Don Giovanni (Álvarez)

Mozart Don Giovanni opera to libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Directed 2005 by Lluis Pasqual at Teatro Real Madrid. Stars Carlos Álvarez (Don Giovanni), Alfred Reiter (Commendatore), María Bayo (Donna Anna), José Bros (Don Ottavio), Sonia Ganassi (Donna Elvira), Lorenzo Regazzo (Leporello), José Antonio López (Masetto) and María José Moreno (Zerlina). Víctor Pablo Pérez conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Real (Chorus Master Jordi Casas Bayer). Sets by Ezio Frigerio; costumes by Franca Squarciapino; lighting by Wolfgang von Zoubek; choreography by Nuria Castejón. Directed for TV by Robin Lough. Sung in German. Released 2010, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B+

This Pasqual/Pérez take has nice design and great ensemble singing, but none of the women singers manage to be interesting or funny.

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Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.