The Metropolitan Opera: Boris Godunov (2010)

Beethoven - Fidelio (Zurich 2004)

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is the conductor in this 2004 production of Beethoven's only opera staged at the Zurich Opera House. Finnish soprano Camilla Nyland takes the title role, with performances by Jonas Kaufmann, Laszlo Polgar and Alfred Muff.

Marguerite

Paris in the 1920s. Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman with a passion for music and the opera. For years, she has performed regularly for a circle of guests. But Marguerite sings tragically out of tune and no one has ever told her. Her husband and her close friends have always encouraged her in her illusions. Things become very complicated the day she gets it into her head to perform in front of a genuine public, at the Opera.

Don Carlo

Ghiaurov, Freni, and Bumbry were great voices in their time, and they are still effective here -- good enough musicians to put over the quite heavy vocal and expressive demands of their roles. Louis Quilico was never quite in that league, and he sounds a bit spread and woofy in places here, but he works hard and effectively to bring Rodrigo to life. Placido Domingo recorded his first Don Carlo, for EMI with Giulini, about 15 years before this production, but he looks and sounds fine here -- in the early 1980's he was doing very good Otellos and Lohengrins too, and Furlanetto, still in his 30's, brings a rich, young voice to an old part and succeeds in making the Grand Inquisitor vocally as well as expressively formidable. Levine brings both weight and energy to the score, and that reading fits well with the overall "traditional" design and production -- the Met's wardrobe budget must have been severely taxed, but everybody looks splendid.

Parsifal: The Search for the Grail

Richard Wagner's operatic retelling of the story of the search for the Holy Grail receives a lavish production in this video, which records performances held in Bayreuth, St. Petersburg, and Ravello, Italy. Internationally renowned tenor Placido Domingo leads the distinguished cast; Tony Palmer directs.

Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg

James Morris leads an all-star cast including Karita Mattila, Ben Heppner, Thomas Allen and René Pape, in this production of Wagner's comic opera, recorded live at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2001. James Levine conducts.

Così fan tutte

Who loves whom in Così fan tutte, Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s cruelly comic reflection on desire, fidelity and betrayal? Or have the confusions to which the main characters subject one another ensured that in spite of the heartfelt love duets and superficially fleetfooted comedy nothing will work any longer and that a sense of emotional erosion has replaced true feelings? Così fan tutte is a timeless work full of questions that affect us all. The Academy Award-winning director Michael Haneke once said that he was merely being precise and did not want to distort reality. In only his second opera production after Don Giovanni in 2006, he presents what ARTE described as a “disillusioned vision of love in an ice-cold, realistic interpretation”.

Operette

A musician is offered a job in Vienna as stage director, but his disagreements with the aristocratic opera manager end in abrupt firing in spite of a mutual attraction. He's quickly engaged by another theatre and becomes famous for his lavish stage productions and fine acting, which begins their golden age with Suppé and Strauss.

Lucia di Lammermoor

This telecast offers a rare opportunity to see the legendary Joan Sutherland in the role that first catapulted her to international stardom. She drove audiences wild by the way her opulent voice caressed the music’s long phrases and sprinted effortlessly through the fiendish runs, trills, embellishments and stratospheric high notes. One of the glories of the operatic world, her portrayal of Donizetti’s hapless heroine is a multifaceted and moving characterization. The incomparable tenor Alfredo Kraus is Edgardo, the man Lucia loves but cannot have. (Performance taped November 13, 1982. Broadcasted September 28, 1983.)

The Metropolitan Opera: L’Amour de Loin

Robert Lepage’s dreamlike production, with its thousands of twinkling LED lights stretching across the stage to represent the sea, encapsulates the mystic feeling of L’Amour de Loin, Saariaho’s haunting opera of distant love. Eric Owens is Jaufré Rudel, a troubadour in 12th century France who has become tired of his hedonistic life and longs for an idealized love. Enter the Pilgrim (Tamara Mumford) who tells him his perfect love does, in fact, exist, far across the sea. She is Clémence, Countess of Tripoli (Susanna Phillips). The magic of the characters’ inner lives as they explore the meaning of love, longing, life, and death is heightened by Saariaho’s hypnotic and bewitching score, conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

Wagner: Tannhäuser

Anew production of Tannhäuser, which was premiered on 26 July 2019 and presented the Bayreuth debut of conductor Valery Gergiev, as well as the house debut of young soprano star Lise Davidsen. Tobias Kratzer’s staging presented Tannhäuser as a wildly contemporary parable of art and freedom which was praised as “novel” and “wrenching” (New York Times) and received exceptional press acclaim. hey were joined by mezzo soprano Elena Zhidkova’s Venus (“scene stealing”, according to Opera Today), baritone Markus Eiche’s Wolfram and Stephen Milling’s Landgraf.

Il club dei 27

A 12-year-old boy tries everything to join a music lovers club.

Mefistofele

The director, Roland Schwab, has created his version of Hell. The set is like a high iron walled hanger and the stage is continually occupied with people who look like fugitives from Mad Max and who interact with Mefistofele. The orchestra and choir are wonderful. Rene Pape gives a nuanced interpretation with a certain amount of sardonic humour under the evil. His singing and acting are first rate, as is that of Kristine Opolais and Joseph Calleja.

