The Nutcracker.

Tchaikovsky, Peter: The Nutcracker (complete). Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Ballet of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. Recorded in 1999. Engineer: not listed. 118 minutes. Art Haus Music 100119.

This DVD video is done in a 16:9 ratio, making it ideal for wide-screen TV playback. Unfortunately the picture was not DVD sharp, and at times it was downright blurry. Whether this involves the conversion to NTSC video or was simply a problem with low-light video work at the production end I could not say. The colors are often vibrant, however, and the presentation is definitely a visually rich experience.

However, I need to do some qualifying. First, the video makes use of many pans, zooms, and close-ups. With a big projected video image like mine (an 8 x 4.5 foot screen), this can be somewhat disconcerting. The images move about too much. I wish that the camera had simply been set to capture the whole stage, and then I could have pretended that I was at a live performance. On the other hand, those with smaller TV monitors would probably benefit from the close-ups, zooms, and pans, ...