Le Comte Ory

The work was recorded at the Rossini Opera Festival in the composer’s hometown of Pesaro, a festival that is internationally renowned for ist innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions. ‘Le Comte Ory’ boasts a young, dynamic and international cast headed by tenor Yijie Shi, who ‘outstandingly mastered’ (Il Giornale) the title role, and María José Moreno, ‘a countess with an extremely supple coloratura, great stylistic refinement and seductive elegance’ (Il Giornale di Vicenza). Paolo Carignani conducts the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna with verve and brio.

La Scala di Seta

In this colorful and exuberant production by Damiano Michieletto, ‘one of the truly new voices in stage direction today’ (L’Unità), Rossini’s ‘La Scala di Seta’ becomes an Almodóvaresque spectacle ‘that transforms all the singers into extraordinary actors’ (La Stampa). Leading the young and spirited cast is Maestro Claudio Scimone, a key figure in the international Rossini Renaissance, who conducts the Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento with precision and incisiveness, highlighting the Rossinian instrumental

colors as well as the comical and sentimental currents of the score’ (Il Giornale di Vicenza).

Zelmira

The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Rossini’s birthplace, is internationally renowned for its innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions of Rossini’s works. In this staging of the dramma per musica ‘Zelmira’, the Festival once again lays claim to this reputation. Stage director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti ‘delivers a production of great visual fascination and dramaturgical intelligence’ (Corriere della Sera). This rediscovery should help ‘Zelmira’ return to theaters everywhere.

Aida

From the ancient Teatro Greco in Taormina, the ‘pearl of the Ionian Sea’, comes this visually and vocally impressive open-air production of Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Aida’. Evoking a’Spielberg film’ (Quotidiano.net), stage and video director Enrico Castiglione projects video images upon the columns and ruins of the 3rd-century B.C. amphitheater, creating a breathtaking virtual backdrop of Egyptian pillars and palms that opens onto the ‘Nile’, in this case, the Ionian Sea.

Maria Stuarda

‘Maria Stuarda’, the tragedy of the Stuart Queen Mary and her embittered foe Elizabeth, is the most popular work in Donizetti’s trilogy of bel canto operas on Tudor queens (next to ‘Anna Bolena’ and ‘Roberto Devereux’). The production of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice shows Maria and Elisabetta both as prisoners, trapped in a labyrinth that is the central set element in Italian-based Franco-Tunisian director Denis Krief’s staging. With his sharp and lively conducting, Fabrizio Maria Carminati puts the Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice entirely at the service of three exceptional singers, Sonia Ganassi (‘an extraordinary performance,’ Opera Today) as Elisabetta, Fiorenza Cedolins (‘colorful, nuanced, highly dramatic heroine,’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) as Maria Stuarda, and José Bros as a passionate Leicester. The recording was made at Venice’s beautiful Teatro La Fenice, rebuilt after the fire that destroyed it in 1996.

The Creation (Die Schöpfung)

The Nederlands Kamerkoor, under the direction of Klaas Stok and in cooperation with the Concerto D’Amsterdam, performs Haydn’s breath-taking oratorio ‘Die Schöpfung’ live from the world renowned Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

Antonio Vivaldi – The Red Priest

This fascinating film tells the exciting life-story of the world-renowned composer Antonio Vivaldi, the redhaired priest. Famous artists and musicologists describe the great importance of Vivaldi’s music for our time. Highlight of the film is the terrific world premiere of Vivaldi’s great choral work ‘Dixit Dominus’, which was attributed to his contemporary Baldassare Galuppi for more than 200 years. Recorded at original locations in Venice, Vienna and Dresden and others.