PERFORMING ARTS: CLASSICAL MUSIC / DANCE / OPERA : COMMENTARY : Music Shines on Laser Disc : When the right material is matched with the sharp sound and imagery of laser technology, the outcome is a must-hear-and-see proposition for classical music (and movie) buffs.

Let us now consider the laser disc. Clean and bright of image, crisp and digital of sound, durable for the ages, and easy to get around on. A super CD, with pictures. Far superior in sound and image to that clunky dinosaur, the videotape. All in all, it has been a pretty nifty technology for capturing solo recitals, opera performances, tenor extravaganzas and symphony orchestra concerts.

But even such nifty uses as these have never really exploited the medium to its full potential, and a serious listener wasn’t missing much if he didn’t own a laser disc player.

But things change. A handful of recent releases are finally showing off what a laser disc can do. The shift, from a passive recording of events to more aggressive uses of the technology, is nevertheless a subtle one, and in some cases may not even be entirely intentional. But never you mind. The Hula Hoop looked like a mere circle on paper.

The most conspicuous example of the new and improved classical laser disc is the much acclaimed refurbishment of Eisenstein and Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky” (on RCA Victor Red Seal). Here, on the big silver platter, not on the big silver screen, is the full fruition of a masterpiece.

“In my opinion,” says “Nevsky” executive producer John Goberman, “this is exactly what Eisenstein and Prokofiev intended. We bent over backward to be authentic here. They would have been thrilled with this.”

Because of the limitations of technology in 1938 Russia, “Nevsky” has never looked all that great, and the recorded sound of Prokofiev’s score--which takes centerstage when it’s on--was nothing less than execrable. Using the latest in digital technology, Goberman and his team were able to separate and rework the various elements of the film. Prokofiev’s film score was reconstructed from the “Nevsky” Cantata and digitally recorded, in a wonderfully physical performance by Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.

So, would the movie have been refurbished were there no such things as laser discs?

“The fact that you could make such a good version of ‘Nevsky,’ for all time, was completely driven by, or certainly relevant to, the availability of the digital technology,” explains Goberman. He says that a laser of “Ivan the Terrible,” Eisenstein and Prokofiev’s other collaboration, is now being talked about.

A nother music and film com bination that benefits and blooms on laser disc is “32 Short Films About Glenn Gould” (from Columbia Tristar Home Video). Here, it’s the capability of the listener/viewer to easily manipulate what he sees and hears, the 32 chapter stops, that makes the difference, turning the film, non-linear to begin with, into an grab bag of impressive classical music videos.

Jumping back and forth and to and fro in this laser disc is like revisiting your favorite poems: Director Francois Girard’s images--actually settings of Gould’s performances--become deeper and clearer with repeated viewings. One begins to savor not only the artfulness and subtlety of his images, but their musical appropriateness and insights. What, after all, could be a more fitting accompaniment to Gould’s geometric rendition of Bach’s Prelude No. 2, from Book 1 of “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” than Girard’s scanning of the insides of a piano playing the piece? What could better mirror the discoveries unearthed by Gould in Beethoven’s Sonata, Opus 27, No. 1 than to see the gradual dawning of understanding on a German hotel maid’s face as Gould plays her the record. (Her simple reply at the end, ‘Danke schon,” is ours too.)

What makes laser disc a great format for “32 Short Films” also serves “The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past” (Teldec). This linear documentary, a much expanded version of the PBS’ recent “Legendary Maestros,” becomes a reference tool, an anthology, a party game.

For the connoisseur of conductors, there can be few things more comical and instructive than to flip between an aggressively bored Richard Strauss beating time in his own “Till Eulenspiegel” to the in-your-face emotionalism, in a rehearsal no less, of Leonard Bernstein leading Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Or compare and contrast a dour and ungiving Fritz Reiner conducting Beethoven’s Seventh as if it caused him great pain with the joy and elegance of Thomas Beecham tracing the charms of the Ballet Music from “Faust” as if it were the best music ever written.

And let’s not forget some of the more obvious advantages to having this material on laser: durability for the rare archival footage; the best possible sounds and images; and room. On this expanded laser version we get a complete performance of the Overture to “Der Freischutz” conducted by Felix Weingartner and a virtually complete and blazing one of the Overture to “Tannhauser” conducted by Fritz Busch. Along the way are Otto Klemperer (the man who once said “There’s a lot of acting in conducting” doesn’t look like he’s acting when he’s shown having a little tantrum in rehearsal), Barbirolli, Toscanini (in another tantrum), Szell, Karajan, Furtwangler, Walter, Stokowski and Koussevitzky. Seeing them create what we have only heard before explains volumes about their art.

One conductor we only see. “[Arthur] Nikisch was an absolute beau,” remembers Klemperer in the book “Conversations With Klemperer.” “He had wonderful hands and always showed a lot of cuff--the black of his evening dress and the white of his cuffs was tremendously effective.” I’ve always wished I had seen that. And in silent footage from 1913 included here, those hands, those cuffs and Nikisch’s piercing eyes are seen. Perhaps nothing on this disc encapsulates the mysteries of the art of conducting better than these fleeting images.

T he right image, of course, gets at the heart of what is making laser discs crucial to classical music. Consider Carlos Kleiber. He too, needs to be seen to be fully appreciated, and it could be that he knows it. He has made a choice: Since the early days of laser disc, he has appeared in the format, often to the exclusion of an accompanying compact disc release (already a rare commodity from this perfectionist conductor).

The reason isn’t difficult to fathom. Kleiber is a fascinating conductor to watch, the very embodiment of the music he conducts, often with a broad, joyous smile on his face. Given his attention to every detail in a performance, his unflagging insistence on ultra-polished execution, Kleiber appears made for this hi-tech recording medium, the only one capable of capturing his entire artistic nature.

His latest laser disc, “Der Rosenkavalier” (on Deutsche Grammophon with, again, no CD companion) by necessity shows Kleiber very little, but it does manage to get him on camera at every possible opportunity. During the instrumental preludes to all three acts the camera stays frozen on him, not bothering much with showing the orchestra. And several times during the opera itself, the camera rather shockingly cuts away from the action on stage to show the conductor in the pit.

The performance is vintage Kleiber, finely honed, meticulously executed, exuberant. The Vienna Staatsoper cast, headed by Felicity Lott as the Marschallin, Anne Sophie Von Otter as Octavian, Barbara Bonney as Sophie and Kurt Moll as Baron Ochs, is uniformly top-notch and better. The sets, costumes, lighting, stage direction are all tasteful and professional, the camera work (in letterbox format) rarely calling undue attention to itself. Kleiber leads an exquisitely agile and frothy orchestral performance, delicate and powerful, delineating the hullabaloo in Strauss’ orchestra with chamber-music clarity. This two-disc set will set you back a few bucks, but it’s cheaper than a trip to Vienna, which is the only other option.