"Actor: Lillian Watson"

• Bizet: Carmen -- film version | DVD | (13/03/2000) from £17.89   |  Saving you £2.10 (11.74%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This movie version of Bizet's popular opera Carmen was filmed on location, conveying a kind of atmosphere, a sense of space, movement, and presence that's hard to achieve in a staged performance. It takes the action out of doors for many scenes, with the opening titles superimposed on the bloody conclusion of a bullfight. Elsewhere the changing of the guard, the crowd scenes, the dance number that opens Act 2, and the panoramic scenery of the smugglers' mountain hideout all benefit from the freedom granted by movie cameras. It's an exciting Carmen, too, with a young-looking Placido Domingo in top form for a role he has sung hundreds of times. For Julia Migenes, though, it was her first performance in a role she would have trouble performing in an opera house. Her voice does not fit easily into Carmen's range, and she spent months training it, very successfully, before singing the role in a recording studio where the soundtrack was taped before the film was shot. Casting her in the role was a gamble, but it worked; she is a convincing actress. Unlike most opera-house performances this movie version uses the opera's original opera comique form with some spoken dialogue rather than recitatives.--Joe McLellan, Amazon.com

• Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail - The Royal Opera - Mozart | DVD | (01/11/1997) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Mozart's comic masterpiece is set in a Turkish palace and tells the exciting and amusing story of the 'escape from the harem'. In this acclaimed production from The Royal Opera by Elijah Moshinsky filmed in 1988 the Turkish atmosphere is created by Timothy O'Brien's imaginative set of garden and crumbling palace strikingly complemented by Sir Sidney Nolan's colourful front and backcloths. The Spanish nobleman Belmonte is ably sung by Deon van der Walt and his beloved Konstanze is sung by Inga Nielsen with both dramatic conviction and brilliant secure coloratura. The actor Oliver Tobias gives a sensuous and powerful performance in the speaking role of Pasha Selim and Lillian Watson is a charming Blonde.

• Orpheus In The Underworld | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Eurydice is married to Orpheus but has started an affair with a local shepherd called Aristaeus. However Aristaeus is really Pluto in disguise and he becomes so besotted with Eurydice that he lures her to a field where she is bitten by a snake. He then reveals his true identity and whisks her away to Hades so they can be together. Orpheus now a free man is happy about this new situation until his mother insists he rescues Eurydice from Hades. Meanwhile King Of The Gods Jupiter ha

• Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail - Mozart | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £16.18   |  Saving you £-1.19 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera 1980

• Mozart - Mitridate, Re Di Ponto (Daniel, Vick) | DVD | (30/06/2008) from £12.25   |  Saving you £2.74 (18.30%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Mitridate, Re Di Ponto

• Mitridate Re Di Ponto - Mozart | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £18.98   |  Saving you £22.00 (137.59%)   |  RRP £37.99

  A performance of Mozart's opera in three acts 'Mitridate Re Di Ponto' performed by The Royal Opera conducted by Paul Daniel and choreographed by Ron Howell. Singers include: Annn Murray Justin Lavender and Luba Orgonasova.