Rite of Spring — HDVDARTS

Stravinsky Rite of Spring and music from The Firebird by Stravinsky. Michael Tilson Thomas directs the San Francisco Symphony in a recent performance of Stravinsky classics as part of the "Keeping Score" outreach program of the San Francisco Symphony. In addition, Thomas narrates an educational program about Stravinsky and Rite of Spring. The concert is in HD; the documentary is in SD. The concert was directed by Gary Halvorson. Otherwise, title was directed and produced by David Kennard, Joan Saffa, and Michael Bronson. Released 2013, disc has 5.1 Dolby TrueHD sound. Grade: NA

You should not be especially impressed with the claim that has "up-sampled 96kHz24 bit sound." See our discussion of this gimmick at our review of San Francisco Symphony at 100.

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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.