La Bohème (HD DVD)

Giacomo Puccini La Bohème opera to libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. Directed 2006 by Giancarlo del Monaco at the Madrid Teatro Real. Stars Inva Mula, Aquiles Machado, Laura Giordano, Fabio Maria Capitanucci, David Menéndez, Felipe Bou, Gonzalo Fernández de Terán, Juan Tomás Martínez, Alfredo Mariotti, Federico Gallar, Mario Villoria, and Francisco Pardo. Jesús López Cobos conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real (Chorus Master Jordi Casas Bayer) and the Children's Chorus of the Comunidad de Madrid (Chorus Master José de Felipe). Design of set and costumes by Michael Scott; lighting by Wolfgang von Zoubek. This was an HD DVD product released in 2008. Disc has 5.0 Dolby TrueHD sound. This was apparently never made available in the U.S. through normal distributions channels. It plays just as well, we think, as the Blu-ray version that came along later. Grade: A

For a mini-review, see our Blu-ray report on this title.