Callas Forever (2002)

The Words

The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.

What a Drag

A closeted gay man's attempt to "act straight" for the sake of his job has unexpected consequences.

Tea with Mussolini

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

Easy Virtue

Larita Filton is named as correspondent in a scandalous divorce case. She escapes to France to rebuild her life where she meets John Whittaker. They are later married, but John's well-to-do family finds out Larita's secret.

Good Bye, Lenin!

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

In the glamorous world of New York City, Rebecca Bloomwood is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping – a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favorite fashion magazine, but can't quite get her foot in the door – until ironically, she snags a job as an advice columnist for a financial magazine published by the same company.

Joker

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

The Night House

Reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Beth is left alone in the lakeside home he built for her. Soon she begins to uncover her recently deceased husband's disturbing secrets.

Arrival

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

Poor Things

Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

After finding a host body in investigative reporter Eddie Brock, the alien symbiote must face a new enemy, Carnage, the alter ego of serial killer Cletus Kasady.

Alien: Romulus

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

The Wailing

A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

Baby Driver

After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.

Blade Runner 2049

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.

Anatomy of a Fall

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Siblings Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter step through a magical wardrobe and find the land of Narnia. There, they discover a charming, once peaceful kingdom that has been plunged into eternal winter by the evil White Witch, Jadis. Aided by the wise and magnificent lion, Aslan, the children lead Narnia into a spectacular, climactic battle to be free of the Witch's glacial powers forever.

Scream

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

Dune

Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

Inside Out 2

Teenager Riley's mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.

Fear of Rain

A teenage girl living with schizophrenia begins to suspect her neighbor has kidnapped a child. Her parents try desperately to help her live a normal life, without exposing their own tragic secrets, and the only person who believes her is Caleb – a boy she isn’t even sure exists.

Jurassic World Rebirth

Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, covert operations expert Zora Bennett is contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure genetic material from the world's three most massive dinosaurs. When Zora's operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized, they all find themselves stranded on an island where they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades.

Oppenheimer

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Peter Parker is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super-hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Struggling to find his place in the world while juggling school and family, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales is unexpectedly bitten by a radioactive spider and develops unfathomable powers just like the one and only Spider-Man. While wrestling with the implications of his new abilities, Miles discovers a super collider created by the madman Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk, causing others from across the Spider-Verse to be inadvertently transported to his dimension.

Angel Has Fallen

After a treacherous attack, Secret Service agent Mike Banning is charged with attempting to assassinate President Trumbull. Chased by his own colleagues and the FBI, Banning begins a race against the clock to clear his name.

The Blind Side

The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family.

The Suicide Squad

Supervillains Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and a collection of nutty cons at Belle Reve prison join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X as they are dropped off at the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.

A Fistful of Dollars

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.

Dune: Part Two

Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

Inception

Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.

The Platform

A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.

The Witch

In 1630, a farmer relocates his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of a forest where strange, unsettling things happen. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, each family member's faith, loyalty and love are tested in shocking ways.

Outside

A family retreats to an isolated farm during a zombie outbreak, but years of painful secrets take a toll as they navigate their desolate world.

Leave the World Behind

A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.

Legally Blonde

Fashionable sorority queen Elle Woods has it all, but, she wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington III. But he dumps her before heading to Harvard Law School. Elle rallies all of her resources and gets into Harvard, determined to win him back. While there, she figures out that there is more to herself than just good looks.

After Love

Set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, Mary Hussain suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just twenty-one miles across the English Channel in Calais.

Amadeus

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Ariadne auf Naxos

Starring Jonas Kaufmann as Bacchus and featuring Emily Magee with Daniel Harding conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, Ariadne auf Naxos was filmed at the acclaimed Salzburg Festival in 2012. This release also includes "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme."

Cavalli: Eliogabalo

Systematically overturning accepted morals, Elagabalus dresses men as women, and names women to the Senate, favours sinning servants and humiliates generals. Baroque and carnivalesque, Eliogabalo is not, however, an opera that advocates a return to order. Leonardo García Alarcón, a finder of baroque gems, and Thomas Jolly are careful not to transform Eliogabalo into a sublime icon who would abase virtue. On the contrary, the conductor and young director, who are presenting their first production for the Paris Opera, accept the character’s contradictions and ambiguities

Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann

This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethe’s Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero recounting his love affairs with Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta. Robert Carsen’s spectacular production highlights the melancholy genius of a man marked by life, with a coherence and dramatic sense remarkable for a work that leaves numerous questions unanswered. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ermonela Jaho, Kate Aldrich, Yann Beuron and Ramón Vargas and Stefano Secco in the main role, interpret the legendary airs of this work whose brilliant mystery will continue to dazzle opera houses for countless years to come.

Bizet: Carmen

With a devilish sway of the hips and a hint of Andalusian flair, Carmen, the beautiful cigar-maker sets her sights on a soldier: Don José. Fate will do the rest. Composed to a libretto by Meilhac and Halévy based on Prosper Mérimée’s novella, the opera exploded the boundaries between tragedy and comedy with a modernity that caused a scandal at the time. Can we kill the one we love with love? The fiery beauty of Bizet’s music, where one unforgettable aria follows another, has worked year in, year out to make it the world’s most performed opera.

Francesconi: Trompe-la-Mort

An impressive masked figure, Trompe‑la‑mort reveals his true character through his impalpable latent energy and a plot abounding in tragic twists of fate. An ambivalent character, both regal in bearing and warmly protective, cruel and yet loving, rapacious and indomitable even in the face of madness, this ’Machiavelli among miscreants’ destined to become chief of police, uses his conquests to advance relentlessly in the pursuit of his aims whilst keeping his hand closely hidden. Guy Cassiers, working for the first time with the Paris Opera, portrays a three-tiered society where some rise and others fall.

Rimsky-Korsakov: The Snow Maiden

Snegurochka was born in times of old in Tsar Berendey’s mythical kingdom, the fruit of the union between Spring the Beauty and Grandfather Frost. Protected by her parents from the jealousy of the Sun god Yarilo who has vowed to warm her heart when she gets older and falls in love, Snegurochka the snow maiden is entrusted to the wood sprite…Aida Garifullina sings the role of Snegurochka whilst the production and musical direction have been left in the capable hands of two other Russian artists: the young conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov and director Dmitri Tcherniakov.

Berg: Wozzeck

Separated and fragmented, the scenes combine in a series of tableaux to tell the story of Wozzeck, an ordinary soldier whose only solace is the love of his companion Marie. However, the latter’s fidelity is not unfailing and Wozzeck is haunted by torment. His officers and comrades in arms do little to improve the situation. The omnipresent tension in this profoundly romantic work unifies the fifteen scenes with their complex tonalities alternating between Verist notes and the force of ritualised actions. Christoph Marthaler’s production provides an atmosphere of contemporaneity strongly accentuated by the choice of a single set, where the men’s despair is submerged in Berg’s dearly sought-after sobriety.

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

Inspired by Pushkin's masterpiece of Russian literature, Tchaikovsky’s opera provides a sublime portrait – both ironic and sympathetic – of a character embittered by society life, rejecting love out of vanity, killing his friend the poet Lenski out of pride and spending the rest of his days in abject despair. A repertoire classic, Willy Decker’s streamlined production makes the Paris Opera echo once more to the strains of Russian romantic music. Edward Gardner conducts an exceptional cast including Peter Mattei in the title role and Anna Netrebko as Tatiana.

The Electric Horseman

A former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast cereal in a gaudy Las Vegas show. When he's asked to perform with a $12 million horse, he discovers it is being doped to remain docile. He flees into the desert astride the beast in an act of defiance. A story-hungry female reporter gives chase.

Farinelli

The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.

Salomé

David McVicar’s powerful Royal Opera House 2008 production of Strauss's opera – based on a play by Oscar Wilde – takes the controversial and disturbing film 120 Days of Sodom as its visual reference. The action is set in a debauched palace, which has suggestions of Nazi Germany. Strauss’s ravishing and voluptuous score adds to the sexual alchemy that is conjured by an international cast led by Nadja Michael in the title role.

