Il Farnace — HDVDARTS

Vivaldi Il Farnace opera to a libretto by Antonio Maria Lucchini. Directed by Marco Gandini at the Teatro Lirico di Calgliari. Stars Mary-Ellen Nesi (Farnace), Delphine Galou (Berenice), Sonia Prina (Tamiri), Loriana Castellano, (Selinda), Emanuele D’Aguanno, (Pompeo), Roberta Mameli (Gilade), and Magnus Staveland (Aquilio). Actors are Carmelo Galati and Carlo Riccioli. Federico Maria Sardelli conducts the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Chorus Master Dario Shikhmiri. Features Giulia Nuti on harpsichord, Simone Vallerotonda on theorbo and baroque guitar, and Michele Tazzari on basso continuo. Set design by Italo Grassi; costume design by Italo Grassi and Simona Morresi; light design by Valerio Tiberi; video design by Virginio Levrio. Directed for TV by Matteo Ricchetti. Sung in Italian. Released 2015, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

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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.