CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Humperdinck - Hansel and Gretel (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series)

starring: Christine Schafer, Alice Coote, Philip Langridge, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
directed by: Vladimir Jurowski (Conductor)

Release Date September 16, 2008
I saw this production at the Met last December and it was fabulous. Don't let unbending traditionalists who believe going to the opera is like going to the museum turn you away from this highly entertaining and extremely well sung performance of H & G. I can't wait to purchase this dvd and relive that magical afternoon at the Met!

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex

starring: Philip Langridge, Jessye Norman, Min Tanaka, Bryn Terfel, Hisako Horikawa
directed by: Julie Taymor, Seiji Ozawa

Release Date June 14, 2005
Having been so totally pleased with Julie Taymor's presentations of Mozart's Magic Flute and Across the Universe, I decided to try her version of Stravinsky's opera Oedipus Rex. I was not disappointed. It was a riveting performance, such a satisfying and rich visual and musical experience. If anyone has a hard time getting into the Greek classics, this is the way to overcome that obstacle.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito / Nicholas Hytner · Andrew Davis · Philip Langridge · Glyndebourne Opera

starring: Philip Langridge, Diana Montague, Elzbieta Szmytka, Ashley Putnam, Martine Mahé
directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Release Date August 21, 2001
My understanding is that Mozart began composing La Clemenza di Tito after he'd started The Magic Flute but finished Clemenza first, and that this is why there's disagreement over whether Clemenza or Flute is his last opera. No matter, we're just so fortunate that Mozart squeezed in this little opera seria gem before he died. Lean, with sublime vocal and instrumental music, and with forgiveness as its theme, Clemenza is very moving.

This production has a superb cast. Philip Langridge is touching as the troubled Tito, who naively wants to rule with love, not power, but at least in the end can use that power to grant forgiveness all around. Ashley Putnam has a strong stage presence as the cunning Vitellia. Her aria, "Non piu di fiori," where ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Cologne Music Triennale - Britten Serenade, Debussy Nocturnes, Ravel La Valse, Rihm In Doppelter Tiefe / Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic

starring: Claudio Abbado, Philip Langridge

Release Date September 17, 2002
My understanding is that Mozart began composing La Clemenza di Tito after he'd started The Magic Flute but finished Clemenza first, and that this is why there's disagreement over whether Clemenza or Flute is his last opera. No matter, we're just so fortunate that Mozart squeezed in this little opera seria gem before he died. Lean, with sublime vocal and instrumental music, and with forgiveness as its theme, Clemenza is very moving.

This production has a superb cast. Philip Langridge is touching as the troubled Tito, who naively wants to rule with love, not power, but at least in the end can use that power to grant forgiveness all around. Ashley Putnam has a strong stage presence as the cunning Vitellia. Her aria, "Non piu di fiori," where ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Janacek - Jenufa / Davis, Alexander, Silja, Glyndebourne Opera

starring: Roberta Alexander, Anja Silja, Menai Davies, Philip Langridge, Mark Baker (II)
directed by: Derek Bailey

Release Date June 11, 2002
There are two DVDs available of Jenufa, and this is slightly the better choice for musical reason. Neither production satisfies my conception of this great and moving opera. Both are somewhat dramatically turgid. The flaws of this production are chiefly visual and acoustical, as pointed out by other reviewers. It really is a problem, on a DVD movie scale, that Roberta Alexander simply doesn't "look the part" though she acts with conviction; in an opera house, the same production would be sublime.
Janacek is a composer who integrates the voices and the orchestra with great success; that ensemble effect is not captured well on either DVD production (and I confess that it's often not achieved in live performances either). The sound on this DVD is distant ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Opera Highlights Vol. II - Ariodante, Billy Budd, The Fiery Angel, Xerxes, Peter Grimes, Cunning Little Vixen, Giulio Cesare, Eugene Onegin, Ruslan and Lyudmlla

starring: Anna Netrebko, Galina Gorchakova, Philip Langridge, Thomas Allen, Ann Murray

Release Date June 26, 2007
Unfortunately Amazon.com has not listed as of this date the contents of this DVD, so I shall do so here:

All of the arias are staged, taken from full-length DVDs of the operas involved.