Francesca Da Rimini

This 2021 Deutsche Oper Berlin performance is directed by Christof Loy and stars soprano Sara Jakubiak in the title role. Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini is a four-act opera set during the Renaissance period. The plot concerns an arranged marriage between Francesca and Giovanni, also known as Gianciotto, who is impersonated by his handsome brother Paolo, and with whom Francesca falls passionately in love.

A Republic Song

During the Turkish artistic revolution of the 1930s, a group of pioneers staged Özsoy Opera, the first opera in the history of Turkish Republic.

Hannah and Her Sisters

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

The Committee

The Committee, starring Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame, is a unique document of Britain in the 1960s. After a very successful run in London’s West End in 1968, viewings of this controversial movie have been few and far between. Stunning black and white camera work by Ian Wilson brings to life this “chilling fable” by Max Steuer, a lecturer (now Reader Emeritus) at the London School of Economics. Avoiding easy answers, The Committee uses a surreal murder to explore the tension and conflict between bureaucracy on one side, and individual freedom on the other. Many films, such as Total Recall, Fahrenheit 451 and Camus’ The Stranger, see the state as ignorant and repressive, and pass over the inevitable weaknesses lying deep in individuals. Drawing on the ideas of R.D. Laing, a psychologically hip state faces an all too human protagonist.

That Girl from Paris

Nikki Martin, a beautiful French opera star, stows away on an ocean liner in hopes of escaping her jealous fiancee. Once aboard, she joins an American swing band and falls in love with its leader, who, after hearing her sing, eventually comes to reciprocate her feelings.

I Dream Too Much

Opera student Annette Monard meets composer Jonathan Street, and in a buoyant, alcohol-fueled evening, the couple marries. Sincerely falling in love, Jonathan encourages the talented Annette to sing — yet when his own attempt at an opera fails, Jonathan lashes out at Annette's success. Despite her husband's jealousy, Annette embarks on a successful career that allows her to secretly fund Jonathan's opera, bringing their marriage to a crisis.

Orango

"Orango" - prologue to an unfinished opera by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mariinsky Theatre Academy. In the 1920s, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov carried out a series of experiments to create a human/nonhuman ape hybrid. Three female chimpanzees were inseminated with human sperm. No pregnancy occurred.. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan.

Lili Elbe

The painter Lili Elbe was the first person to have gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. The homonymous opera is a glimpse into the life of Lili Elbe and her wife Gerda Wegener (also a famous painter) through Lili's transition at a time when such surgery was still completely uncharted territory.

Aleko

The history of the gypsy Aleko who couldn't forgive the betrayal of his wife.

The Girl Downstairs

A wealthy playboy surreptitiously romances a scullery maid to gain access to her mistress with whom he is in love, but doesn't count on the maid falling in love with him.

Hairspray

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.

Mozart: Don Giovanni

Don Juan sins with his servant and is doomed in this tragicomic opera.

Maytime

An aging opera singer looks back on her long life, including her relationships with her vocal teacher and a student.

La traviata

This “Traviata” became one of the most succesful of all opera films, especially in France, where 800,000 Parisian cinemagoers flocked to it in the first six week. It was nominated for two Oscars (for production and costume design) and won BAFTAs in those two categories, as well as receiving BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations as 1983’s Best Foreign-Language Film.

Bizet: Carmen

Richard Eyre’s stunning new production of Bizet’s opera was the talk of the town when it was unveiled on New Year’s Eve 2009. Elīna Garanča leads the cast as the iconic gypsy of the title—a woman desired by every man but determined to remain true to herself. Roberto Alagna is Don José, the soldier who falls under her spell and sacrifices everything for her love, only to be cast aside when the toreador Escamillo (Teddy Tahu Rhodes) piques Carmen’s interest. With dances created by star choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and conducted by rising maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, this Carmen brings every aspect of Bizet’s tale to thrilling life, from its lighthearted beginning to its inevitably tragic climax.

Aria

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

The Metropolitan Opera: La Fanciulla del West

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Puccini’s gun-slinging heroine in this romantic epic of the Wild West, with the heralded return of tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the role of the outlaw she loves. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov also sings some performances. Baritone Željko Lučić is the vigilante sheriff Jack Rance, and Marco Armiliato conducts.

