As more and more companies take a deep breath and experiment with classical music releases on DVD, some real gems are starting to appear, though even now there are few that truly take advantage of the decidedly classical-friendly technology at their disposal. The DVD format is, of course, perfect for classical music in general (thanks to its many audio options ranging from DTS 5.1 surround to high-resolution uncompressed digital) and especially well suited to the long running times of operas such as Mozart’s.

But there’s a bit of a clash of interests going on here as well. Classical music fans are well accustomed to the concept that the “best� version of a particular piece of music will not necessarily also be the newest. And that doesn’t really matter – performance issues aside, analogue recording technology has been at a point since the early 1960s where extremely refined and exciting recordings were possible. The same doesn’t go for video, though, and DVD is a visual medium. Classical artists have never especially been in the habit of filming or taping their studio performances (though it has happened, and indeed Herbert von Karajan used to do special performances just for filming purposes) and so most classical video releases tend to be live recordings made for television and VHS video or even the cinema (in the case of operas, there have also been quite a few attempts to re-stage the production for the cameras in the style of a feature film).

This production of Mozart’s crowd-pleasing opera Le Nozze Di Figaro is intended to be the visual equivalent of John Eliot Gardiner’s acclaimed 1993 audio CD version, which is one of the most accessible and exciting recordings of this opera currently available. Gardiner, along with his hand-picked Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, is renowned for his attention to detail and his insistence on the use of authentic period instruments on most of his recordings. But beyond that, Gardiner’s keen sense of rhythm and timing adds a unique bite to the works he tackles – and he’s not afraid to speed things up a little, either. Take Le Nozze Di Figaro as an example. The fine Glyndebourne Festival Opera performance available on Warner Vision, conducted by Bernard Haitink, runs some 188 minutes. Gardiner, remarkably, manages to get through the entire opera 20 minutes faster than that, without ever sounding hurried. It’s obvious how this happens when you hear this performance – at times the music seems to literally fly, infused with the sense of fun that its composer almost certainly intended.

Gardiner and his musicians are superb throughout, and it’s a cynical person indeed that isn’t humming along to all this within minutes, classical music fan or not. But there’s also some star power here in the form of big Welsh voice Bryn Terfel (who’s gregarious as Figaro) and an irresistible performance from Alison Hagley as Susanna; the rest of the cast, which includes Rodney Gilfry and the wonderful Hillevi Martinpelto, is excellent.

This 1993 live recording, though, is not of the same performance featured on Gardiner’s audio CD version; that one was recorded in London, but here we have a Paris performance from the same year that takes a little longer to hit its stride than the London one, and is not anywhere near as well recorded. The cast, though, is identical.

Originally released on VHS tape and then laserdisc, this is a video recording made by French television and radio in 1993 of a performance at the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris. And as the accompanying booklet helpfully informs us, it was shot in High Definition 1250 format – that’s 1250 lines of resolution, exactly double that of standard PAL. So quite why this DVD (in common with most of Universal Classics’ DVDs to date) is in decidedly low-definition NTSC is something of a mystery. It appears that the idea was to settle on a single video format worldwide to avoid confusion, and with the relative lack of PAL playback ability in NTSC territories the inferior format was chosen to be the default. And the standards conversion needed to turn this European video production into NTSC has resulted in no small amount of quality loss – most likely, the NTSC master that was prepared for laserdisc was used as the source, instead of going back to the hi-def master tape. It’s a shame – we’re sure that would have looked quite spectacular on DVD.

Presented in HDTV’s usual 1.78:1 ratio (but cropped at the sides, resulting in an effective 1.72:1 format instead) this one’s not 16:9 enhanced, and displays a lot of the deficiencies of composite video throughout. Black level is slightly higher than usual, and that will be especially noticeable to those whose TVs are calibrated for PAL (i.e. most people) and there’s some mild video and colour noise, a decided lack of vibrancy and a generally “soft� look to the whole thing. All that said, it doesn’t look awful – we’ve been spoiled by pristine recent productions, after all – but the use of this old NTSC master represents a real wasted opportunity. The 168 minute opera runs over two layers with the switch between acts 2 and 3, undetectable as a layer change due to the abrupt fade to black that can also be found at the ends of acts 1 and 3 (presumably this was to split the production over four laserdisc sides).

A single audio track is provided, which pleasingly is uncompressed PCM 16/48 and in true audio CD fashion is claimed on the back cover to be “DDD� (digitally recorded, mixed and mastered). As a broadcast production (recorded by Radio France) this is a much less refined recording than Gardiner’s audio CD version, though, and there’s a decided midrangey sound to it all that’s very uncharacteristic; bass response improves somewhat later, but may have been rolled off to ease the pain from the huge amount of stage noise, which is truly astonishing. Aside from the constant creaking and thumping of the stage boards and the mechanical noise of the set itself, there’s a slamming door at one point which was so loud it was quite literally startling. If you can handle the din, the orchestra is well miked and the singing voices always clearly audible.

Such technical problems are common to live opera recordings, of course, and one thing you can’t fault with this disc is the price. The audio version, a three disc set, will set you back a good $80 or so. This DVD, meanwhile, can be had for less than half that – and unlike the audio CD, you can choose to have a real-time translation in any one of five languages.