raphaële Kennedy (16:00)
Jean-Baptiste Barrière Crossing the Blind Forest with flutist Camilla Hoitenga (11:06)
Jean-Baptiste Barrière Violance with violinist Aliisa Neige Barrière (19:22)
Jean-Baptiste Barrière Ekstasis with soprano Raphaële Kennedy (15:39)

Package includes a Blu-ray video disc and a CD of the music.

What's New

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.