Articles and Reviews

This website is about high-definition video recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, painting, and sculpture. We call these recordings "HDVDs." Below this welcome are hundreds of stories about HDVDs. But first check out the Index of Titles/Alphalist to the left, which is the best thing about this site.

With the help of confrere William Alexander Huang, we have set out standards for grading HDVDs of symphonic orchestra recordings. We just applied those standards to a re-review and re-grading of the three New Year's Concert discs we now have. (Check the Alphalist for the new grades, etc.)

At long last, we now have two HDVDs about fine-art paintings; both dealing with the art and life of Vincent van Gogh. The better title is called simply Vincent Van Gogh. It offers 2 and 1/2 hours of wonderful images of paintings and drawings with expert discussion from art historians at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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Entries in Dynamic (2)

Thursday
Feb092012

Madama Butterfly

Puccini Madama Butterfly opera to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. Directed 2007 by Stefano Vizioli at the Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago. Stars Elmira Veda, Annmaria Popescu, Sally Wilson, Carlo Barricelli, Luca Salsi, Emanuele Giannino, Manrico Signorini, and Giovanni Guagliardo. Laurence Gilgore conducts the Puccini Festival Orchestra and Chorus. Released 2012, version  is available only in Blu-ray. The disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: Help!

Please help us by writing a comment that we can place here as a mini-reivew of this title.

Monday
Jan092012

La gazza ladra

Rossini La gazza ladra opera to a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini. Directed 2007 by Damiano Michieletto at the Rossini Opera Festival. Stars Paolo Bordogna, K. Papatheologou, Dmitry Korchak, Mariola Cantarero, Alex Esposito, Michele Pertusi, Manuela Custer, Stefan Cifolelli, Cosimo Panozzo, Vittorio Prato, and Matteo Ferrara. Lü Jia conducts the Orchestra Haydn Di Bolzano e Trento and Prague Chamber Choir. Released in 2012, disc has dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: Help!

Please help us by writing a comment that we can place here as a mini-review of this title.