Idomeneo — HDVDARTS

Mozart Idomeneo opera to a libretto by Giovanni Battista Varesco. Directed 2019 by Robert Carsen at the Teatro Real, Madrid. Stars Eric Cutler (Idomeneo), David Portillo (Idamante), Anett Fritsch (Ilia), Eleonora Buratto (Elettra), Benjamin Hulett (Arbace), Oliver Johnston (High Priest of Neptune), and Alexander Tsymbalyuk (The Voice of Neptune). Ivor Bolton conducts the Teatro Real Orchestra and Chorus (Chorus Master Andrés Máspero). Stage design by Robert Carsen and Luis F. Carvalho; costume design by Luis F. Carvalho; lighting design by Robert Carsen and Peter van Praet; choreography by Marco Berriel; video design by Will Duke. Directed for TV by François Roussillon. Sung in Italian. Released 2020, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Here's a trailer from the Teatro Real:

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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.