Orphée aux enfers

Offenbach Orphée aux enfers opera to a libretto by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. Directed 2019 by Barrie Kosky at the Haus für Mozart as part of the Salzburg Festival. Stars Joel Prieto (Orphée), Kathryn Lewek (Eurydice), Marcel Beekman (Aristée/Pluton), Martin Winkler (Jupiter), Max Hopp (John Styx), Anne Sofie von Otter (L’Opinion publique), Vasilisa Berzhanskaya (Diane), Lea Desandre (Vénus), Frances Pappas (Junon), Nadine Weissmann (Cupidon), Rafał Mawnuk (Mars), and Peter Renz (Mercure). Enrique Mazzola conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vocalconsort Berlin (Chorus Master David Cavelius). Set design by Rufus Didwiszus; costume design by Victoria Behr; lighting design by Franck Evin; choreography by Otto Pichler; dramatic advisor was Susanna Goldberg. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer. Sung in French. Released 2020, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Here’s a clip from Marcel Beekman’s YouTube channel:

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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.