Alexandre Tarta

Breathtaking sets and costumes are designed by Ezio Frigerio and Franca Squarciapino in this exceptional production, recorded at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Direction and choreography in this fully restored version of Marius Petipa's original ballet are by Rudolf Nureyev. Live performance recorded in 1994.

Alexandre Tarta's production of Berlioz's opera, recorded live at the Salzburg Festival in 2000. Sylvain Cambreling conducts, with performances by Jon Villars, Russell Braun and Tigran Martirossian.

Live from the State Opera Under the Linden, Berlin 1999. Choreographed by Patrice Bart.

Theatrical recording of the play from "Black Blood": 1917 was the year during the Great War that nearly led to a revolution in France. At that time, Merlin was a modest but passionate professor. Nicknamed Cripure by his students, he spent most of his time reflecting on the human condition, in the light of God, which was supposed to exist. Filmed in Théâtre du Cothurne in Lyon.

The three main soloists have voices on a scale that can compete with these flashy production values – White and Kasarova, in particular, sing at a level of intensity that would swamp anything less; the climactic seduction trio has rarely been sung so well or with such an overpoweringly polymorphous eroticism. Cambreling marshals his forces effectively, giving full rein to the work's showstoppers like the "Hungarian March" but not neglecting the subtler less kinetic Gluckian side of Berlioz's vocal writing. Recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele, 1999.