"Actor: Luigi Roni"

• La Traviata | DVD | (07/06/2007) from £15.85   |  Saving you £-5.86 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Verdi La TraviataHere is the opera event of 2005, the Salzburg Festival's La Traviata featring Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, and Thomas Hampson In a dramatic staging by Willy Decker - this is the trilling production that prompted riotous ovations not seen since Karajan's heyday.This standard-version DVD is also available as a premium-edition 2 DVDset with additional behind-the-scenes material.

• La Fanciulla Del West | DVD | (21/05/2004) from £15.25   |  Saving you £-5.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Puccini's Wild West opera based on Belasco's play The Girl of the Golden West has the California gold rush as its dramatic backdrop for a story in which Minnie the only woman in a mining camp gambles on her one chance of happiness. Lorin Maazel conducts a fine cast in Jonathan Miller's 1991 production of the compelling and evocative opera which Puccini himself considered his best work. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Rossini - Il Barbiere Di Siviglia (Abbado) | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £14.09   |  Saving you £5.90 (41.87%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jean-Pierre Ponnelle directed this film of Rossini's comic masterpiece four years before filming Mozart's Figaro. The result was an irresistibly entertaining and musically rewarding film starring Hermann Prey as Beaumarchais's scheming barber of Seville. The other main roles in Ponnelle's Barber are taken by four of the most celebrated Rossini interpreters of the past decades: Teresa Berganza as the cunning heroine Rosina Luigi Alva as her devoted suitor Count Almaviva Enzo Dara as the long-suffering outfoxed Dr. Bartolo and Paolo Montarsolo as the shifty music master Don Basilio.

• Verdi - La Traviata (Netrebko, Villazon) | DVD | (03/12/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Here is the opera event of 2005 the Salzburg Festival's La traviata Rolando Villazon and Thomas Hampson in a dramatic staging by Willy Decker - the thrilling production that prompted riotous ovations not seen since Karajan's heyday.

• Umberto Giordano - Fedora | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £19.51   |  Saving you £8.47 (51.27%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Giordano: Fedora (Gavazzeni / Freni / Giordano / Umberto)

• I Due Foscari | DVD | (20/08/2004) from £9.19   |  Saving you £0.80 (8.71%)   |  RRP £9.99

  I due FoscariGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)Renato Bruson takes the role of the Venetian Doge - Francesco Foscari - in Verdi's dark three-act tragedy based on a drama by Lord Byron set in 15th century Venice. Giandrea Gavazzeni directs the 1988 La Scala production of a work that is hailed among the best of Verdi's early operas and that led him to a career of operatic immortality. Unlocked from the archives of RAI television this is a classic recording from one of the world's great opera houses.

• Falstaff - Giuseppe Verdi | DVD | (04/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (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.

• Verdi - La Traviata (Maazel, Gheorghiu) | DVD | (01/09/2008) from £20.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (24.95%)   |  RRP £24.99

  La TraviataLive from the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, 2007

• Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) -- La Scala | DVD | (19/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Like all successfully filmed operas, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1974 film of his 1972 La Scala production of The Barber of Seville weaves its magic on multiple levels: naturalistic lighting and camera-work which break through the invisible barrier of the proscenium arch and take the viewer to the heart of the action; wonderful casting and magnificent singing; opera singers who can act to the camera (Teresa Berganza, in particular, is luminous); and conducting which simply revels in the richness of a much-loved score (Claudio Abbado wrings every ounce of levity and brilliance from the music). Rossini's 1816 work, based on Beaumarchais' Figaro characters and an earlier libretto by Paisiello, is one of the great joys of comic opera, crammed with familiar arias and duets, all of which drive the galloping pace of the book without ever interrupting the plot. Its ingredients of romance, disguise and intrigue merge in Rossini's extraordinarily vibrant and increasingly explosive score. At the heart of the tale is the love triangle of Count Almaviva (a lusty Luigi Alva), the wilful Rosina (Teresa Berganza at the peak of her mezzo-soprano powers) and her guardian with an ulterior motive Bartolo (Enzo Dara, constantly foiled). Thanks to the machinations of Figaro (Hermann Prey, making the most of his trademark theme "Largo al factotum") they are put through a series of hoops in which love conquers all and no real harm is ever done. On the DVD: If this Barber has dated at all it's largely thanks to Abbado's pudding-basin haircut and the film's inevitable 1970's quality. It is presented in standard 4:3 format with a PCM Stereo soundtrack, producing a merely average video-standard viewing experience. Apart from a good choice of subtitles there are no extras. A history of the production would have been useful. But these shortcomings, and the occasionally dull sound quality, are soon forgotten in the heat of the action.--Piers Ford

• Manon Lescaut - Puccini | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  TDK presents a recording of Puccini's heart-breaking opera from one of the best opera houses of the world featuring star tenor Jose Cura and remarkable soprano Maria Guelghina as the two inseparable lovers. Riccardo Muti music director of La Scala at the time of this performance gives full weight to the alternation of social realism and private amatory psychology of crowds and intimacy body and spirit. And the director of this Milan production the famous Italian film director Liliana Cavani provides it with a realistic setting. Every scene looks like a genre painting from which Puccini's psychograms emerge musically. This forms the background for the two outstanding singer actors who take the lead roles.