"Director: Graham Vick"

• The Rape Of Lucretia - Britten | DVD | (12/01/2005) from £19.12   |  Saving you £5.87 (30.70%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The English National Opera Orchestra provide sumptuous musical accompaniment to this moving interpretation of 'The Rape Of Lucretia'. The story evokes strong passionate themes as one would expect from a thrilling combination of opera and Greek tragedy. Anthony Rolfe Johnson Jean Rigby Russell Smythe and Kathryn Harries infuse the lead roles with just the right amount of tension and passion making this a fascinating spectacle for the enthralled audience present and now for viewers at home as well.

• Eugene Onegin - Glyndebourne Festival Opera | DVD | (21/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Graham Vick s acclaimed production of Eugene Onegin for Glyndebourne Festival Opera was premiered and recorded in the first season of Glyndebourne s new opera house in 1994. Pushkin s tale of doomed love tragedy and rejection is set against an acutely observed backdrop of Russian society with spectacular choruses and dances yet in a staging of breathtaking simplicity. The star of this production is undoubtedly Russian soprano Elena Prokina an enthralling singing actress whose shy

• Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £20.02   |  Saving you £6.23 (33.21%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This Glyndebourne production of Pique Dame ("The Queen of Spades") received rave reviews when it appeared in 1992 due to its claustrophobic intensity and powerful acting, and these qualities help it to transfer to DVD with great success. Graham Vick's direction ensures that the story is told clearly and simply but includes a wealth of telling details: the pastoral scene from Act 2, for example, uses the boys from the opening chorus as comical sheep and the effect is enchanting. But there are much darker undertones too: Richard Hudson's slanting, angular designs produce a disorientating atmosphere which mirrors Herman's increasing mental deterioration with uncanny precision. There is a brilliant stroke of visual assonance when the Countess returns to haunt Herman and all the furniture from her death scene appears on the roof. The singing is generally good, though Yuri Marusin's voice may not be to everyone's taste; sometimes he sounds like he's shouting, and his frequent lack of vibrato produces a piercing, uncomfortable effect. Nancy Gustafson is a fine Lisa, however, and Dimitri Kharitonov (Yeletsky) is heartbreaking in the famous "Ya vas lyublyu" ("I love you") aria. For overall better singing but a more plodding production, try the 1992 Kirov recording, but for spine-tingling drama this is the one to go for. On the DVD: Pique Dame on disc has subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish. The camerawork captures the odd angularity of the designs and gives an excellent account of a fast-paced, powerful production.--Warwick Thomson

• Berg: Lulu - Glyndebourne Festival Opera | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Alban Berg's second and last opera Lulu is one of the monuments of modernism, constructed around serial technique and containing scenes conceived of as Sonata-form, Suite and so on. The bliss of Andrew Davis's conducting in this classic Glyndebourne production is that we forget all of this--Davis doesn't gloss over the music's intellectual content, but that's not what we think about as we watch and listen. Part of the production's strength is the prodigious performance by Christine Schafer as Lulu--for once we believe in the character's sexual energy and power; and Schafer makes her real enough as a person that we largely forget the work's intrinsic misogyny. The rest of the cast are admirable too: Norman Bailey brings something perversely sweet to the disreputable painter Schigolch; Kathryn Harries makes the dying words of Lulu's lesbian lover Geschwitz one of the work's lyric high points; David Kuebler is equally powerful as Alwa. The final duet between Lulu and her destroyer Jack the Ripper is one of Wolfgang Schone's great moments, but he is equally good as Dr Schon, the man Lulu marries and kills. This is a performance of energy and beauty, matched by a simple but effective production. On the DVD Lulu on disc is presented in disappointingly in NTSC format with a 4:3 picture ratio. Fortunately, the Dolby 2.0 digital sound is ideal for the fine detail of this complex score and these nuanced performances. There are subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. --Roz Kaveney

• 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

• Ermione - Glyndebourne Festival Opera | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £68.99   |  Saving you £-51.00 (-283.50%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Rossini's rarely performed 'opera series' Ermione was a surprise hit when it was first performed at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1995. Set in Troy after the fall of the city to the Greeks this tragedy of great histrionic force concentrates on the bitter struggle for the love of Pyrrhus between Hector's widow Andromache and the jealous Ermione sister of Helen of Troy. Graham Vick sets this highly effective production in the classically-inspired auditorium of an

• Verdi: Otello -- La Scala/Muti | DVD | (19/09/2003) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (150.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Riccardi Muti conducts a performance of Otello at the La Scala Theatre before the start of a three year renovation project.

• Verdi: Falstaff -- Royal Opera House | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £30.24   |  Saving you £-5.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This Graham Vicks production of Falstaff opened the new Covent Garden Royal Opera House, but was not to everybody's taste; the garish primary colours of the costumes, especially Falstaff's unusually hideous get-ups, go several steps beyond the Breughelian effect Vicks intended. The staging is effective--the complicated counterpoint of the ensembles is reflected in unobtrusive blocking that keeps the vocal lines clear and separate, especially in the final fugue. Bryn Terfel's Falstaff is a memorable creation, self-mocking and self-aggrandising at the same time--so much so, in fact, that he almost does not need the vast prosthetic body he has to wear for the part. Desiree Rancatore is an admirably sweet-toned Nanetta; Bernadette Manca di Nissa an appropriately sardonic Mistress Quickly; Roberto Frontali as Ford, in his Act 2 scena, perfectly distils and parodies every jealousy aria ever written, including Verdi's own. Haitink's conducting is exemplary in the lyrical passages, and gets almost everything out of the fast and furious comic sections. --Roz KaveneyOn the DVD: The disc comes with act introductions by James Naughtie, interviews with Haitink, Terfel and Graham Vicks and a documentary about the reaction of the stage-hands to the new building. It has scene selection and subtitles in English. --Roz Kaveney

• Handel: Tamerlano | DVD | (02/03/2009) from £35.09   |  Saving you £-0.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Tamerlano (2 Dvd)

• Lucia Di Lammermoor | DVD | (20/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Gaetano Donizrtti (1797-1848)Lucia Di LammermoorEnrico Robert FrontaliLucia Stefania BonfadelliEdgardo Marcelo AlvarezArturo Cristano OlivieriRainmondo Mirco PalazziAlisa Maria CastelliMnormanno Giovanni MainiRecorded live at the Teatro Carlo Felice Genova June 2003 Directed for TV and Video by Andrea Dorigo

• Tamerlano, opera by George Frideric Handel (Teatro Real, Madrid 2008) | Blu Ray | (02/03/2009) from £29.86   |  Saving you £5.13 (17.18%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Tamerlano (2 Blu-Ray)

• Puccini; La Rondine | Blu Ray | (29/06/2009) from £32.38   |  Saving you £-2.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Dal teatro di Venezia "La Fenice", dal vivo l'opera di Giacomo Puccini.

• Manon Lescaut - Glyndebourne Festival Opera - Puccini | DVD | (07/05/2007) from £15.72   |  Saving you £5.26 (41.32%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Manon Lescaut Puccini's first major success is a work of impassioned emotions based on the 18th-century novel by Abb Prvost depicting the doomed infatuation of Chevalier des Grieux for beautiful fun-loving Manon. Puccini clothes the story in warmly passionate music that makes a direct appeal to the listener's emotions. This production by Graham Vick for Glyndebourne Festival Opera which was filmed in 1997 stars Romanian soprano Adina Nitescu as the ill-fated Manon American tenor Patrick Denniston as Des Grieux and Italian baritone Roberto de Candia as Lescaut. The conductor is John Eliot Gardiner.