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Top Picks: Putumayo's new album 'Australian Playground,' the Science Channel series 'Through the Wormhole,' and more

'Hitler and the Nazis' is available on DVD, opera stars Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez release their debut album 'Love Duets,' and more top picks.

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The Science Channel
'Through the Wormhole,' hosted by actor Morgan Freeman
  • By Staff

Love songs

Husband-and-wife duo Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez are rising opera stars each in their own right. That makes their debut album all the more compelling. Love Duets on Warner Classics runs the musical gamut from top Verdi, Puccini, and Donizetti operas to Broadway shows, including “Carousel,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Kismet,” and “West Side Story.” It will be released on June 3. 

Never forget

When US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the Nuremberg trials in 1945, he declared famously, “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”  Hitler and the Nazis follows Hitler’s quest from the Treaty of Versailles (1919) to the gallows at Nuremberg (1947), and includes eyewitness interviews to the Normandy invasion, Auschwitz death camp, and the fall of Berlin, with riveting footage. It’s on DVD from Cinedigm. 

Aussie tunes for kids

Didgeridoos, kangaroos, and, of course, a few “Waltzing Matildas” are just some of the pleasures from Putumayo’s latest, Australian Playground. This get-ready-for-summer release features tracks from Down Under talent such as The Neo and Garrangali, Seaman Dan, Lazy Harry, and Joe Hall and the Treehouse Band – all performing regional originals as well as classics. Putumayo will contribute 1 percent of sales to the Australian Children’s Music Foundation.

Golden 'Girl'

Bossa nova’s big breakthrough outside its native Brazil happened 50 years ago this month, in the irresistible form of “The Girl from Ipanema,” the bestselling jazz single in history. The album that spawned the surprise hit “Getz/Gilberto” has been remastered with bonus tracks and better-than-ever sound quality in Getz/Gilberto: Expanded Edition. Veteran jazz saxman Stan Getz, together with Brazil’s greatest composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and deft guitarist/singer Joao Gilberto (with charming wife Astrud), cast a rhythmic and sultry spell.

‘I am the one who knocks!’

The widely popular AMC drama “Breaking Bad,” which centers on the efforts of a chemistry teacher (Bryan Cranston) to support his family with a meth lab, will keep you glued to your TV despite Walter White’s dubious profession. The five seasons of this modern morality tale have been compiled on DVD and Blu-ray for Breaking Bad: The Complete Series, which will be released June 3. The entire series is also currently available on Netflix. 

All that puzzles 

Are you ready to travel back Through the Wormhole? The acclaimed Science Channel series hosted by actor Morgan Freeman returns for its fifth season to tackle such unusual topics as whether zombies could actually be created, if a person’s wealth is determined by genetics, and how a powerful country could be destroyed. The first new episode airs June 4 at 10 p.m.

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