Purcell: Fairy Queen - 'O let me weep' - Yvonne Kenny
Handel: Giulio Cesare - 'Piangerò la sorte mis' - Yvonne Kenny
Handel: Ariodante - 'Take your pleasure'- Ann Murray
Handel: Xerxes - 'If you worship the man who has spurned you' - Ann Murray
Glinka: excerpts from 'Ruslan and Lyudmila', Act II - Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Ognovenko, Konstantin Pluzhnikov
Glinka: 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' - Lyudmila's Act IV aria - Anna Netrebko
Tchaikovsky: 'Yevgeny Onegin' - 'No, there could never be another' (Letter Scene) - Orla Boylan
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CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Mozart - Idomeneo / Trevor Nunn, Bernard Haitink - Langridge, Kenny, Vaness, Hadley, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

starring: Philip Langridge, Yvonne Kenny, Jerry Hadley, Carol Vaness, Thomas Hemsley

Release Date August 31, 2004
Great performances: orchestra, conductor and soloists. Glyndebourne productions are always fascinating. Trevor Nunn's direction first-rate.

DVD quality is fine. Video and audio quality excellent considering this is a 1983 analogue source.

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Billy Budd

starring: Thomas Allen (III), Philip Langridge, Richard Van Allan, Philip Guy Bromley, Clive Bayley
directed by: Barrie Gavin

Release Date
It is good to have a DVD of Billy Budd, perhaps Britten's greatest opera, but this ENO production, that should have had everything going for it - experienced Billy Budd cast, good conductor and director - simply misfires. Perfectly OK to get to know the opera, but for anyone who has seen a production that wrings the soul(such as the recent WNO (Welsh National Opera)/Australian Opera Company production conducted by Richard Hickox) this offering seems insipid, and does not convey the real power this opera has.

The fundamental problem seems to be one of body-language. With the close-up shots in this DVD, too many of the cast seem to be concentrating on the singing rather than the character (and this shows in the characterization of the voices), and their body-language ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Britten - Peter Grimes / Atherton, Langridge, English National Opera

starring: Philip Langridge, Janice Cairns, Alan Opie, Ann Howard
directed by: Barrie Gavin

Release Date June 10, 2003
Langridge is the only tenor I've heard in the title role that equals the unforgettable performance of Jon Vickers. But the overall effect of this ENO performance is rather weak. The orchestra playing is tepid and I found the choral work on the ragged side. At the conclusion of the first act when the chorus questions, "Home. You call that home!", the crisp and stunning attack that can be heard in the Covent Garden DVD is lost but then again the ENO production doesn't have Colin Davis leading. The production is stylized and abstract, appearing to be from Peter's insane standpoint. which is a very compelling and valid concept.

I greatly admire Landridge's performance and singing here even if he's terribly flat for the beginning of the critical Great Bear and Pleiades ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Alban Berg - Wozzeck / Adolf Dresen · Claudio Abbado - F. Grundheber · H. Behrens · Vienna State Opera

starring: Franz Grundheber, Walter Raffeiner, Philip Langridge, Heinz Zednik, Aage Haugland
directed by: Brian Large

Release Date August 21, 2001
Wozzeck is one of my favourites operas, a work which I know in some of the most important performances: Bohm (DG), Boulez (CBS/Sony), Dohnanyi (Decca), Barenboim (Teldec), Abbado (DG)... I'm sorry about this is not, from the musical point of view, one of the best available.

The stage direction is good, a very objective work, in a high correspondence with Berg's words, very appropriate for a first watching of this opera, because you can know exactly what's happening, it's not the typical modern stage in which the action take place in a different context than the work and words talk about. So, from the visual point of view is a very clear, interesting and well designed version. It's well shot in video, putting together different takes of faces, full bodies, the full stage ... Read More: