Daniel Barenboim

Following the artistic and commercial success of their last DVD project, La Traviata from the 2005 Salzburg Festival, opera superstars Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón bring their combined talents to Jules Massenet’s Manon. Netrebko was born to play the title role: her voice and body language capturing the fluctuating personality of the complex Manon, one minute girlish, the next introspective. “She is a real stage animal, constantly reacting to what is happening around her”, wrote Opera of her performance. Villazón is compelling as Des Grieux, expressing all the burning passion of the doomed lover in his burnished, supple tenor.

This is a production with a distinct Hollywood touch: first-time opera director Vincent Paterson has previously worked with Madonna, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney and staged several Broadway musicals. He has already enjoyed great success with his first classical DVD project for DG: The Woman – The Voice featuring Anna Netrebko.

Given his show-business background, Paterson interprets Manon as a Hollywood cinematic tale for the opera stage with Massenet’s colourful music as a kind of soundtrack. The press raved about the opera event of the year in Berlin, while the live public screening of one of the performances in the square in front of the opera house attracted an audience of more than 20,000 people. Musically, the production is equally accomplished.

This is a Manon that will appeal across the spectrum: to lovers of opera, movies and Hollywood. A glittering production filled with beautiful people with gorgeous voices!

Additional features: Produced in HD, length 170 min., to be released in NTSC 16:9 widescreen; audio is in 5.1 DTS surround sound & PCM stereo. Bonus: “The Making of Manon” (20 min., in stereo sound only).

Recorded at the 2007 Salzburg Festival, this production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin features an excellent, young cast and the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by maestro Daniel Barenboim.

Inspired by the cinematic nature of the opera, director Andrea Breth has created an intimate production that mines the depths of expression and charisma of her singer-actors and integrates silent secondary episodes and miniature dramas to heighten the intensity of the story.

The title role – a tour de force for any baritone – is taken by Peter Mattei, “a gifted actor blessed with debonair self-confidence” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). He is joined by dazzling young Russian soprano Anna Samuil, a protégée of Daniel Barenboim who has been acclaimed as a vibrant new presence on the opera stage. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described her Tatyana as being “ready to start a revolution”.

The performances receive superb support from Daniel Barenboim and the Wiener Philharmoniker who capture the beguilingly dark sonorities of Tchaikovsky’s score and bring out its sudden flashes of brilliance, particularly during the passionate climax of the final act.

The DVD has been filmed in HD, with 5.1 DTS surround sound and PCM stereo.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was the brainchild of Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-born writer Edward Said, and is a unique musical collaboration dedicated to further the cause of a peaceful co-existence in the Middle East.

The DVD documents the orchestra’s August 2005 concert in the Palestinian Territory in the city of Ramallah, and includes repertoire for which Barenboim is celebrated – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major and Elgar’s Nimrod (from Enigma Variations). The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s appearance at the 2005 Proms, including a performance of the Mozart, was acclaimed as played by “an orchestra on fire with passion and purpose” in The Times.

Also included, a newly revised feature-length documentary Knowledge is The Beginning, filmed over a six year period, telling the story of Barenboim and Said’s friendship and their development of the orchestra, through interviews, rehearsal and concert excerpts. Extra material includes Barenboim’s controversial award of the Wolf Prize from the Israeli parliament in 2005 and footage of Edward Said.

The DVD’s fascination is in witnessing musicians – possibly the only people involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict who know people ‘from the other side’ – making music together under the baton of a legendary conductor. Their playing attains to levels normally only achieved by the leading orchestras of the world – an unheralded coming together of musical and humanitarian concerns.

"This DVD documents a historical landmark in the development of musical and human relations in the Middle East. It was an unforgettable evening for all who participated, listened and watched. Making this event possible, first of all, showed the great courage and dedication of each and every young musician in the orchestra regardless of their origin; courage to play with and listen to the other. In addition, it represented the result of great imagination and goodwill of many officials in all the countries involved in this vast organisational puzzle. For this I wish to thank the Junta de Andalucía for its moral and financial support, and the Spanish government for having the vision to issue diplomatic passports for all concerned, which made the impossible merely impossibly difficult.” (Daniel Barenboim)