"Actor: Jean Rigby"

• Albert Herring - Glyndebourne Festival Opera | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Set in an English market town at the turn of 20th century a gangling greengrocer's lad is crowded May King. The break with the tradition of choosing a girl is virtuous enough to May Queen... The comic opera at Glyndebourne was conducted by Bernard Haitink. 'A Vintage production with a vintage cast.' - Sunday Times.

• Handel: Xerxes | DVD | (16/08/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The English National Opera has always had an attractively light touch in Handel; this classic production, designed by Nicholas Hytner (director of The Madness of King George and The Crucible), manages to preserve both the work's occasional passion and its undercutting of that passion into urbane absurdity. Anne Murray's Xerxes is a tyrant in love, who learns the hard way that he can neither play with, nor command, his subjects' affections; her forthright declamatory singing, not least in the famous "Larghetto", conveys both the petulance and the final grandeur of a man undergoing a sentimental education. Valerie Masterson and Christopher Hudson, as the principal pair of lovers, combine perfect singing with an attractive romantic ardour; Hudson in particular makes clear just how heroic a counter-tenor can sound, listened to without preconceptions. In the soubrette role of Atalanta, Lesley Garrett is a cute trouble-maker. Sir Charles Mackerras' conducting gives each of the genre arias of which the work consists both an appropriate intensity of emotion and an overall charm. The English libretto is by Hytner. The recording is decent PCM stereo and the picture, originally produced for TV broadcast, is in 4:3 ratio. --Roz Kaveney

• The Rape Of Lucretia - Britten | DVD | (12/01/2005) from £19.12   |  Saving you £5.87 (30.70%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The English National Opera Orchestra provide sumptuous musical accompaniment to this moving interpretation of 'The Rape Of Lucretia'. The story evokes strong passionate themes as one would expect from a thrilling combination of opera and Greek tragedy. Anthony Rolfe Johnson Jean Rigby Russell Smythe and Kathryn Harries infuse the lead roles with just the right amount of tension and passion making this a fascinating spectacle for the enthralled audience present and now for viewers at home as well.

• Benjamin Britten - Gloriana | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A classic ENO production of Britten's 1953 opera, which has only now received the critical acclaim it deserves.Gloriana came into being when Benjamin Britten was asked to compose an opera to celebrate the Coronation of HRH Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. He took as his starting point Lytton Strachey's Elizabeth and Essex, which had much interested him when he first read it.The opera traces the downfall of the Earl of Essex who, presuming upon his privilege as the Queen's favourite, forces a tragedy upon them both.

• Pelleas Et Melisande | DVD | (27/06/2005) from £24.28   |  Saving you £-6.29 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Debussy's haunting opera Pelleas et Melisande based on a tragic fairy tale recounts the ill fated love of half brothers Golaud and Pelleas for the same woman the enigmatic Melisande. Graham Vick's beautiful fin-de-siecle production for Glyndebourne Festival Opera filmed in 1999 stars Christiane Oelze as Melisande Richard Croft as Pelleas and John Tomlinson as Golaud.