"Actor: Mary Hegarty"

• Carmen | DVD | (12/02/2003) from £28.55   |  Saving you £1.44 (5.04%)   |  RRP £29.99

  All too often Bizet's great comic opera Carmen has been pared down to its basic bodice-ripping components, leaving its adored melodies with only torrid clichés to cling on to. Nothing of the sort happens here. David McVicar's 2002 production for Glyndebourne restores it to its rightful place as a stupendous musical entertainment. Bold, lusty, tightly directed and designed in sanguine shades of red and black, this Carmen spills and bustles across the stage and out of the screen like a living painting. At first glance, Anne Sofie von Otter is not an obvious choice for the title role, but just look at how she seizes and inhabits the character, wrenching her from the jaws of dark, sultry stereotype and rendering a complex modern woman. Her Carmen both revels in and is tormented by the ripe sexuality that fascinates her lovers and sets her apart from the other women. Von Otter's interpretation suggests it has its roots in a hinterland of wretched, bitter experience; the "Habanera", the "Gypsy Song" and the "Seguidilla" become multi-layered expressions of hope and desire: we never forget that for all its gusto, Carmen ends up a tragedy. And the men aren't ciphers. Laurent Naouri's proud Escamillo and Marcus Haddock's immature, damaged Don José are rounded, richly sung characters. So too, is Lisa Milne's touching Micaëla. All told, this Carmen is full-length, fibrous and, with conductor Philippe Jordan at the helm, a triumph. On the DVD: Carmen is spread over two discs, presented in anamorphic widescreen format that opens up the stage and capitalises on some refreshingly brisk camerawork. The sound quality (Digital Surround sound) is finely balanced. A rich set of extras includes fascinating short documentaries on various aspects of the production, from stage fights to characterisation and costume design. There's also a useful spoken synopsis and a stroll through the famous Glyndebourne Gardens. --Piers Ford

• Leonard Bernstein: Trouble In Tahiti | DVD | (20/01/2003) from £17.15   |  Saving you £2.84 (16.56%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This new film of Leonard Bernstein's music-theatre piece Trouble in Tahiti, produced by BBC Wales and Opus Arte and directed by Tom Cairns, makes a strong case for a neglected work. Bernstein wrote his satire on American materialism in 1952, drawing on elements of opera, revue and musical comedy to tell a story of a marriage that's turned sour amid the trappings of suburban prosperity. The brevity of the piece, which flashes by in 39 minutes, perhaps accounts for its rare appearances, making this version specially welcome. Tom Cairns directs with style and panache, moving the camera effortlessly to and fro between the seven scenes. Amir Hosseinpour's choreography recalls with affection the heyday of the MGM musical then at its zenith. The film opens with a Greek-style chorus singing in scat jazz fashion to a montage of 1950s imagery: flickering television adverts, manicured lawns and white picket fences. Characters within the narrative appear in flash-back in home video footage. This is all highly diverting and possibly a ruse to mask some dramatic weakness in the story written by Bernstein himself. The wife never offers an explanation for her visit to the cinema to see Trouble in Tahiti instead of attending her son's school play, nor do we see the boy again after witnessing his parents having a tiff. The two principals, Karl Daymond as Sam and Stephanie Novacek as Dinah, are well cast and sing in a natural and pleasing manner with clear diction. The scat vocal trio is well matched and the City of London Sinfonia under Paul Daniel catch the spirit of the jazz inflected score as if it were second nature. On the DVD: Trouble in Tahiti is shot in wide-screen, appropriate for the era that gave us CinemaScope. There are subtitles in German, Spanish and French. A full translation in English is printed in the booklet. The extras include an introduction that partly overlaps with "A Very Testing Piece", in which Paul Daniel touches on the parallel with Bernstein's own unhappy childhood. Humphrey Burton in "Not Particularly Romantic" elaborates on this theme and goes on to offer a further fascinating commentary on Bernstein, whom he knew well. --Adrian Edwards