Anyone wanting to test out the new audio equipment they got for the holidays might want to pass on the action films and wait for two new operas coming to DVD from Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.

This February will see the release of the Mozart classic Don Giovanni and Martin Scorsese’s take on Madame Butterfly.
Set in Seville in the 1600s, young nobleman Don Giovanni is a well-known philanderer with a long list of amorous conquests. After he attempts to seduce the beautiful Donna Anna, her father’s battle to protect her ends in tragedy. Anna and her fiancé Ottavio pledge to seek revenge. While Don Giovanni continues to charm and trick the local women, his inevitable, dramatic fate is soon upon him.

“Don Giovanni” is presented in Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 and in anamorphic widescreen. The DVD will also carry a theatrical trailer for the opera.

In a cinematic first, director Frederic Mitterand casts Puccini’s beloved opera with Asian and western actors, giving the film a haunting realism seldom seen on opera stages. Soprano Ying Huang stars as Butterfly, the young bride, and the American tenor Richard Troxell is Lieutenant Pinkerton, who buys Butterfly’s love while stationed in Japan, with no intention of ever taking her home to America. The disturbing tale that inspired the Broadway musical “Miss Saigon” adds a brutal reminder of the ways of war.

“Madame Butterfly” is presented in anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Surround 2.0 mix of its original Italian. A featurette entitled “Portrait of a Butterfly” goes behind the scenes of the opera and its newest incarnation.

Both DVDs are coming on February 26th with a suggested retail price of $29.95 each.