Editorial Product Review:Description:The luxurious Franco Zeffirelli production, live from La Scala, which marked his return to the house after more than 20 years! With an image up to six times sharper than conventional DVD and superior high-definition sound, Blu-Ray lets you watch opera and ballet performances from the front row of the theater. Experience every detail, no matter how small, in the highest quality possible. With five times the memory of standard DVDs, Blu-Ray is a completely new way to experience the theater at home.
Editorial Product Review:Description:The luxurious Franco Zeffirelli production, live from La Scala, which marked his return to the house after more than 20 years! With an image up to six times sharper than conventional DVD and superior high-definition sound, Blu-Ray lets you watch opera and ballet performances from the front row of the theater. Experience every detail, no matter how small, in the highest quality possible. With five times the memory of standard DVDs, Blu-Ray is a completely new way to experience the theater at home.
Editorial Product Review: :World-renowned tenor Plácido Domingo is joined by Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and a host of other international stars, including Susan Graham, in the famously glittering 1996 Gala Concert on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Asher Fisch conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in a programme of many of the world's best-loved operatic arias with music by composers including Bizet, Massenet, Gounod, Mozart and Donizetti.Plácido Domingo with Roberto Alagna, Dwayne Croft, Angela Gheorghiu, Susan Graham, Robert Lloyd, Leontina Vaduva, Verónica Villarroel, Lillian Watson, The Orchestra Of ...
Editorial Product Review:Description:Tosca: A Film by Benoit Jacquot, after the libretto of Puccini’s Opera. With Angela Gheorghiu as Floria Tosca, Roberto Alagna as Mario Cavaradossi, Ruggiero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Conducted by Antonio Pappano with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. How often has it been said that opera can’t be translated into film? That the camera lens accentuates an opera’s artificiality and turns the protagonists into caricatures? Benoît Jacquot’s masterfully inventive two-hour Tosca, will change the minds of the most diehard opera buffs and win over newcomers to ...
Editorial Product Review:Description:Tosca: A Film by Benoit Jacquot, after the libretto of Puccini’s Opera. With Angela Gheorghiu as Floria Tosca, Roberto Alagna as Mario Cavaradossi, Ruggiero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Conducted by Antonio Pappano with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. How often has it been said that opera can’t be translated into film? That the camera lens accentuates an opera’s artificiality and turns the protagonists into caricatures? Benoît Jacquot’s masterfully inventive two-hour Tosca, will change the minds of the most diehard opera buffs and win over newcomers to ...
Editorial Product Review: :Gounod's version of Shakespeare's tragedy about two 'star-crossed lovers' has never been considered a first-class opera, but as this 1994 Royal Opera production movingly shows, with the right singers and conductor it can be a quite emotional experience. Tenor Roberto Alagna is all youthful ardor and aching romance as Romeo, while soprano Leontina Vaduva plays Juliet as a lover frightfully aware of the doom the pair is moving toward. Among an able supporting cast, Francois Le Roux stands out as Mercutio. Nicolas Joel's staging rarely strays from its focus on the lovers, ...
Editorial Product Review:Description:This DVD features the high-profile new production from La Scala in Milan, filmed before Roberto Alagna's sensational departure! This is the operatic event of 2006, following Roberto Alagna's exit from the production during the second performance. Spectacular new production by veteran director/designer Franco Zeffirelli has all the luxury, theatricality and opulence one could wish for in this grandest of operas, keeping in tradition and shying away from the minimalist modern intrepretation. French tenor Roberto Alagna was filmed in early performances before his high-profile departure from the production. This alone makes it a ...
Editorial Product Review: :This is an outdoor concert for an enormous audience, staged in a large, architecturally striking public square in Dresden in July 1999, and featuring the most glamorous, young husband and wife currently active on the international operatic scene, soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna. Before his untimely death at age 54, Giuseppe Sinopoli was considered one of Europe's finest opera conductors, and in the Dresden orchestra and chorus he has performers who match his creative energy. The program seems to have been selected, quite successfully, with two criteria in mind: mass ...
Editorial Product Review:Description:The original French version in five acts by Ursula Günther, revised after the original version by Ursula Günther and Luciano Petazzoni. Published by Ricordi Milan. :This is a 1996 all-star production from Paris of the original French version of Verdi's epic five-act opera, Don Carlos. First produced in 1867, only Wagner would write musical drama on a grander scale, and because of the three-and-a-half-hour running time, most subsequent productions have made substantial cuts. This is therefore a rare opportunity to witness Verdi's tragedy in its entirety. In the 16th century in the ...
Editorial Product Review: :All-time classical favourites from the first ever public concert held in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, hosted by Her Majesty the Queen.Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Mstislav Rostropovich, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, The London Adventist Chorale, Sir Thomas Allen, Julian Bliss, Ashley Wass, Roberto Bolle, Zenaida Yanowsky, The Band Of Her Majesty s Royal Marines, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew DavisFeaturing Music by Walton, Handel, Bizet, Gershwin, Holst, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, German, Arnold, Puccini & Verdi. PLUS: special performances from The Magnificent Ballroom and The Music Room of Buckingham PalaceWILLIAM ...
On paper, the Mio DigiWalker P550 looks to be an attractive gadget for the mobile professional, combining the capabilities of a PDA and GPS into one device. However, its poor battery life and subpar navigation skills tell a different story.
Though it won't appeal to the masses quite yet, the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is a nice, portable device for on-the-go Web browsing, and it has some worthy upgrades.
Diesel vehicles have nearly a 50-percent market share in Europe, thanks to tax incentives and diesel-friendly legislation across the EU. Diesels are so passé there that you can buy a BMW 730d and no one will think it odd that your luxury car burns oil. Pull up in a diesel 7-Series in America and people would leer at you like you've alighted from an amphibious vehicle reeking of saltwater and dead trout.
But now, thanks to the oft-reported combo of newly-raised CAFE standards, not-so-newly-raised gas prices, and the 50-state diesel engine, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are about to dip more than a hesitant toe into the diesel game. Chrysler offers a diesel in the Grand Cherokee, but soon all three automakers will offer diesels in their best-selling lineups of light trucks -- the Dodge Ram 1500 is expected to offer a 50-state diesel after 2009. Light trucks are being used to lead the charge since those buyers stand to gain the most with the least amount of (perceived) sacrifice.
Diesels currently have 3.2-percent of the American market. Some estimates put them at 15-percent by 2015. That's a huge leap, and diesel still has plenty of hurdles. Diesels will come with a cost premium over gasoline-engined cars. That should be easy enough to conquer -- incentives and some quick cost and longevity calculations should convince people of the benefit. The real hurdle is the nagging issue of perception. The plan will probably be to attack that with a price that makes the proposition unbeatable. Said Chrysler's director of environmental affairs, "If it's priced right, we can sell diesel here. Diesel can give you an immediate poke in fuel economy -- 20 to 40 percent. Not many technologies can deliver that today."
Diesel vehicles have nearly a 50-percent market share in Europe, thanks to tax incentives and diesel-friendly legislation across the EU. Diesels are so passé there that you can buy a BMW 730d and no one will think it odd that your luxury car burns oil. Pull up in a diesel 7-Series in America and people would leer at you like you've alighted from an amphibious vehicle reeking of saltwater and dead trout.