The basic structure of this group of pages is an alphabetic index, by composer and work, of all the DVD and Blu-ray reviews that have appeared on Opera Ramblings. Recital and documentary type disks are grouped at the end. It’s a long list (nearly 700 disks) so I have split it into four sections.
I also wrote some posts designed to guide readers to the the disks I find most worthwhile (originally written in April 2015 and sporadically updated). These can be found here.
Also, if it matters to you, there’s a note on, mainly, audio technology and how I relate to it at the bottom of the CD review page.
A note on my reviewing philosophy/approach
My reviews are both a personal opinion and an attempt to offer a kind of review of opera DVDs and Blu-rays which is hard to find elsewhere. Of course I evaluate the production concept and how well it is executed as well as the quality of the music making though, not being a musicologist or a trained singer, you will not find highly detailed analysis of the “such and such a character did/did not execute a trill in the repeat of such and such da capo aria” variety. What I do do is attempt to evaluate the disk as such rather than just review what was on stage with perhaps a few cursory remarks about the disk specific aspects of the production. I believe that recordings are as much the work of the video director and engineering team as they are of the cast and creative team and I try to give full weight to their work in the review. In my reviews you will read a fairly detailed critique of the video direction as well as an evaluation of the audio-visual quality of the package. (I find it odd that many reviewers make comments about sound quality without even identifying which sound track they were listening to!)
I strongly believe that Blu-ray has significant advantages over DVD and review that format when I can which means (a) it exists in that format and (b)either I get a review copy or I buy it. The other major source of disks is the Toronto public library system which doesn’t carry Blu-ray so quite often even when Blu-ray is available I will end up reviewing the DVD version. Where I have reviewed the Blu-ray I have marked the entry on this page with a 
. Where I have reviewed the release on DVD but I know that Blu-ray is available I have indicated with 
. Absence of this icon should not be taken as a definitive indication that Blu-ray is not available. Things change and the Met, in particular, is quite prone to releasing its HD broadcasts on DVD well ahead of an eventual Blu-ray release. On a final note, one can usually assume that a recording issued on Blu-ray was prepared from HD audio and video material but if it has a recording date before about 2000 it’s more likely to be a digitally enhanced non-HD recording. These can be very good and I welcome the trend to cheap Blu-ray reissues of older material but they aren’t of the technical quality of the newer ones. That said, the Sellars’ Theodora is pretty good (and a magnificent production/performance).
ETA March 2019: A very few 4K and Dolby Atmos formatted opera recordings are starting to appear. It will be interesting to see where that goes. I now have a player capable of reading 4K disks so, for now, at least, I’ll flag those as 
.
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