A Stocking Full of DVDs

In the spirit of the season, following are a select handful of DVDs, those little boxes of superior performances and visual delights. Some are new and some have stood the test of time, but all are repeatedly watchable, going on giving long after the holiday ribbons have been tossed.

Beverly Sills: Made in America

(Deutsche Grammophon) One of opera’s most popular singers, Sills had a career that was a long time in the making. As this endearing tribute shows, much of her life paralleled the evolution of popular American entertainment. She sang on the radio as a child (rendering "Caro nome" from Rigoletto, no less), but also advertising jingles for soapsuds ("Rinso White" was a biggie). She was in early opera telecasts, and eventually made her way to the New York City Opera, the Met (surprisingly late in her career), and La Scala, where she spun vocal gold as Cleopatra, Violetta, Manon, Lucia, and a coruscating Queen Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux, all excerpted here with great audio.

But what made Sills so popular was not just her technical expertise, but her engaging personality, documented here in humorous clips from The Dick Cavett Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and The Merv Griffin Show, where she gleefully relates stories about herself. For instance, there was the time when, still an unknown, she went to sing in a small town in Nebraska during an outbreak of cow disease. There on the front page of the town’s only newspaper were two photos. One showed Sills, with the caption “Cow disease invades Nebraska.” The other showed a dead cow, and was captioned “Beverly Sills to sing tonight.” It typifies the self-effacing charm of this upbeat, amiable, music-replete DVD.

Pavarotti: The Last Tenor

(Decca) This BBC film makes a great companion piece to the Sills, since this, too, became an unplanned memorial to a great talent. It is a bit of a shock to see how weathered Pavarotti looked in 2005, when many of these interviews with the British actor Ian McKellen took place. But Pavarotti is affable, and his telling of the early years in his native Modena, when he considered being a teacher (the kids were too noisy), and a soccer player (too physically demanding), before finally succeeding as a world-class tenor, are all affecting. His descriptions of the war years in Italy, the tenors who most influenced him (Caruso, Gigli, Schipa, and, on film, Mario Lanza), are told in such a conversational way it makes you feel you are sitting at Pavarotti’s table.

There's also an abundance of music, with memorable excerpts from Turandot, Pagliacci, Rigoletto (the Duke), Rodolfo in Bohème, Pinkerton in Butterfly, Cavaradossi in Tosca, those incredible high Cs, and his arena appearances. Tributes flow from his opera colleagues, as well as the rock stars and pop icons with whom he sang. This is a wonderful, keepsake album of images and sound. In English, with some Italian.

The Nutcracker Ballet

(Opus Arte) What makes the production from England's Royal Ballet so memorable is its storytelling: How the toymaker Drosselmeyer’s nephew came to be cursed into becoming a nutcracker by the vengeful Queen of Mice, and why the Nutcracker can only be transformed into a prince by the love of a pure young girl. Thus the traditional dances about the growing Christmas tree, the comic battle of the mice, Clara’s killing the Mouse King with her slipper, and the romantic pairing of Clara with the nephew, thanks to her love now a handsome young man, make sense.

And with Tchaikovsky’s highly charged romantic score and Lev Ivanov’s stylish choreography, it is story ballet at its best. Anthony Dowell is the enchanted toymaker, conjuring the magical events in a giant flowing cape; the great ballerina Alina Cojocaru gives her Clara wonderful, vigorous turns; Ivan Putrov is propulsive in his leaps as the joyous Nutcracker; Miyako Yoshida dances the Sugar Plum Fairy with thrilling arabesques as incisive as cut glass; and Jonathan Cope is her handsome Prince. And who can resist the "Waltz of the Snowflakes" with its stage full of spinning dancers amid falling snow, the colorful "Waltz of the Flowers," and the character dances enlivening the celebratory second act. The final "Grand Pas de Deux" to Tchaikovsky’s emotional orchestration is simply sensational. After one viewing, you may want to make this DVD a holiday tradition.

The Hard Nut

(Nonesuch) The madcap satire of the traditional Nutcracker by Mark Morris, as performed by his Mark Morris Dance Group, long a Bay Area favorite (it opens Friday at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley), has just made its way onto DVD. It would make an excellent companion, and contrast, to the Royal's Nutcracker disc. There are two inspirations at work here: the classic comics of Charles Burns, and E.T.A Hoffmann’s original story of the curse of the Rat Queen, resolved only by the cracking of a golden (and very hard) nut. Choreographer Morris has great fun at the expense of the traditional trappings. The Hard Nut is set not in the time of German storybook, but in 1960s American suburbia, with a white plastic tree, Christmas guests dressed in bell-bottoms and go-go boots, hairlike helmets, a male pas de deux for Drosselmeyer and his nephew with exaggerated port de bras and comic fouetté en tournant, barefooted men and women as prancing snowflakes (one of the best-choreographed scenes of the show), wild rats fighting toy GI Joes, and semaphoric reactions by all. The only quibble is that the orchestra of the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, Belgium, pales in comparison with that of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. It is also essential to listen to Morris’ wry opening remarks, otherwise confusion might reign.

Le Coq d’Or (The Golden Cockerel)

(TDK) This wily fairy-tale opera, recently given a magical makeover by the Châtelet Theatre de Paris, embodies all the fantasy of a kabuki-cum-Cirque du Soleil performance, resulting in a most satisfying DVD.

An astrologer gives old King Dodon a golden cockerel who will sing warnings of war. Delighted, the king offers a reward of whatever the astrologer might choose. The astrologer, however, defers his prize. Later, the cock crows and the king marches out with his troops. But instead of finding the enemy, he is enticed by the mysterious Queen of Shamakhan. Taking her back to his palace, the king comes upon the astrologer, who now asks for the queen as his prize. The king refuses, at which time the golden bird flies down and kills the king, much to the delight of the populace. What makes the opera so memorable is its colorful score, well-conducted here by Kent Nagano. What makes the production so enchanting is its costume design by Tomio Mohri, the principals in flowing robes of dazzling reds, greens, and blues, the cockerel resplendent in bright yellow feathers, the queen enrobed in great pink petals, and the masses of warriors, maidens, court officials, and dancers dressed in shimmering armor, sparkling headdresses, and fantastic fans. It's a toss-up as to which is the more spectacular, the music or the production. Sung in Russian, with English titles.

Thaïs

(Dynamic) Massenet’s sumptuous opera receives a production to match. An Alexandrine temptress converts from heady hedonism to religious rigor. The monk who saves her realizes that his concern is as carnal as it is caring. It’s a great story, and Massenet wraps his characters in sensuous melody. And while the singers are all highly accomplished (especially baritone Michele Pertusi as the fanatical monk, tenor William Joyner as a profligate prince, and soprano Eva Mei as the translated Thaïs), it's Pier Luigi Pizzi’s set design and costumes that make this DVD a keeper. The stage is often bathed in brothel red, at other times pristine white, a shifting backdrop for dancing phalanxes of bare-breasted women in diaphanous gold, and near-nude men in glittering silver. Thaïs’ infamous bed is a great sleigh of red roses and tangled vines, and during her conversion (to the haunting strains of the “Meditation” melody), an almost-starkers woman mounts and writhes upon a great iron cross, striking a powerful crucifix pose as the music fades, the roses fall, and the bed becomes a mass of black thorns. It may not be subtle, but it is certainly theatrical. Maestro Marcello Viotti leads the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro La Fenice through the sinuous score, and the multiple-camera work by Tiziano Mancini is as sensitive as it is sensational. Sung in French, with English titles.

L’Orfeo

(Opus Arte) Claudio Monteverdi, while not the first composer of opera, certainly gave it shape and form with his 1607 L’Orfeo, or Orpheus. And what better tale to set to music than that of the singer who loses his beloved in death and sets out to release her through the power of his voice, only to lose her again because of his human questioning. This production, by the Netherlands Opera, is riveting, from its opening brass toccata to its resolution with the appearance of Apollo, the god of music himself. Tenor John Mark Ainsley is a wonderful Orfeo, easily holding our attention through the two discs. Soprano Juanita Lascarro gives her Euridice both drama and subtlety, while bass Mario Luperi’s sepulchral tones are wondrous as Caronte, the gatekeeper of hell. The playing of the Baroque ensembles Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino, under the guidance of Stephen Stubbs, is both subtle and luminous. But it is Michael Simon’s stage design and Pierre Audi’s direction that give this production distinction. At center is a dark reflecting pool, which becomes, in turn, a shepherds’ bath, the entrance to hell, the river Styx, and when aflame, hell itself. The effect is mesmerizing. Sung in Italian, with English titles.

Ercole su’l Termodonte

(Dynamic) The buzz in the world of Baroque opera has been this recent DVD release of Vivaldi’s 1723 score, once considered lost and now reconstituted. It certainly has a lot going for it. The back story: Having killed his wife and children, the mythic strongman Hercules (Ercole) must expiate his guilt by 12 labors. This is the story of number nine. Hercules must find and battle the man-hating Amazons who live near the river Termodonte, in ancient Greece. Of course, it is not that simple, being a Baroque opera, for there is an entanglement of lovers, as well. The music and the singing are stellar. Tenor Zachary Stains delivers Ercole's rage with great ferocity, while mezzo-soprano Mary-Ellen Nesi, as the Amazon queen, sings her intricate arias with equal strength and intensity. The young lovers are nicely contrasted, with sopranos Marina Bartoli and Laura Cherici as Amazon sisters, alto Randall Scotting, tenor Luca Dordolo, and countertenor Filippo Mineccia as the impassioned Greeks.

The peaceful Amazons sing beneath symbolic olive trees, while the men argue amid a forest of broken phalluses. Vivaldi’s stirring melodies are played in clear, crisp sound by Il Complesso Barocco, under the direction of Alan Curtis. Full frontal disclosure: Ercole in this production is nude except for a cape of lion’s skin, the director John Pascoe wanting him to appear as an enlivened Greek sculpture. Sung in Italian, with English titles.

White Christmas

(Paramount) The best thing about the DVD of the 1954 Irving Berlin holiday chestnut, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, is the bonus feature with singer Rosemary Clooney, who like a sweet old aunt gives her comments on the cast and crew as she views the movie along with you. Fun and witty.