Mozarts beliebte Oper "Die Zauberflöte" unter der Leitung von Wolfgang Sawallisch - jetzt erstmals auf DVD erhältlich! 1983 live aufgenommen, zeigt diese Produktion aus der Bayerischen Staatsoper eine der bekanntesten Opern überhaupt - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts "Die Zauberflöte" in der Inszenierung von August Everding. Edita Gruberova als begehrteste Königin der Nacht der Welt, Francisco Ariza als einer der berühmtesten Taminos unserer Zeit, machen neben anderen Weltstars der Oper (Kurt Moll, Lucia Popp, Wolfgang Brendel, u.a.) diese Produktion zu einem Fest für Augen und Ohren. Eingerahmt und kongenial geleitet wird dieses Ensemble von Wolfgang Sawallisch. "Zeigt das Ernsthafte - vergesst aber den Humor nicht" - mit dieser Einstellung beweist Everding in dieser einzigartigen Inszenierung sein Genie auf dem Gebiet der Opernregie. Diese Zauberflöte ist ein absolutes Muss für alle Opernfans.

Gioachino Rossini's Messa di Gloria of 1821, right in the middle of the years when he ruled the operatic scene, has been less often recorded than the free-spirited and personal Stabat Mater of his old age. Various reasons could be advanced for this comparative neglect. Stacked up against Rossini's operas of the period it's something of a mixed bag. Some of it is intensely operatic, but it also looks back to the past with its giant contrapuntal "Cum sancto spiritu" (the mass consists of a Kyrie and Gloria). From the point of view of the cult of individual Romantic genius, a major problem is that Rossini may have had a collaborator on the work, one Pietro Raimondi, who honed some of the more polyphonic passages.

The renowned orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan, who headed up the world famous Berlin Philharmonic between 1956 and 1989, is filmed conducting a 1982 performance of Verdi's wonderful FALSTAFF. Filmed at Salzburg's Salzburger Osterfestspiele, the performance features strong performances from stars Giuseppe Taddei, Janet Perry, and Christa Ludwig.

This acclaimed La Scala performance of "Don Giovanni" instantly took its place among the most important Mozart productions. Thomas Allen, hailed as one of the best British baritones ever, gives an engaging and seductive performance as the famous lover. Under the baton of Riccardo Muti, this La Scala production highlights all of the tragic grandeur of this masterpiece without sacrificing its lighthearted moments. Director Giorgio Strehler's staging has been lauded for its subtle psychological treatment of the characters.

its many virtues include a formidable Queen of the Night in Luciana Serra, an adorable Pamina in Kathleen Battle, and vivid, primary-colour designs by David Hockney. James Levine paces everything to perfection.

Così fan tutte is the third most-frequently performed work at the festival after Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte. This DVD provides a closer look at a classical staging from the Salzburg Festival in the series of important opera productions seen at the festival in the last decades. Riccardo Muti had made a sensational Salzburg début in 1971 and this Così fan tutte was his first Mozart opera at the festival. It was acclaimed by both the general public and international critics, who were virtually unanimous in their praise of the aesthetic quality of the production. Muti was praised for his authoritative approach to Mozart’s music, while the remarkably homogeneous team of international soloists was equally applauded. The singers form an admirably cohesive ensemble and all of them are outstanding Mozart singers.

Riccardo Muti had made a sensational Salzburg debut in 1971, and this Cosi fan tutte was his first Mozart opera at the festival. It was acclaimed by both the general public and international critics, who were virtually unanimous in their praise of the aesthetic quality of the production. Muti was praised for his authoritative approach to Mozart's music, while the remarkably homogeneous team of international soloists was equally applauded. The singers form an admirably cohesive ensemble and all of them are outstanding Mozart singers.

Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann is among those operas with most textual problems, since the composer did not live to its premiere, leaving an incomplete score. The traditional text, bringing in extra material, much of it unauthentic, and leaving out alot, was only established in the 20th century. This Dresden recording sessions were held (June 1987-June 1989) borrowed much from Michael Kaye's 1991 Schott Edition.

How this opera grows in the affections. And how it strengthens the larger, ever-deepening appreciation not merely of Donizetti's work but of operatic conventions as such. I mean that the frequently derided forms of opera (the set pieces, aria-and-cabaletta and so forth) can increasingly be a source of pleasure and of perceived power in the writing. Here, for instance, part of the exhilaration arises out of the composer's skill in suiting the conventions to his dramatic and musical purposes. Elizabeth's first aria, meditatively hopeful yet anxious, fits the lyric-cantabile form; then the arrival of Talbot and Cecil with their opposing influences provokes the intensified turbulence of irresolution that makes dramatic sense out of the cabaletta. It is so with the duets and ensembles: they look like conventional set-pieces, but established form and specific material have been so well fitted that, with the musical inspiration working strongly (as it is here), you have opera not in its naive stage awaiting development towards freedom from form but, on the contrary, opera at the confident height of a period in its history when it was entirely true to itself.

This is one of those great Rossinian singing competitions in which everyone–and, in particular, the listeners–wins. Composed as a piece of occasional entertainment for the coronation of Charles X in Paris, Rossini borrowed liberally from his recent comic success Le Comte Ory and fashioned a musical necklace chock filled with one shiny bauble after another. Each character has a showpiece aria, from the highs of soprano Cecilia Gasdia as a melodramatic poetess all the way down to the basso realms of Samuel Ramey and Ruggero Raimondi. The ensembles are as delicious as the solos, and Claudio Abbado, in a very theatrical mood (this was recorded live) keeps everything going wittily and with great elan. The plot is practically nonexistent, but with singing like this, it's hard to complain.

The production and video direction are by British film-maker Ken Russell who puts his own stamp on the production. Russell told an interviewer he felt the plot was "silly" so he turned Marguerite into a young nun, eliminated the Walpurgis Night ballet, had Marguerite use sign-language for Valentin's deaf-mute children, and had Mephistopheles disrespectfully urinating in the stoup in church. However, the overall effect is visually engrossing, the vivid sets and costumes by Karl Toms are effective. And the singing is outstanding.

Filmed in 1979, this delightful staging by Otto Schenk features outstanding singer-actresses Gwyneth Jones, Brigitte Fassbaender and Lucia Popp. Der Rosenkavalier is Richard Strauss’s most popular opera and the greatest comic opera since Mozart. Premiered just three years before the start of the First World War, the opera traces the artistic heritage of the Austrian-Hungarian empire in the days of Mozart, where the story is set, to the morbid distraction of the Viennese Art Nouveau.

Rossini's Stabat Mater was performed publicly in its final form in Paris on January 7, 1842. The first six sections of this ten-movement work had been composed earlier, on commission from Don Francesco de Varela, for an 1833 Good Friday performance in Madrid (with the last four movements written by Giuseppe Tadolini). The work was received enthusiastically in both of its incarnations and has remained a core piece of the choral repertory ever since.

The most comprehensive edition devoted to Gioachino Rossini marking his 150th anniversary.
Born in 1792, Rossini was the most popular opera composer of his time. Although he retired from the Opera scene in 1829, he continued to compose in other genres, including sacred music, piano and chamber works. He did gather his late works under the ironic title Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), which veils a true collection of masterworks.

La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun–partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm–but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic.