"Actor: Monte Pederson"

• Beethoven: Fidelio | DVD | (31/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Beethoven's lone opera Fidelio had a troubled gestation, as its no fewer than four overtures suggest. The finished product, while obviously a work of genius, exposes its patchwork qualities even in the best of productions. Luckily, the 1991 staging by the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, is so lucid and intelligent that the opera--a forceful plea for freedom, even in the most severely dictatorial regimes--comes across as both a forceful drama and a thought-provoking "message".Stage director Adolf Dresen, together with set designer Margit Bardy and lighting designer Erich Falk, presents the characters (which on paper have a tendency to remain "types") as fully human, their interactions made understandable and plausible not only by Beethoven's humanising music but also the realistic period settings. Video director Derek Bailey has succeeded admirably at getting this across for the home viewer as well. Musically, this Fidelio is a whirlwind, with conductor Christoph von Dohnányi leading the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera Chorus in an energetic but never too-fast performance (by the way, they perform the fourth overture); and the singers are top-notch vocally and dramatically. Soprano Gabriela Benacková makes an arresting, emotionally complex Leonore, and Josef Protschka as her imprisoned husband, Florestan, brings down the house with his impassioned aria at the beginning of Act II. --Kevin Filipski, Amazon.com

• Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress | DVD | (20/11/2001) from £22.39   |  Saving you £2.60 (11.61%)   |  RRP £24.99

  When this Salzburg Festival production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress hit the stage in 1996, the reviews in the British press were red hot. Unfortunately Peter Mussbach's staging, though it has moments of theatrical flair, doesn't translate smoothly to the small screen in this live recording: his grand visual metaphors--an aeroplane that never takes off and stage-hands in anti-Enlightenment monkey costumes--look somewhat pinched. But Sylvain Cambreling's pacy conducting and the central performances come across with 1,000-watt energy. Dawn Upshaw is outstanding as Anne Trulove, bringing as much careful detail to her acting as she does brilliance to her vocal technique; and her performance of the Act I aria and cabaletta, "No word from Tom ... I go, I go to him", must rank among the best ever recorded. Jerry Hadley, dressed as a mullet-haired "yoof" in heavy-metal T-shirt and jeans, doesn't quite have the clarity and vocal agility of, say, Philip Langridge as Tom Rakewell, but the amusing yobbishness of his acting suits his louder redder-blooded performance beautifully. Rich-voiced Jane Henschel is hilarious as Baba the Turk, and uses her large frame with dainty, tippy-toe comic effect. On the DVD: the production is judiciously directed by Brian Large: there are plenty of carefully placed reaction shots, unobtrusive camera movements and there's an overall sense of a highly charged live performance. The recording levels, though generally excellent, occasionally offer a muffled phrase or two. There are subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish but no other special features. --Warwick Thompson