"Actor: Jeffrey Wells"

• Verdi: Il Trovatore | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £16.62   |  Saving you £0.37 (2.23%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A performance of Verdi's opera 'Il Trovatore' by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus; conducted by James Levine. Singers include: Eva Marton Luciano Pavarotti Sherril Milnes and Dolora Zajick; directed by Brian Large.

• Fortress | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The story of Fortress takes place in drastically overpopulated America of the year 2017, where each woman is allowed only one pregnancy. John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) flee to Mexico when she becomes pregnant after the death of their first child. They are captured by border police and sent to the Fortress, a subterranean high-security prison owned by the Men-Tel corporation and operated by "Zed-10", an omnipotent computer system, and a sadistic, genetically "enhanced" warden (Kurtwood Smith) who has nefarious plans involving Brennick's wife and unborn child. Along with his cellmates (including Jeffrey Combs, a favourite of director Stuart Gordon), Brennick plots a breakout and Fortress shifts into auto-pilot action mode. After making his reputation with such audacious horror films as From Beyond and Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon graduated to a bigger budget with Fortress but his penchant for exploitation remains deliriously intact. While borrowing elements from a variety of better sci-fi movies, Fortress indulges every prison-flick cliché, but does it with such enjoyable B-movie vigour that it qualifies as a bona-fide guilty pleasure (indeed, it deserves to be ranked with James Cameron's original Terminator in terms of its budgetary ingenuity). Featuring such giddy (and gory) devices as "intestinators" (deadly obedience devices implanted in prisoners' bodies) and a torturous "Mind Wipe Chamber", this is really just a drive-in action movie with lofty ambitions and the schlocky script hasn't a prayer of rising above the level of juvenile popcorn fodder. But there's no denying the energy and enthusiasm that Gordon brings to the film, which understandably became a global box-office hit and spawned a 1999 sequel starring Lambert and Pam Grier. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Wagner: Parsifal | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £18.65   |  Saving you £3.34 (17.91%)   |  RRP £21.99

  A performance of Wagner's opera 'Parsifal' featuring the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Conducted by James Levine. The action takes place in the Middle Ages. At the castle of Monsalvat cut off from the rest of the world the brotherhood of Grail Knights guards the chalice in which the blood of the crucified Saviour had once been caught. In an effort to seize possession of the Grail Klingsor a powerful magician has established his realm at the foot of the mountain peop

• Howard The Duck | Blu Ray | (05/07/2021) from £24.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From executive producer George Lucas and the pages of Marvel Comics comes Howard the Duck, an unbelievably funny comedy about a fast-talking, cigar-chomping, beer-loving duck from a parallel universe who crashes to Earth and somehow winds up in Cleveland. As Howard attempts to return to his own planet, he falls in love with rock singer Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson, Back to the Future) and must battle an evil invader known as the Dark Overlord. This wacky, elaborately produced spoof of life, love, comic books and horror movies featuring out-of-this-world special effects is a treasure the whole family can enjoy.

• Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera -- Metropolitan Opera/Levine | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £15.79   |  Saving you £1.20 (7.60%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A performance of Verdi's opera 'Un Ballo In Maschera' by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra And Chorus; conducted by James Levine. Singers include: Luciano Pavarotti and Aprile Millo. Directed by Brian Large.

• Rossini: Semiramide | DVD | (31/12/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Bel canto can be translated as "pretty singing", and that definition seems tailor-made for this production, which offers grace, charm, and a fine-tuned sense of style in abundance to compensate for its limited psychological and emotional impact. The four principal singers are all specialists in the bel canto style and this opera has played a key role in building their substantial reputations. For its sweeping musical imagination and technical wizardry, Rossini's epic about royal assassination and misdirected lust in the ancient Babylonian Empire deserves a place in any inclusive opera collection, and we are not likely to have a better video recording of Semiramide in the foreseeable future. June Anderson has an attractive appearance and sounds exactly right in the music's florid melodic lines. But she is not dramatically compelling as the wicked queen who had her husband killed and fell in love with a man who turned out to be her long-lost son, Arsace. Marilyn Horne rose to the highest levels of international fame in the role of that conflicted son, and her presence alone would be enough to give this video classic status. Her voice was a bit past its prime when this performance was recorded in 1991, but still there is no other voice quite like it, no other voice so suited to Rossini's heroic mezzo roles. Samuel Ramey is a close bass counterpart to Anderson: great tone, agile florid singing, and a rather wooden but visually appealing stage presence. Sanford Olsen has a small role and sings it near perfectly. James Conlon gets excellent musical results; John Copley's staging is massive and static. --Joe McLellan, Amazon.com

• Vivaldi: Orlando Furioso | DVD | (22/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  For those with any interest in Vivaldi's operas Orlando Furioso is essential viewing, being a 1989 San Francisco Opera revival by Pier Luigi Pizzi of his own 1979 production which was largely responsible for beginning modern interest in Vivaldi's stage work. The composer first premiered Orlando finto pazzo in 1714, but the Orlando Furioso finalised in 1727 was so heavily reworked as to be virtually an entirely new opera, and so successful Handel set the same epic poem by Aristo under the title Alcina in 1735. Vivaldi's opera is not of that calibre, offering rather too much functional recitative and only a handful of truly memorable arias. However, the cast perform with such commitment and style as to make the work thoroughly enjoyable. It is a tale of romantic and magical intrigue on a small island, inevitably echoing Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the classically elegant set-design and colourful costumes evoke a suitable sense of fantasy. Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne makes the title role her own while Susan Patterson is a characterful and strong-minded Angelica. William Matteuzzi makes a sympathetic Medoro, notably outmanoeuvred in love, while as the sorceress Alcina Kathleen Kuhlann is a appropriately complex and powerful in revealing the loneliness at the heart of her corruption. On the DVD: There are no features other than the two trailers which appear on almost all Arthaus releases. The production is presented in the original television 4:3 and the image is little better than a good video. The picture is not especially detailed and too often the performer's faces are slightly out of focus while the sets are pin-sharp. Overall the image suffers the usual problems from originally being shot on professional video, in addition to which some compression artefacting is noticeable. The prologic sound is fine, though appears simply to down mix the main stereo signal to the rear channel and the result is more accurate if switched to straight stereo. --Gary S Dalkin