"Director: Jurgen Flimm"

• Schubert: Alfonso Und Estrella | DVD | (02/02/2009) from £24.65   |  Saving you £0.34 (1.38%)   |  RRP £24.99

• Mozart: Don Giovanni -- Zurich/Harnoncourt | DVD | (12/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  In this Zurich Opera House staging of Mozart’s darkly comic cautionary fable Don Giovanni the lighting and stage design keep the characters shaded in half-shadow: even Zerlina’s wedding feels like a subdued affair here, and the Don’s banqueting room is a suitably gloomy venue for the Stone Guest’s climactic visit for a spot of dinner and damnation. Both this staging and video director Brian Large’s filming play no tricks with the audience’s expectations, opting for a largely traditional presentation of this tragedy of swaggering bravado, cuckolded lovers and revenge from beyond the grave. Nikolaus Harnoncourt brings all the sensitivity of his historically informed approach to the orchestra pit. Heading a very strong cast are Rodney Gilfry, defiantly strong-voiced but also haughtily handsome as the seducing Don, and Cecilia Bartoli, a mercurial presence as Donna Elvira. Their scenes together crackle and fizz, even when Bartoli’s extremely ripe vibrato contrasts a little uncomfortably with Harnoncourt’s authenticity. Liliana Nikiteanu makes for a pretty, naïve Zerlina, convincingly torn between her Masetto (Oliver Widmer) and the animalistic attraction of the Don. Laszlo Polgar’s Leporello is wheedling and base, but still the inheritor of his master’s charisma; Isabel Rey and Roberto Sacca are solid as the colourless moralists Anna and Ottavio; while Matti Salminen’s powerful Commendatore isn’t expected to do anything more than stand still and declaim. Overall this is an excellent musical performance, unexceptionally staged. On the DVD: Don Giovanni on disc has a good 24-minute "Behind the Scenes" feature, including interviews with Cecilia Bartoli, Harnoncourt, Gilfry and Isabel Rey. There’s also a trailer for other ArtHaus releases. The 16:9 picture sometimes struggles to bring definition to the dimly lit sets; sound though is crisp and clean PCM stereo or Dolby 5.1. There are subtitles in five languages. --Mark Walker

• King Arthur - Purcell | DVD | (29/08/2005) from £28.93   |  Saving you £6.06 (20.95%)   |  RRP £34.99

  A dramatic opera in five acts.A performance from the Salzburger Festspiele recorded live at the Felsenreitschule 24-28 July 2004.

• Fidelio | DVD | (05/10/2006) from £22.15   |  Saving you £2.84 (12.82%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A performance of the Beethoven's Fidelio. James Levine conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

• La Traviata - Verdi | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £23.95   |  Saving you £1.04 (4.34%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A performance of Verdi's opera performed live from the Zurich Opera House in 2005.

• Fidelio - Beethoven | DVD | (18/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Ludwig van Beethoven - FidelioRecorded live at the Opernhaus Zurich 15 February 2004.