This DVD documents a production of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, which over the last 25 years has developed into one of the most important institutions of Italian musical life. This wonderful 1999 "Tancredi" production was on the repertoire there before traveling to Rome and finally to Florence, where it was recorded in 2005. Her concentrated classical pictures are characterized by an almost overwhelming architectural look with columns, reliefs and an altar. Director Pier Luigi Pizzi plays with a black and white contrast, which symbolizes the parties of Syracuse and which he added the color red - a symbol of the retreating hero.

A major strength of the Parma performances has been the contribution of the theatre’s chorus. So it proves here as well. Along with the choral contribution, and that of the four soloists, I always listen carefully to hear how the conductor controls the dynamics of the opening Requiem Eternam…the thrilling Tuba Mirum…and the Dies irae and its reprise. Yuri Temirkanov, Musical Director of the Teatro Regio, passes my tests with an ethereally quiet opening. Add to this a viscerally exciting lead into the Mors stupebit…

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is one of those success stories that is almost too perfect to be true. The internationally respected orchestra was founded by Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian writer and scholar Edward Said with young, highly talented Israeli and Arab musicians. The ensemble works to establish dialogue between the cultures of the Middle East through the experience of playing music together, and has gained cultural and musical respect all over the world.

Filmed at New York's Metropolitan Opera, John Copley's production of Rossini's last, longest and most elaborate work for the Italian stage brings together what many consider the definitive contemporary cast, led by Marilyn Horne and June Anderson. Semiramide, a strong and melodious work, is one of Rossini's greatest dramatic operas, offering a fine challenge to the superb contralto and soprano bel canto singing of Ms. Horne and Ms. Anderson.

What makes this production so rewarding are the utterly compelling performances of the Macbeths, Shakepearian in intensity…[Nucci's] Macbeth is a deeply thoughtful portrayal…Valayre is up there with the finest Lady Macbeths.(International Record Review)Nucci’s Macbeth is often described as veteran, which rather dismisses his musical and dramatic insight and his sense of Verdian line…Bartoletti is authoritative in the pit. Liliana Cavani’s production is strong, her stage-on-the-stage set magnifying and scrutinising the Macbeths’ moral descent. (Opera Now)

This Blu-ray disc features rising star conductor Andris Nelsons leading the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a program of popular Richard Strauss orchestral works: Till Eulenspiegel, Macbeth and Also Sprach Zarathustra. Andris Nelsons is one of todays most sought-after young conductors, having worked with the worlds most important orchestras including the Berlin, Vienna, New York, Royal Concertgebouw and Philharmonia Orchestras. He is a regular guest at Covent Garden, the MET, Wiener and Deutsche Staatsoper and at Bayreuth.

Parma’s Boccanegra is Leo Nucci…The handsome voice, which once seemed on the light side for Verdi’s heavier, darker title roles, now has the apposite color and weight, and it remains surprisingly firm and focused…he’s honest, commanding and deeply moving. Honest commitment distinguishes his colleagues, too. Tamar Iveri…[has] a lovely, full lyric voice with a welcome authority at bottom, steered by fine musicianship…and a lively, sympathetic temperament and presence. Francesco Meli…sings handsomely and looks properly romantic…Roberto Scandiuzzi…makes a fine, idiomatic Fiesco; and Simone Piazzola…gives promise of a major-league Boccanegra to come. Daniele Callegari, in Parma’s pit, lets the score unfold naturally and compellingly. (Opera News)

Dukas’ opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, based on Maeterlinck’s symbolist version of the classic tale, sees free spirit Ariane become the sixth wife of the infamous Barbe-bleue, who gives his new bride seven keys to seven doors, but prohibits the use of the last. Ariane discovers an array of glittering jewels behind the first six doors, but a terrifying reality awaits her as she unlocks the seventh. José van Dam is cast as the villainous Barbe-bleue, while taking on the immensely demanding role of Ariane - who does not leave the stage throughout the entire opera - is American soprano Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet.

Held each year on 1 May, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert has ever since 1991 been a byword for excellence. In a performance in Prague’s Estates Theatre, one of Europe’s most beautiful historical venues, the orchestra under the celebrated pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim is heard with some of Mozart’s most beloved masterpieces. What is more, the orchestra was seated in a reconstruction of the sets used in this very theatre at the world première of Don Giovanni.

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece.
Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer’s great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.

Pink Floyd will release an updated version of their 1989 concert film Delicate Sound of Thunder along with its companion live album on November 20th. Recorded over five nights at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York in August 1988, Delicate Sound of Thunder captures Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason amid a world tour supporting their comeback album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Recorded live at the ancient Herodes Atticus Odeon in Athens 2004, this was the first European Concert that Sir Simon Rattle conducted in his new post as chief conductor of one of the most important orchestras of all times. Since 1991, when the Berlin Philharmonic gave their first European Concert, this annual musical summit in important cultural cities has become a brand name for excellence. This concert also represents the first musical encounter between Rattle and world-famous pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.

Agents Are Forever is performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of film music expert Hans Ek, with spectacular spy and detective film soundtracks and the very best of James Bond film music.

The 300th anniversary of Christoph Willibald Glucks birth in 2014 was celebrated at the Teatro Real in Madrid with a new production of Alceste (French version), staged by Krysztof Warlikowski and starring Angela Denoke as Alceste. Alceste is Glucks most programmatic example of his quest for purer expression and deeper meaning. All its elements show a conscious effort to recreate the tragic origins of opera: its staunch dramatic unity, austere musical form, use of the chorus as a fundamental part of the story and, above all, its anachronistic but devoted adaptation of Euripides' tragedy.

In 1778 Antonio Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta became the first work to be performed at the Milanese theatre later known as the Teatro alla Scala. Despite this honour, Europa riconosciuta (Europa recognised) remained unperformed for 226 years until 2004, when Riccardo Muti, then Music Director of La Scala, chose it to reopen the legendary theatre after three years of renovation work. “I love Salieri," Diana Damrau has said. "He was an important man and a musical authority in Vienna, a teacher and an heir to Gluck as a successful opera composer. And, like Mozart, he was a dramatist in music. Europa Riconosciuta is masterly in its construction and builds up step by step.