Tannhäuser — HDVDARTS

Wagner Tannhäuser opera to libretto by the composer. Directed 2014 by Sebastian Baumgarten at the Bayreuth Festspiele. Stars Torsten Kerl (Tannhäuser), Camilla Nylund (Elisabeth, Nichte des Landgrafen), Michelle Breedt (Venus), Markus Eiche (Wolfram von Eschenbach), Kwangchul Youn (Landgraf Hermann), Lothar Odinius (Walther von der Vogelweide), Thomas Jesatko (Biterolf), Stefan Heibach (Heinrich der Schreiber), and Rainer Zaun (Reinmar von Zweter). Axel Kober conducts the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus (Chorus Master Eberhard Friedrich). Stage design by Joep van Lieshout; costume design by Nina von Mechow; lighting design by Frank Evin; video by Christopher Kondek; dramaturgy by Carl Hegemann. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer; produced by Katharina Wagner. Sung in German. Released 2015, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Wagner at Bayreuth is an acquired taste:

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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.