Puccini: La bohème

"La Bohème" is one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular and timeless works and the second-most performed opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera. This production, directed by the legendary Franco Zeffirelli, features José Carreras, Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto and Richard Stilwell. The opera is replete with extraordinary visual beauty as it presents the tragic story of young bohemians struggling to make it in the world.

Don Giovanni

Mozart’s Don Giovanni was first performed in 1787, and was based on the story of the Spanish lothario, Don Juan. The title character seduces, deceives and murders his way through the opera, doing his utmost to experience life, and all that it has to offer, to the full.

Aida - Arena di Verona

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

The Metropolitan Opera: Norma

Deep in a forest where druids and warriors seek revenge against the conquering Romans, Norma is scorned by the Roman proconsul Pollione, with whom she has two children. Her kindness turns to fury when she discovers that Pollione has taken Adalgisa, a novice priestess, as his new lover. When Pollione loses his high rank in the army and is offered as a sacrifice, Norma promises him freedom under one condition.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Exterminating Angel

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.

The Metropolitan Opera: Tosca

Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thrilled Met audiences when it rang in the New Year in 2018. Only weeks later, the production was seen by opera lovers worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema presentations. In this performance, Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Željko Lučić is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. On the podium, Emmanuel Villaume conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.

Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg Castle

TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG is a grand opera by Richard Wagner in three acts. After experiencing boundless sensuality and freedom with the fun-loving Venus (soprano), the singer Tannhäuser (Tenor) finds it impossible to conform to the cultured setting of his betrothed Elizabeth (soprano), who loves him. During a singing contest, Tannhäuser describes the affair with Venus as the ultimate love experience and because of that, he is cast out from the established society. Thanks to Elizabeth's intervention, he is allowed to undertake a pilgrimage to the Pope to ask for the Holy Father's pardon. If the Pope accepts to forgive him, he would be allowed to take back his place in society. Tannhäuser accepts. But fate will not allow him to meet with his beloved Elizabeth again in this life. This is a recording of the legendary staging by Götz Friedrich for the 1978 Bayreuth Festival conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Nabucco

St. Margarethen is a magnificent structure and a grand setting for Nabucco. This venue, along with the gorgeous costumes, spectacular lighting, lasers and pyrotechnics made for one grand, five star production! This is reason enough to see it and it must be an advantage to view it on DVD.--It would probably be harder to digest the whole spectacle if you were actually sitting in the audience, as there is so much to take in. The whole cast was in great form, both in singing and acting. Simon Yang as Zaccaria and Igor Morosow as Nabucco were excellent. Gabriella Morigi was a convincing Abigail who got better and better. Bruno Ribeiro as Ismaele and Elisabeth Kulman as Fenena were great, too.

Theodora

Julia Bullock, Joyce DiDonato and Jakub Jozef Orlinski star in Katie Mitchell’s thrilling new production of Handel’s Theodora in an alternative modern-day reality, Theodora, a religious fundamentalist, plots for the resistance against the Roman occupation. But when her secret plan to destroy the Roman embassy is discovered, she learns the true brutality of her oppressors. Harry Bicket conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Der Schatzgräber

Franz Schreker’s career was cut short by the events of 1933 in Germany but he achieved real fame with his operas, and the huge success of Der Schatzgräber (‘The Treasure Hunter’) in the 1920s was the high point of his career. In a complex and ultimately tragic tale of destructive greed, desire and toxic social hierarchy, the innkeeper’s daughter Els is forced to confront the consequences of her murderous intent in what conductor Marc Albrecht considers ‘a work of exceptional quality, concentration and significance’. Following the huge success of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (Naxos DVD 2.110584–85 / Blu-ray NBD0083V), director Christof Loy continues his exploration of strong female characters and neglected 20th-century masterpieces with this highly acclaimed Deutsche Oper Berlin production.

Beethoven · Fidelio

A tribute to marriage coming from a bachelor is a tad suspicious. But for Beethoven the idealization of the woman-bride was heartfelt and sincere. It has always been a unique opera starring a courageous wife who wows audiences. Fidelio is a moral title, associated with the ideals of liberty of the French Enlightenment. Nobility and commoners are united in their thirst for justice against the oppression of power. For once the faithful consort of a desaparecido wins her battle against a treacherous tyrant, and the collective joy truly is “nameless”, as is sung on the stage. Especially because the “our heroes to the rescue” finale is recounted by the triumphant symphonic flair of the quintessential musician. Beethoven really does bring the world to collapse at the conclusion of this opera, which begins like a delightful little comedy, but which scales and transcends all the summits of the dramatic-musical art.

BBC Proms (2012): Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard

Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta performed at the Royal Albert Hall.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor, dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848). Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, after Walter Scott's 'The Bride of Lammermoor'. First performance in Naples, Teatro San Carlo, 26 September 1835 Recording: December 23 2015 - Gran Teatre del Liceu | Barcelona Director: Fabrice Castanier Conductor: Marco Armiliato Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu