Oberto — HDVDARTS

Verdi Oberto opera to a libretto by Temistocle Solera. Directed 2007 by Pier'Alli at the Teatro Regio di Parma Verdi Festival. Stars Giovanni Battista Parodi (Oberto), Francesca Sassu (Leonora), Fabio Sartori (Riccardo), Mariana Pentcheva (Cuniza), and Giorgia Bertagni (Imelda). Antonello Allemandi conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma (Chorus Master Martino Faggiani). Sets, costumes, and lighting by Pier'Alli. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released in 2012, disc has 5.1 dts HD Master Audio Sound. Grade: NA

Buy on Amazon

What's New

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.