The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice play. Directed 2015 by Polly Findlay at Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Stars Makram J. Khoury (Shylock), Patsy Ferran (Portia), Nadia Albina (Nerissa), Scarlett Brookes (Jessica), Owen Findlay (Salerio), Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (Bassanio), David Ajao (Jailer), Jamie Ballard (Antonio), James Corrigan (Lorenzo), Eva Feiler (Citizen of Venice), Guy Hughes (Leonardo/Servant), Gwilym Lloyd (Tubal), Rina Mahoney (Portia's Servant/Duke on Venice), Ken Nwosu (Gratiano/Morocco), Brian Protheroe (Aragon), Jay Saighal (Solanio), and Tim Samuels (Launcelot Gobbo). Set design by Johannes Schütz; costume design by Anette Guther; lighting by Peter Mumford; music by Morc Tritschler; sound by Gareth Fry; movement by Aline David; fights by Bret Yount. Directed for TV by Robin Lough; produced by John Wyver. Released 2016, this disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio. Grade: NA

Here's a short clip showing the modern designs for this show:

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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.