Shakespeare provided lifelong inspiration for the towering operatic genius that was Giuseppe Verdi, but just three of the Bard’s plays ever emerged fully-fledged from the composer’s pen. This trio of landmark productions, featuring a veritable constellation of singers, conductors and directors, are united here under the banner of Verdi’s Shakepeare Operas: Macbeth, which lifted the young composer out of his hard-working ‘galley years’, propelling him to international fame and universal acclaim, and Otello and Falstaff, his final two crowning operatic achievements. Simon Keenlyside and Liudmyla Monastyrska are imposing as the Thane and his Lady in Phyllida Lloyd’s sumptuous production of The Scottish Play for The Royal Opera, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, while José Cura interprets the Moor in a profound, intense staging by Willy Decker at Barcelona’s Liceu. By the end of his dramatic opera career, Verdi claimed he had ‘earned at last the right to laugh a little’, and Richard Jones’s Glyndebourne Festival production of Falstaff radiates humour, tinged with bitterness and wisdom and brought to life by an international ensemble cast with Christopher Purves in the title role under the inspiring baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

Subtitles: ENGLISH, FRANÇAIS, DEUTSCH, ESPAÑOL, ITALIANO (ALL TITLES), CATALA (OTELLO), JAPANESE (MACBETH)

Running time: 170 MINUTES, 23 MINUTES (BONUS); 151 MINUTES (OTELLO); 136 MINUTES (FALSTAFF)

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Artists

Simon Keenlyside (Macbeth), Liudmyla Monastyrska (Lady Macbeth), Raymond Aceto (Banquo), Dmitri Pittas (Macduff), Nigel Cliffe (Servant), Steven Ebel (Malcolm), Elisabeth Meister (Lady-in-Waiting) & Lukas Jakobski (Doctor), José Cura (Otello), Krassimira Stoyanova (Desdemona), Lado Ataneli (Iago), Vittorio Grigolo (Cassio), Ketevan Kemoklidze (Emilia), Vicenç Esteve Madrid (Rodrigo), Giorgio Giuseppini (Lodovico), Francisco Santiago (Montano), Roberto Accurso (Un Araldo), Christopher Purves (Falstaff), Tassis Christoyannis (Ford), Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Mistress Quickly), Dina Kuznetsova (Alice Ford), Jennifer Holloway (Meg Page), Adriana Kucerova (Nanetta), Bulent Bezduz (Fenton), Peter Hall (Dr Caius), Alasdair Elliott (Bardolpho), Paolo Battaglia (Pistol)

Royal Opera Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, London Philharmonic Orchestra & The Glyndebourne Chorus, Antonio Pappano (conductor) & Phyllida Lloyd (stage director), Antoni Ros-Marbà (musical director) & Willy Decker (stage director), Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) & Richard Jones (director)