The director transfers the action of the opera to the 20s of the twentieth century and puts it on the magnificent Spanish estate in Seville. That is where the story about the gentlemen and servants, about the test of the strength of romantic feelings and marriage ties, should be played out.

4k movies reviews
The Digital Opera Guide advertised in bright red on this release’s cover turns out to be a fairly traditional set of pop up text pages that offer some background as well as (text) “commentary” from director Sven-Eric Bechtolf. The Guide is available in English, German and Japanese, either with or without accompanying subtitles of the libretto in that particular language (subtitles for these and other languages are available separately under the Setup menu). It’s interesting enough, though I suspect these may have been translated a bit inefficiently since there are some odd sentence formulations and at least a couple of errors in terms of pronouns and even some of the general plot dynamics. One way or the other, while some of the staging information from Bechtolf is new, any diehard Mozart fan or lover of this particular opera is not going to find anything overly earth shattering, since at least some of it is (supposedly) simply clarifying various plot points. The liner notes in the insert booklet also mention another supplement helpfully entitled More which is supposedly accessible via the Pop Up Menu, which the liner notes state will stop playback and offer more information. Pressing the Pop Up Menu button on my remote simply brought up the Pop Up Menu (wonder of wonders!), which featured only the standard setup and Opera Guide options. (If this turns out to be operator error on my part and someone else is able to find this additional supplement, let me know and I’ll happily update the review.)

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Audio
Italian: LPCM 2.0
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0

Subtitles
English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Korean