CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]

starring: Renee Fleming, Ramon Vargas, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Valery Gergiev, Jean-Paul Fouchecourt
directed by: Brian Large, Robert Carsen

Release Date December 18, 2007
Of the many many videos of opera my wife and I have seen over the years--DVD, VHS and yes Beta--this was the most poorly produced. No set but a table and chairs and a scrim at the rear that changed from blue with a crescent moon to a light orange. Night and day--get it? Adequate for a low budget off-broadway Chekhov but shameful for grand opera. Most disappointing of all particularly in light of the distinguished singers and conductor was the uneven sometimes faint and hollow sound--perhaps a result of the huge empty stage or sound engineers asleep at the switch. I have difficulty believing Brian Large was in charge of video. I cannot account for the over-the-top reviews except that several may have found it a souvenir of a happy experience ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Harvest of Sorrow - Tony Palmer's Film About Sergei Rachmaninoff

starring: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Valery Gergiev, John Gielgud
directed by: Tony Palmer

Release Date July 31, 2007
I agree with the person giving the DVD a one star rating and talking about mockery of the "motherland". While the performances are good and I WOULD buy this DVD again, the footage of modern-day Russia is very misplaced and does not add, rather detracts from one trying to get a sense of Rachmaninoff's Russia and I feel should have been left out. Footage of Rachmaninoff himself however has been extremely interesting to see.

I did not find the narration to be very informative. In conclusion, while the historical footage and the performances are excellent, modern-day Russia footage and narrative are disappointing and left me with a feeling that something was missing. I would've liked to learn more historical facts from Rachmaninoff's life, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake

starring: Valery Gergiev, Uliana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev, Ilya Kuznetsov, Mariinsky Kirov Opera Ballet

Release Date November 13, 2007
I have seen many times The Swan Lake, at the Bolshoi Theatre and in URSS in Leningrad before and S.Petersbourg later ,and abroad, this ballet, but the role danced by Uliana lopatkina, so mature and controlling her movements so perfectly , i have never seen before!!

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Tchaikovsky - Pique Dame / Gergiev, Grigorian, Leiferkus, Kirov Opera

starring: Gegam Grigorian, Sergei Leiferkus, Olga Borodina, Valery Gergiev

Release Date July 16, 2002
Being a complete fan of all Peter I. Tchaikovsky works I will get this DVD. I have recently purchased "The Tchaikovsky Handbook, A Guide to the Man and His Music, Volume 1 by Alexander Poznansky. In this book it says that Tchaikovsky wrote 11 operas and that there were many, many more that were "unrealized" as Poznansky stated. I will get all the ones that Amazon offers. After all, the more Tchaikovsky tunes the merrier! I will never get bored with his music.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Shostakovich Against Stalin

starring: Valery Gergiev, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Flora Litvinova, Graham Haley, Dmitri Shostakovich
directed by: Larry Weinstein

Release Date November 08, 2005
I was fortunate enough to hear Symphony 7 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week. As moving as the music was, it has helped so much to see this documentary and understand the world Shastakovich lived in when he was composing the "Leningrad". I appreciated the different camera angles of Gergiev's orchestra, and Gergiev does a very good job of explaining to his musicians and his audience the emotions of the music. I never got tired of hearing him talk about the symphonies. The historical footage put the music in context, but a companion DVD that goes more into detail of the time is STALIN (1992) starring Robert Duvall, currently available on Amazon. The interviews with Shostakovich's contemporaries added to the understanding of the music, which played ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Rossini - Il Viaggio a Reims

starring: Valery Gergiev, Daniil Shtoda, Larissa Youdina, Anna Kiknadze, Irma Guigolachvili
directed by: Alain Maratrat

Release Date May 29, 2007
This opera has a rather silly plot(sort of like the Grand Hotel movie), but it is filled with great music very well performed. The singers (from the Kirov young artists program) all sing and act very well and look their parts. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves in this comic opera, and so did I.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Verdi - La Forza del Destino / Gergiev, Gorchakova, Putilin, Marinsky Theatre St. Petersburg (Original 1862 Version)

starring: Valery Gergiev, Galina Gorchakova, Nikolai Putilin

Release Date November 20, 2001
The original Marinsky Forza is presented in a new DVD under the brilliant baton of Valery Gergiev. This offering contains every jot of music that Verdi wrote for this unusual opera. It also contains many of the dramatic scenes cut from all productions of FORZA in recent times. Some of these scenes are a bit egrigious. Most shocking of these additions is the suicide by drowning of Don Alvaro. The three principals are splended in their energy and naturalistic perforemance. The tenor is a slavic version of a young Pavarotti. I would highly recommend this DVD!

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Valery Gergiev Conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Prokofiev, Schnittke & Stravinsky

starring: Valery Gergiev, Yuri Bashmet

Release Date July 22, 2003
this recording is a classical revelation. Not only the recording hall in the capitol of Austria and of classical music at least some parts is portrayed, but also the music and the images are right. I am more eager to hear a version of symphonie 5 than 1 of Prokofiev, but one cannot have it all in this life. Gergiev should be in love with the camera. I live in Rotterdam, where he is chief-conductor, and I have seen that guy working not in Rtd but in St Petersburg. I do not have to say he is good and excellent, have I? Four stars because of the repertoire symphony one.

CD-Charts Position 9
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
Tchaikovsky: ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Sacred Stage: The Mariinsky Theater

starring: Valery Gergiev, Richard Thomas
directed by: Joshua Waltezky

Release Date November 22, 2005
Ex-Waltonite Richard Thomas narrates the story of the famed Russian theater set against the backdrop of the magical White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg --- a documentary as revealing as it is riveting. This is as much the story of the survival of the space held so dear for so many decades to a nation as it is a study of the collapse of Communism and a candid look at the life and work of Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky's artistic director, a mighty, magical maestro whose life is populated with artists, politicians, financiers and socialites. The perfect recipe for those who think Soviet culture is colder than a bowl of borscht