Directed by Peter Sellars and recorded live at Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam in June 2007, the superb cast includes baritone Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer and soprano Jessica Rivera as Kitty Oppenheimer.

“Doctor Atomic came across as the most complex and inventive of Mr. Adams’s works, an engrossing operatic drama, even though very little happens. Yet by the end the entire world has changed forever.”
-Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

On September 30, Opus Arte releases John Adams’ Doctor Atomic (OA0998D), in a production from the Het Musietheater in Amsterdam in June 2007. Directed for television by its librettist/director and Erasmus Prize-winner Peter Sellars, Doctor Atomic is John Adams’ and Peter Sellars’ fifth work in almost 20 years of artistic collaboration.

Doctor Atomic features a superb cast, including Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, who created the role and has made it his signature. The luminous soprano Jessica Rivera performs the role of Kitty Oppenheimer, a part originally conceived for the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. For the Chicago Lyric production, Adams rewrote the role for soprano, adding additional music. Anthony Tommasini called Ms. Rivera, “a radiant lyric soprano … in a vulnerable and intense portrayal.” Other cast members include Eric Owens, Richard Paul Fink, James Maddalena, Thomas Glenn, Jay Hunter Morris, and Ellen Rabiner.

Doctor Atomic received its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. In December 2007, the Lyric Opera of Chicago produced the opera in a revised version. Doctor Atomic will enjoy its fourth production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, opening on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 8 PM.

On August 26, Opus Arte presents Sleeping Beauty performed by The Royal Ballet and conducted by Valeriy Ovsyanikov. This performance of Tchaikovsky’s second ballet, filmed in December of 2006 to mark the 75th anniversary of The Royal Ballet Company, is a revival of the original full-length 1946 production of Sleeping Beauty. As a fitting tribute to The Royal Ballet’s unique style and lush designs, the original designs by Oliver Messels and choreography by famed Marius Petipa are used for this commemorative occasion. Dancers Alina Cojocaru, Federico Bonelli, Christopher Saunders, Genesia Rosato, and Marianela Nuñez lead the viewer through this wonderfully whimsical fairy tale.
Based at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Royal Ballet is Great Britain’s most prestigious ballet company. The 95-strong troupe is acknowledged to be reaching a new artistic and technical peak with talented dancers at all levels in its ranks. The Company’s wide-ranging repertory showcases the great classical ballets including The Royal Ballets own heritage, alongside new works by the foremost international choreographers of today and choreographers from within the Company’s own ranks. This range embraces all the celebrated three-act classical ballets, together with works by Founder Choreographer Frederick Ashton and Principal Choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, ballets by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon and works by Ashley Page and rising British talents amongst those regularly performed.

On July 29, Opus Arte releases Cecilia and Bryn at Glyndebourne, a recital of arias and duets recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House on April 24, 1999. Cecilia Bartoli and Bryn Terfel open the concert with the first two scenes from Le nozze di Figaro, performing the same roles they sang together to great acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera. Terfel and Bartoli join forces with Myung-Whun Chung and the London Philharmonic Orchestra to perform other opera favorites such as the “Catalog Aria” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni (”Madamina, il catalogo è questo”), “Quanto Amore!” from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, and “Pa-pa-pa-pa” from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Some opera rarities like the aria “Al tuo seno fortunato” from Haydn’s opera L’anima del filosofo also are included in the recital.

Also in July, Opus Arte presents Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake performed by the Paris Opera Ballet and Orchestra in December 2005. Tchaikovsky’s first ballet, Swan Lake was composed at the request of the Bolshoi Ballet in 1875. Its premiere was a great disappointment and in 1877 it was removed from the Bolshoi repertoire. It was not until eighteen years later that Swan Lake was resurrected to great glory by French choreographer Marius Petipa, who also convinced the reluctant Tchaikovsky to compose two additional ballets before his death in 1893: Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker. Petipa’s Swan Lake revival, which secured the ballet’s place in the standard repertoire of almost every ballet troupe in the world, finally occurred on January 27, 1895 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

This production of Swan Lake, choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev, premiered with the Paris Opera Ballet in 1984. Nureyev stayed faithful to Petipa’s production, however, he offers a much more personal and intimate vision of the ballet, with what some might say is an almost autobiographical aspect to the development of the story and its characters. Nureyev’s interpretative resolutions are well-suited to Tchaikovsky’s compositional style giving the work the power to assume its true tragic structure.