Word: opera
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...Marshal Ivan Konev from the south. When the ring was complete on April 25, the Soviets arrayed a fearful multitude of weapons--6,000 tanks, 42,000 guns--and began bombarding the city. In the central area around the Chancellery and the bunker, around the Reichstag and the opera and the university, the shells landed at the rate of one every five seconds. The barrage went on all day and then all the next...
Below all, Seagrave's bright irreverence in portraying Sun Yat-sen as a character from opera bouffe and Chiang as an "ill-tempered bravo" almost contradicts the charges of Machiavellian villainy he wishes to press. The Soong Dynasty brings much pungent material to light; in the end, however, it works less well as an argument with history than as a crackling, made-for-TV story unraveled with fluency and flair. --By Pico Iyer
That is what it's like to experience an opera the DVD way--in this case, on a three-disc set released by BBC/Opus Arte. And we haven't even mentioned the surround sound, the subtitles in your choice of four languages, the plot synopses--all only a click or two away on your remote. No wonder conductor James Levine says that of all recording technologies, "this medium is, up to now, the best. DVD gives a really amazing, thrilling and altogether remarkable result...
...especially if the star, like Bernstein, happens to be dead. DVDs of such departed figures as singer Maria Callas and conductor Herbert von Karajan are top draws, not only because of their charisma but also because their performances have taken on a historic importance. Callas' farewell appearance on the opera stage, in Tosca,at London's Covent Garden in 1965, is the centerpiece of Maria Callas: Living and Dying for Art and Love,which is selling briskly at $24.99 after its release on the TDK label last month...
Among living performers, the Three Tenors, singer Andrea Bocelli, Levine with his many Metropolitan Opera productions and the vivacious soprano Cecilia Bartoli are just a few of the leading DVD sellers. Cases in point: Levine's two-disc version of Tristan and Isoldewith the Met, featuring tenor Ben Heppner and soprano Jane Eaglen, on Deutsche Grammophon ($39.98), and Cecilia Bartoli Sings Mozart and Haydn, a two-disc set with the Concentus Musicus Wien conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, on BBC/Opus Arte...