Salzburg Festival Opening Concert 2011

The 2011 Opening Concert for the Salzburg Festival consists of:

Berg Der Wein
Berg Lulu Suite
Mahler Das Klagende Lied

Pierre Boulez conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Concert Chorus of the Vienna State Opera (Chorus Master Jörn H. Andresen). Soloists are Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Anna Prohaska (soprano), Anna Larsson (contralto), and Johan Botha (tenor). Directed for TV by Michael Beyer. Released 2012, disc has 5.1 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.