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• La Scala Collection | DVD | (02/05/2006) from £51.39   |  Saving you £8.60 (16.73%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Various Composers: La Scala Collection - 11 Operas

• Mozart: The Mozart Glyndebourne Collection | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £51.39   |  Saving you £8.60 (16.73%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Six Mozart features: 'Cosi Fan Tutte (1975)' 'Don Giovani (1977)' 'Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail (1980)' 'Idomeneo (1974)' 'Le Nozze Di Figaro (1973)' and 'Die Zauberflote (1978)'.

• A Gala Concert With Joan Sutherland And Marilyn Horne | DVD | (06/08/2001) from £50.23   |  Saving you £-28.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1986 one of opera's legendary partnerships was celebrated in A Gala Concert with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne at Sydney Opera House. Under the musical direction of Sutherland's husband and long term conductor Richard Bonynge, the great soprano and mezzo soprano treated their audience to an epic evening of solos and duets from works with which they had long since become indelibly linked. The concert was preserved and transmitted as an Esso-sponsored night at the opera by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Each diva is given ample room to shine individually. Here in all their glory are Sutherland's "Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille", the mechanical doll's aria from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann and Horne's "Iris, Hence Away" from Handel's Semele. Magical duets include "Serbami Ognor si Fido" (Rossini's Semiramide), "Viens Mallika, les Lianes en Fleurs" (Delibes' Lakme, much-used in their advertisements by British Airways) and of course the "Barcarolle" from Hoffmann. The overwhelming effect is of their passion for the music and the great professional respect and friendship which Sutherland and Horne clearly feel for each other as two of the greatest champions of the bel canto repertoire in living memory. Essential viewing for anyone remotely interested in operatic history. On the DVD: Digitally restored and remastered from the original tape, this disc at least offers the benefit of crystalline PCM stereo sound quality. In all other respects, it is a television production which inevitably shows its age. The curtain calls and long waits between every item, while Horne and Sutherland are fetched singly or together by Bonynge, are interminable and should have been cut. The 4:3 picture format is sharp enough and reveals the cumbersome dullness of the staging in all its glory. But none of this detracts from the wonder of two appealing prima donnas near their vocal peak. --Piers Ford

• Falstaff - Giuseppe Verdi | DVD | (04/11/2002) from £64.14   |  Saving you £-39.15 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The present recording was made at a performance in Busseto Verdi's birthplace in the Emilia Romagna region. There in 2001 a whole series of events marked the 100th anniversary of the composer's death. This Falstaff performance along with Aida staged by Franco Zeffirelli constituted the high point of the impressive anniversary celebrations. The small 328-seat Teatro Verdi built in Verdi's lifetime provided the ensemble of La Scala Milan under its principal conductor Riccardo Muti with a particularly captivating backdrop and the mainly young singers including 31-year-old shooting star Ambrogio Maestri in the title role exciting young tenor Juan Diego Florez as Fenton and internationally acclaimed Barbara Frittoli as Alice - gave superb performances.

• Tosca's Kiss | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £52.55   |  Saving you £-38.56 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Daniel Schmid's film set in a home for retired opera singers in Casa Di Riposa in Milan. Characters are seen re-enacting their greatest moments in a film which centres on the aging process and inspirational music

• La Damnation De Faust - Berlioz | DVD | (03/01/2006) from £54.99   |  Saving you £-35.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Hector Berlioz's (1803-1869) legende dramatique about a man named Faust who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge. Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall in 1989. Georg Solti conducts.

• Wagner-Der Ring Des Nibelunge | DVD | (02/07/2007) from £80.98   |  Saving you £-20.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  This legendary Bayreuth Festival production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen directed by Harry Kupfer with designs by Hans Schavernoch and conducted by Daniel Barenboim is considered perhaps the finest video recording of these four operas ever made. For their innovative modernist staging Kupfer and his team turned away from the work's time of origin and located The Ring at a road of history a meeting-place of past present and future which sets the scene for the story's struggles of power and love. Barenboim's authoritative yet highly responsive reading of the immense score and the extraordinary performances of the cast help to make this a truly memorable Ring.

• Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) -- Vienna/Chailly | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £51.97   |  Saving you £-25.72 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun--partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm--but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic. Anne Murray is an ideal Angelina, equally good at the heroine's witty intelligence and at the complexity of her emotional situation--loyal to the family that mistreats her. Francisco Araiza is an attractive Don Ramirez; the byplay between him and his servant Dandini (Gino Quilico)--in the duet "Zitto, zitto. Piano, piano", for example is for once genuinely amusing. Parts like Don Magnifico were the late Walter Berry's stock-in-trade--his occasionally menacing portrayal is far richer and more interesting than a mere buffoon. On the DVD: As usual with Arthaus Musik, an excellent production and performance is left to sink or swim without any detailed production notes either on the disc or in the leaflet. The sound is standard PCM stereo and the picture ratio 4:3. There are instructions in French, German, English and Spanish and subtitles in all of those languages plus Italian. --Roz Kaveney

• Don Giovanni / Cosi Fan Tutte | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £52.63   |  Saving you £-2.64 (-5.30%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Cosi Fan Tutte:Live from the Zurich Opera House 2000Don Giovanni:Live from the Zurich Opera House 2001

• Giuseppe Verdi - Aida | DVD | (01/02/2010) from £116.08   |  Saving you £-5.09 (N/A%)   |  RRP £110.99

  Concerts By Art Blakey/Dizzy Gillespie/Louis Armstrong Etc

• Helge Burggrabe - Stella Maris Concert and Documentary | DVD | (27/05/2008) from £53.13   |  Saving you £-30.14 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

• Various Composers - Teatro La Fenice Opera Collection | DVD | (29/10/2007) from £60.88   |  Saving you £-15.89 (-35.30%)   |  RRP £44.99

  Teatro La Fenice - Opera Collection:Includes:Daphne.Pia De' Tolomei.Maometto II.Les Pechurs De Perles.Le Roi De Lahore.Thais.

• Jose Carreras Collection | DVD | (02/07/2007) from £66.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £66.99

  Contains the performances:- The Vienna Comeback.- La Grande Notte a Verona.- Frankfurt Concert.- A Bolshoi Opera Night.- Montseratt Caballe and Jose Carreras.- Salzburg Recital.