Don Carlo — HDVDARTS

Verdi Don Carlo opera to a libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry. Directed (year not given) by Joseph Franconi Lee at the Teatro Comunale "Luciano Pavarotti" in Modena. Stars Giacomo Prestia (Filippo II), Mario Malagnini (Don Carlo), Simone Piazzola (Rodrigo), Luciano Montanaro (Il Grande Inquisitore), Paolo Buttol (Un Frate), Cellia Costea (Elisabetta di Valois), Alla Posniak (La Principessa Eboli), Irène Candelier (Tebaldo/Una Voce dal Cielo), Giulio Pelligra (Il Conte di Lerma), and Marco Gaspari (Un Araldo Reale). Fabrizio Ventura conducts the Orchestra Regionale Dell'Emilia-Romagna and the Coro Lirico Amadeus-Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena (Chorus Master Stefano Colò). Sets and costumes by Alessandro Ciammarughi; lighting by Nevio Cavina; choreography by Marta Ferri. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2013, 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.