This title has two shorter operas, both directed by Peter Sellers and connected by the same stage setting at Teatro Real:
Tchaikovsky Iolanta opera to a libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky. Stars Ekaterina Scherbachenko (Iolanta), Alexej Markov (Robert), Pavel Cernoch (Vaudémont), Dmitry Ulianov (King René), Willard White (Ibn-Hakia), Vasily Efimov (Alméric), Pavel Kudinov (Bertrand), Ekaterina Semenchuk (Marta), Irina Churilova (Brigitta), and Letitia Singleton (Laura). Sung in Russian.
Stravinsky Perséphone to a libretto by André Gide. Stars singers Dominique Blanc (Perséphone), Paul Groves (Eumolpe) as well as dancers Sam Sathya (Perséphone), Chumvan Sodhachivy (Déméter), Khon Chansithyka (Pluton) (Cambodian dance group Amrita), and the Pequeños Cantores chorus. Sung in French.
For both productions: Teodor Currentzis conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real and young singers of the JORCAM (Chorus Master André Máspero); set designs by George Tsypin; costume design by Martin Pakledinaz & Helen Siebrits; lighting design by James F. Ingalls. Directed for TV by Ángela Álvarez Rilla. Released 2012, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
In the June 2014 Gramophone (pages 102-103), Richard Lawrence wrote an article on recordings (in all formats) of one-act operas. Lawrence praises subject title Iolanta Blu-ray as the third best one-act opera recording that he knows of. In the April 2019 Opera News Fred Cohn has high praise for this disc (seven years after it was released)! He lauds most of the singers, calls Currentzis’s conducting “exemplary”, and approves the dancers in Perséphone for a “spectral stage spectacle—a mystical evocation of the earth’s bucolic surface and the somber realm underneath.” Here are some interesting video clips (remember—the two operas share the same set):