Home

Handel's most popular stage work, ALCINA is a Baroque fantasy about the havoc Alcina, a sorceress, wreaks upon the lives of, among others, Ruggerio and Bradamante, two lovers who have wandered into her enchanted isle. This Stuttgart State Opera production of Handel's opera is visually mesmerizing, intensely dramatic, and wonderfully vocalized. Aided by Catherine Naglestad's star turn as Alcina, the tragic enchantress who has put her seductive spell on the isle's captives, this production emerged as one of the best at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival, where it premiered.DVD Features:Region 0Keep CaseSingle Side - Dual LayerAnamorphic WidescreenAudio: PCM Stereo
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

Rossini's hilarious and witty comic opera IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA is brought to colorful life in this filmed performance. Starring the great Hermann Prey as Figaro and featuring an esteemed supporting cast with the likes of Enza Dara, Teresa Berganzo, Renato Cesair, and Paolo Montarsolo, this production is as visually stunning as it is aurally gorgeous.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

The American Ballet Theater's production of the famous adventure, featuring harem girls and pirates. Virtuoso performances highlight this production.DVD Features::Region 1Snap CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.78Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo - English Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

Carlos Saura has dedicated a good part of his career to bringing the diverse world of Spanish dance to an international audience. He is perhaps best known for the trilogy of CARMEN, BLOODWEDDING, and A LOVE BEWITCHED, taken from the works of Bizet and Garcia Lorca, but also for SEVILLANAS, which, like FLAMENCO, presents the talents of a variety of artists in a straightforward setting. The beautiful cinematography by Vittorio Storaro, who later shot the spectacular GOYA IN BORDEAUX for Saura, is the only element of the film that strays from its documentary feel. Using an old railroad station in Seville, fitted with mirrors, for the setting, Saura presents 300 singers, dancers and musicians. There are guitarists playing moving and mournful solos, women singing gypsy ballads and, of course, floor pounding, straight shouldered dancers who look right into the camera with those dark, smouldering, Spanish eyes. The clear star of the dance segments is the mesmerizing Joaquin Cortes. Doing what is deemed the New Flamenco style, Cortes combines elements of 18th century classical dance with more recent innovations.
His bare-chested Farruca push the erotic elements to the limit of the style and is certainly the high point of the film. Saura wants to demonstrate not just the flamboyance of flamenco, but the breadth and depth of its integration into Spanish culture, and so he includes a rich variety of styles and performers.DVD Features:Region [unknown]Keep CaseWidescreenText/Image Galleries: Cast and Crew List Flamenco Fact Files FilmographiesInteractive Features: Scene Selections
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

With a pulsing Philip Glass soundtrack graced by the beautiful cello music of Yo-Yo Ma, Godfrey Reggio's NAQOYQATSI is the final installment of his Qatsi trilogy, which also includes KOYAANISQATSI and POWAQQATSI. In this film, computer-enhanced imagery rolls across the screen to the tune of the Glass concert music. NAQOYQATSI makes a departure from the previous films, which centered on the often cruel but always fascinating struggle for survival on Earth. This film focuses mostly on technology, industry, and our increasingly machine-operated world, focusing on the United States. Not only are its images largely computer-generated, the film is in itself about computer-generated images. Strings of numbers swirl into a tunnel of black and green code, rainbow-colored Windows icons flash across the screen, and a glowing computerized globe twirls in programmed perfection. More natural imagery, such as a horse running, oceans waves crashing, or soldiers sounding off in formation, is displayed in computer-edited negative. While the visuals start to look like stock photography, their generic nature communicates another message about the narrowing of our vision as technology and industry facilitate the conversion to a more efficient, systemized, productivity driven global society.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33Interactive Features: Interactive Menus
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.