Puccini: La Bohème / Bartoletti, Álvarez, Gallardo Domâs
"Gallardo­Domâs proves that she need not fear comparison with any of her distinguished contemporaries in the field and little from the best of her predecessors. By dint of her unimpeachable musicality‚ the sheer beauty of her truly Italianate tone and her exemplary way with words‚ she makes every track … an individual experience to treasure - and of how few singers can that be said? … Her Puccini readings seem the very best of all." GRAMOPHONE

While Franco Zeffirelli’s approach to La Bohème, and opera in general, may not be to everyone’s taste these days, the 40-year-old production, the costumes redesigned, looks just as fresh today as it did in its early years. A major advantage of this new DVD is that the singers are actually singing rather than lip-synching. Cristina Gallardo-Domâs and Marcelo Alvarez as the doomed lovers are virtually ideal, poignant as singing-actors so that the end becomes a veritable four-hanky affair. And both sing extremely well, whether in the high jinks of act II or the lyric effusions. Hei-Kyung Hong (usually Mimì) is a vivacious Musetta, the music always flowing, which is not the case for all sopranos who take on the role. The Bohemians are a rag-tag lot without the individual qualities to be seen in the earlier version. Roberto Servile succumbs to Musetta’s charms, not always with conviction, while Natale de Carolis and Giovanni Battista Parodi (Schaunard and Colline) make little of their respective roles. Bruno Bartoletti keeps the show moving, though his rallentandos sometimes come to a standstill, unlike other conductors (Serafin, Beecham, Karajan) whose slow tempos in this opera nonetheless retained a forward impulse. The director for television encourages the antics of a large cast of extras, something not seen in the earlier version, but remains focused on the principals when they are figuratively stage-center. The DVD concludes with an interview with Franco Zeffirelli, in which he defends his concept, convincingly, while launching occasional barbs at today’s operatic fashions.
- Joel Kasow, FANFARE LA BOHÈME

Mimì - Cristina Gallardo-Domâs
Musetta - Hei-Kyung Hong
Rodolfo - Marcelo Álvarez
Marcello - Roberto Servile
Schaunard - Natale de Carolis
Colline - Giovanni Battista Parodi
Benoit - Matteo Peirone
Alcindoro - Angelo Romero
Parpignol - Alberto Fraschina
Sergente dei doganieri - Ernesto Panariello

Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala
Bruno Bartoletti, conductor

Franco Zeffirelli, stage director

Recorded at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 2003

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Puccini: Madama Butterfly / Cedolins, Giordani, Oren
Verona’s amphitheatre - known as the ‘arena’ provides an atmospheric setting for the summer festival that has assembled the stars of the international opera scene each year since 1913. To view an opera in the former amphitheatre, the second largest of its kind after the Colosseum in Rome, can truly be regarded as an impressive experience. The DVD, however, provides a closer look at the stage and the singers and this cleverly filmed recording brings home the hopes and emotions of the shattered young girl and those around her: when the geishas perform their fan dances, when the sensual duet between Pinkerton and the girl at the end of the first act develops into an image of burning passion, or when director Zefirelli depicts the disturbed soul of Madam Butterfly using black-clad dancing ghosts in the second and third act – the camera always captures the images wonderfully.

MADAMA BUTTERFLY

Cio-Cio-San - Fiorenza Cedolins
Suzuki - Francesca Franci
Kate Pinkerton - Mina Blum
B. F. Pinkerton - Marcello Giordani
Sharpless - Juan Pons
Goro - Carlo Bosi
Il prinicipe Yamadori - Alessandro Battiato
Lo zio Bonzo - Carlo Striuli
Il commissario imperiale - Angelo Nardigocchi
L’ufficiale del registro - Giovanni Scordino
La madre di Cio-Cio-San - Veronica Simeoni
La cugina die Cio-Cio-San - Maria Letizia Grosselli

Chorus and Orchestra of Arena di Verona
Daniel Oren, conductor

Franco Zeffirelli, stage director

Recorded at the Arena di Verona, July 2004

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Puccini: Turandot / Gergiev, Schnaut, Botha
"The main visual frisson of the 2002 Salzburg Festival was undoubtedly David Pountney’s extravagant (in every sense) staging of Puccini’s last, unfinished work, presented with Berio’s controversial completion. Johan Engels’s three-tiered set fills every inch of the stage at the Grosses Festspielhaus with side-wings carrying it to the extremities. The theme of its metallic decor is to propose a brutalised society: engines of death – cogs suggesting torture, guillotines and body-parts – are prominent throughout, down to Liù’s death scene. Sometimes the effect is risible, as when we see hand-operated torsos of beautiful girls floating across the stage; but, by and large, the sense of a harsh world where human values are of little consequence is admirably and arrestingly conveyed." -- Alan Blyth, Gramophone

TURANDOT
(with completion of the 3rd Act by Luciano Berio)

Turandot - Gabriele Schnaut
Altoum - Robert Tear
Timur - Paata Burchuladze
Calaf - Johan Botha
Liù - Cristina Gallardo-Domâs
Ping - Boaz Daniel
Pang - Vincente Ombuena
Pong - Steve Davislim
Un mandarino - Robert Bork

Vienna State Opera Chorus
Tölz Children's Choir
VIenna Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, conductor

David Pountney, stage director

Recorded at the Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, August 2002 during the 2002 Salzburg Festival

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo (all operas) / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1 (La Bohème, Butterfly) / Dolby Digital 5.0 / DTS 5.0 (Turandot)
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 6 hours 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 3