Tristan und Isolde

Wagner Tristan und Isolde opera to libretto by the composer. Directed 2015 by Katharina Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival. Stars Stephen Gould (Tristan), Evelyn Herlitzius (Isolde), Georg Zeppenfelds (König Marke), Iain Paterson (Kurwenal), Raimund Nolte (Melot), Christa Mayer (Brangäne), Tansel Akzeybek (Ein Hirt), Kay Stiefermann (Ein Steuermann), and Tansel Akzeybek (Junger Seemann). Christian Thielemann conducts Orchester der Bayreuther Festpiele and the Chor der Bayreuther Frestpiele (Chorus Master Eberhard Friedrich). Set design by Frank Philipp Schlößmann and Matthias Lippert; costume design by Thomas Kaiser; dramaturgy by Daniel Weber; lighting design by Reinhard Traub; video design by Marco Kies and Markus Spona. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer. Sung in German. Released 2016, disc has 5.0 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.