Saul — HDVDARTS

Handel Saul oratorio (tagged opera here) to libretto by Charles Jennens. Directed 2021 by Claus Guth at the Theater and der Wien. Stars Florean Boesch (Saul), Jake Arditti (David), Anna Prohaska (Merab), Giulia Semenzato (Michal), Rupert Charlesworth (Jonathan), David Webb (Abner / High Priest / Doeg), Rafał Tomkiewicz (Witch of Endor), and Andrew Morstein (Amalekite). Christopher Moulds conducts the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Chorus Master Erwin Ortner). Set and costume design by Christian Schmidt; lighting design by Bernd Purkrabek; choreography by Ramses Sigl; video design by Arian Andiel; dramatic advisor was Yvonne Gebauer. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in English. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

According to Richard Wigmore, writing in the May 2022 Gramophone (page 101), Guth’s hyper-grim version of Saul is the perfect antidote for Barry Kosky’s riot-of-color treatment of the oratorio at Glyndebourne. Wigmore praises the singers as stage animals “throwing themselves with gusto into their roles” as well as the chorus and orchestra under Moulds. No one survives with honor except Saul’s younger daughter Michal, “bereft at the close but still unambiguously sympathetic.” These old Bible stories are designed to scour your soul, and Guth does so with grit and acid.

Here’s a trailer from C Major:

John Osborn, Irene Roberts, Nina Minasyan, Christine Rice, Ermonela Jaho, Erwin Schrott, Chorus of the National Opera Rotterdam Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Rizzi staged by Tobias Kratzer The "superb, sinister" Tales of Hoffmann at the Dutch National Opera with "excellent soloists, the impressive John Osborn" (Theaterkrant) and "Christine Rice, a vocally and physically voluptuous Giulietta" (bachtrack.com), "mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts, who plays and sings brilliantly" (Groene Amsterdammer) and "Erwin Schrott, singing the four villains for the first time, made it look like a blast."

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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.