Search - Ballet Concert '06 on DVD

Lots of Highlights from TDK Concert and Ballet DVDs

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 03/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a sampler and is at a very low price. It gives the viewer a chance to see/hear some wonderful performances taken from the line of TDK concert and ballet DVDs released over the past year or two. Since Amazon hasn't listed the contents I'll give you a taste for what's in it.

The first part of the DVD is devoted to concert, opera and lieder selections and includes such conductors as Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Claudio Scimone, Claudio Abbado, Yuri Temirkanov, and Günter Wand, and such orchestras as those of the Fenice Opera (Venice), the Deutsche Oper Berlin, I Solisti Veneti, the Gewandhaus (Leipzig), the Lucerne Festival, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and the North German Radio (this one a stunning Adagio from Bruckner's Eighth Symphony conducted by Wand). We hear such singers as Angelika Kirchschlager ('Voi che sapete'), Bobby McFerrin (doing his inimitable thing), Anna Larsson ('Urlicht' from Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony), Anna Netrebko (Musetta's Waltz Song). We hear a selection from 'Winterreise' ('Der Wegweiser') by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, accompanied by Alfred Brendel. A number of selections from the wonderful Voices of Our Time series from the Théâtre du Châtelet includes singers Barbara Bonney, Grace Bumbry, Anne Sofie von Otter, Dawn Upshaw, Felicity Lott, Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson and Sylvia McNair. We also get to hear violinist Nigel Kennedy playing the violin part of Bach's 'Erbarme dich' from the St. Matthew Passion with Uwe Kleinsorge, oboist, playing the line usually sung by the mezzo soloist, with the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

The ballet selections include dances from 'The Nutcracker', Kenneth MacMillan's 'Manon', 'Swan Lake' (the Odile and Siegfried pas de deux), 'Le Chauve-Souris' (music from 'Die Fledermaus'), the pas de deux from 'Appartement', a selection from 'Clavigo' (Roland Petit's choreography), 'The Shepherd' from 'Sylvia', a pas de deux from 'La Sylphide', and 'The Battle with the Invaders' from Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible.' Ballet companies include the Royal Swedish, La Scala Ballet, Opéra National de Paris (five selections).

The 26 selections give one a chance to sample the full DVDs from which they are taken and perhaps make a choice to buy any or all of them. You certainly can't beat the price for this sampler and it makes a wonderful two hour experience in itself.

Scott Morrison"

Hefty Chunks of Classical Performances from TDK!

J. M WILINSKY | teaneck, NJ United States | 02/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you love classical performances of art songs with piano, art songs with orchestra, orchestral music, solo instrumental music, and ballet, you will love this sumptuous and long(120 minutes)DVD. These are, as much as possible, complete pieces: complete songs, complete movements, and complete dance sequences--not just snippets that are cut off in the middle. The quality of the performances is the absolute best. So, if you are not quite sure what type of performance you are in the mood for, you can just put this on and get a smorgasbord! The price is quite attractive, too. Oh, there is one more little treat here: a dance sequence from "The Nutcracker" ballet performed by the Royal Swedish Ballet, which, as of this writing, has not even been released in the United States yet. It is fantastic!"

Ballet Concert .06

Edward A. Nelson | Florida | 08/22/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I thought that the entire DVD would be concerned
with ballet which was the reason I had purchased
this item for my granddaughter who is taking ballet.
Title was misleading"