"Actor: Valery Gergiev"

• Ruslan And Lyudmila | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £24.99   |  Saving you £-10.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A performance of Glinka's opera 'Ruslan And Lyudmila'.

• Eugene Onegin: Metropolitan Opera (Gergiev) | Blu Ray | (24/02/2014) from £18.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £11.03   |  Saving you £10.96 (99.37%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin performed at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, February 2007.

• Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake (Mariinsky Ballet Orchestra) | Blu Ray | (06/10/2008) from £19.05   |  Saving you £2.94 (15.43%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, performed at the Mariinsky Theatre by the Artists of the Mariinsky Ballet and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, and conducted by Valery Gergiev.

• Shostakovich Against Stalin - The War Symphonies | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Shostakovich - Against Stalin (Gergiev)

• Tchaikovsky - the Nutcracker (Mariinsky Ballet Orchestra) | Blu Ray | (06/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, performed by Artists of the Mariinsky Ballet, Students of the Academy of Russian Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, and conducted by Valery Gergiev.

• Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin | Blu Ray | (06/10/2008) from £22.38   |  Saving you £-0.39 (-1.80%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Eugene Onegin

• Parsifal - The Search For The Grail | DVD | (11/01/2004) from £7.66   |  Saving you £13.59 (212.34%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Parsifal: The Search for the Grail is a documentary that sets Wagner's last opera in its cultural context, tracing the history of the Grail myth back to the Middle Ages, and arguing that any specifically Christian myth goes back no further than that. It acknowledges that Parsifal is Wagner's most problematic opera, as well as one of his greatest, and gives chapter and verse for its role in creating the culturally respectable anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust, as well as discussing other issues like its profound, though eloquently expressed, misogyny. At the same time, it makes what case is possible for the non-aesthetic defence--all of the above is true, and yet it is also an opera about learning compassion, at once poisonous and healing. Placido Domingo is the narrator, taking us through chats with talking heads that range from theologian Karen Armstrong to members of the Wagner family and film clips that range from Monty Python and Indiana Jones to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. He also performs the role in a variety of extracts conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Kirov Opera, reminding us of just how viscerally impressive and lyrically beautiful late Wagner can be. On the DVD: The Search for the Grail is presented in old TV standard 4:3 ration with only PCM stereo sound. It comes equipped with a useful set of chapter headings and with subtitles in English, French, German and Spanish. --Roz Kaveney

• Verdi: La Forza del Destino | DVD | (16/08/2000) from £26.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This is a 1998 performance from the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg of the original 1862 St Petersburg version of Verdi's La Forza del Destino. While the world famous version premiered in Italy in 1867 is the superior work, few will want to miss the rare opportunity to see and hear such a well-staged version of Verdi's first thoughts. Here the earlier libretto by Francesco Maria Piave is restored, the original, considerably darker ending is intact and even the sets are constructed to the 1862 designs. There are other differences, though the story remains the familiar mixture of love, misunderstanding and war, the characters ranging from the nobility to monks, soldiers and gypsies, the tone spanning low comedy to high drama. The result is a lavish production, full of life and vitality, shot through with musical urgency and some tremendously powerful singing. Particularly striking is Gegam Grigorian, making a commanding Don Alvaro, whose role here is rather more expansive than in the later version. Galina Gorchakova reprises her Leonara from the 1997 CD recording of the work with passionate intensity, and conductor Valéry Gergiev keeps the epic scale tightly focused. The direction for video unobtrusively brings out the heart of the drama on stage.On the DVD: The disc is presented at 16:9 and is anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. The result is a good but not exceptional picture with clear PCM stereo sound. Other than the booklet and the option to view with or without subtitles there are no special features. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Valery Gergiev - Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker | DVD | (03/12/2007) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A magical new version of a much loved classic. Filmed in The Mariinsky Theatre St.Petersburg where it was first performed in 1892. Following Decca's beautiful Swan Lake comes another outstanding production on DVD from the Mariinsky Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker yet a Nutcracker with a twist. The 'adult' Nutcracker. Worlds away from the traditional and warm versions popular at Christmas this unconventional production reinterpreted by Russian emigre and world-renowned avantgarde artist Mikhail Shemiakin is surreal and at times disturbing making this DVD an unusual but essential part of any ballet lover's collection. Shemiakin also designs the eye-catching costumes and startling staging. Two of the Mariinsky's young stars Leonid Sarafanov and Irina Golub dance the main roles. Despite the startling aspects of this production none of the spectacle and awe-inspiring quality of their dancing is lost. Valery Gergiev conducts a complete and un-cut version of Tchaikovsky's popular and much-loved score.

• War And Peace - Prokofiev | DVD | (01/04/2004) from £32.38   |  Saving you £-2.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  A performance of Prokofiev's opera at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Valery Gergiev conducts the Kirov Opera Orchestra. Sung in Russian.

• Valery Gergiev Conducts The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra | DVD | (01/07/2002) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (-15.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Valery Gergiev's career knows few bounds, and this concert from the 2000 Salzburg Festival finds him guiding the Vienna Philharmonic through three 20th-century Russian classics with typically edge-of-seat charisma. After a ponderous start, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony goes with style and subtlety. Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto has the extreme emotional range expected of this still-controversial composer, but soloist and dedicatee Yuri Bashmet covers all bases in this powerfully focused account. The concert ends with Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird in its complete 1910 version (ignore what it says in the next-to-useless booklet note). If lacking the vividness that Gergiev's Kirov orchestra would bring to it, there's no doubting the sophistication or the commitment of the Vienna players. Gergiev's conducting grows more unorthodox by the year--at times evoking a shamanistic Max Bygraves--but his energy and communicating zeal are something else. On the DVD: Valery Gergiev conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is presented on DVD in a 16:9 aspect ratio that reproduces Brian Large's incisive direction with the expected clarity; plus there's a choice of PCM Stereo, Dolby 5.1 or DTS options. The special feature--subtitled in four European languages--consists of a chat with Gergiev on Prokofiev and Stravinsky, and a lengthier conversation with Bashmet on his association with Schnittke and the genesis of the Viola Concerto, with enough amusing anecdotes to keep listeners intrigued while listening to the music. --Richard Whitehouse

• Valery Gergiev In Rehearsal | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £16.44   |  Saving you £3.55 (17.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The passionately scruffy St Petersburg conductor gets as impressive and fiery a sound out of the Rotterdam Philharmonic as he does out of his own Kirov/Maryinsky theatre orchestra in Valery Gergiev in Rehearsal. The programme here starts with Stravinsky's early showpiece Fireworks and moves into the brooding neo-classical Piano Concerto with Alexander Toradze as soloist. The heart of the concert is Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, his largely successful attempt to produce a ballet score as radical and shocking as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; Gergiev is passionately committed to this music and sees its heart as being as much caught up with quiet interludes of almost chamber-music dialogues between instruments as it is with the work's huge climaxes. The symphonic fragments from Debussy's oratorio Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien is almost as charismatic a piece of paganism. This is an intelligent concert because it is constructed around an implied dialogue between three composers trying to find a new sound world for the 20th century. The accompanying documentary shows Gergiev at his most charming and Mephistophelean rehearsing the Prokofiev, and gives a full account of the origins of the score. On the DVD: Valery Gergiev in Rehearsal is presented in a standard 4:3 visual aspect and has adequate, though not remarkable, PCM stereo sound. --Roz Kaveney

• New Year's Eve in St. Petersburg - Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall | DVD | (26/11/2007) from £21.58   |  Saving you £1.41 (6.53%)   |  RRP £22.99