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the classic John Dexter production of Poulenc’s devastating story of faith and martyrdom. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sings the touching role of Blanche and soprano Karita Mattila, a legend in her own time, returns to the Met as the Prioress.

The Metropolitan Opera: La Fille du Régiment

Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Pretty Yende team up for a feast of bel canto vocal fireworks—including the show-stopping tenor aria “Ah! Mes amis,” with its nine high Cs. Alessandro Corbelli and Maurizio Muraro trade off as the comic Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield. Enrique Mazzola conducts.

The Metropolitan Opera: Aida

With its cast of hundreds, thrilling score, and sweeping tale of love and heroics in ancient Egypt, Verdi’s Aida has long been a fixture on the stages of every major opera house in the world. For the 2018 revival of Sonja Frisell’s monumental production of this grand masterpiece, the Met assembled a truly all-star cast. Soprano Anna Netrebko takes on the title role for the first time at the Met, and mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili plays her rival, the conniving princess Amneris. Tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko is Radamès, the warrior that both women love, and Quinn Kelsey lends his robust baritone to Aida’s father, the fallen king Amonasro. Maestro Nicola Luisotti is on the podium to conduct this epic performance, filmed as part of the Met’s series of Live in HD cinema transmissions.

The Metropolitan Opera: Adriana Lecouvreur

Soprano Anna Netrebko joins the ranks of Renata Tebaldi, Montserrat Caballé, and Renata Scotto, taking on—for the first time at the Met—the title role of the real-life French actress who dazzled 18th-century audiences with her on-and offstage passion. The soprano is joined by tenor Piotr Beczała as Adriana's lover, Maurizio. The principal cast also features mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili and baritone Ambrogio Maestri. Gianandrea Noseda conducts. Sir David McVicar's staging, which sets the action in a working replica of a Baroque theater, premiered at the Royal Opera House in London, where the Guardian praised the "elegant production, sumptuously designed ... The spectacle guarantees a good night out."

The Metropolitan Opera: Carmen

Mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine reprises her remarkable portrayal of opera’s ultimate seductress, a triumph in her 2017 debut performances, with impassioned tenors Yonghoon Lee and Roberto Alagna as her lover, Don José. Omer Meir Wellber and Louis Langrée share conducting duties for Sir Richard Eyre’s powerful production, a Met favorite since its 2009 premiere.

The Secret Lives of Dentists

An introspective dentist's suspicions about his wife's infidelity stresses his mental well being and family life to the breaking point.

An Actor's Revenge

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago.

Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion - The Play

The fireworks begin when Madea’s family gathers for her granddaughter’s wedding. As usual, Madea rules the roost, as she and her neighbor, the wacky Mr. Brown, deliver nonstop laughs. Live, love, rejoice...it’s Madea’s Family Reunion!

Der Fliegende Holländer

This vivid film of Wagner's romatic opera succeeds in conveying what has famously been called "the wind that blows out at you whenever you open the score", including Daland's boat anchoring against the Sandwike cliffs, the red-sailed phantom ship, and the ghost crew rising from the dead. "Scenes that recall classic horror films... Brilliantly successful" (Nürnberger Nachrichten), "Captures the works' essence" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). With a superb cast; conducted by Wagner authority Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Curse of the Black Cat

A notable opera singer tries to commit suicide because of a emotional breakdown. While hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic, her daughter cautiously approaches the man she considers to be the blame for the state of her mother in order to gain her revenge.

River of Fundament

Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

Glyndebourne: Hamlet

Brett Dean's multi-award-winning opera received its world premiere at Glyndebourne Festival 2017. The world premiere recording of Brett Deans new opera based on Shakespeares best-known tragedy: To be, or not to be. This is Hamlets dilemma, and the essence of Shakespeares most famous and arguably greatest work, given new life in operatic form in this original Glyndebourne commission. Thoughts of murder and revenge drive Hamlet when he learns that it was his uncle Claudius who killed his father, the King of Denmark, then seized his fathers crown and wife. But Hamlets vengeance vies with the question: is suicide a morally valid deed in an unbearably painful world?

La forza del destino

Film version of the Verdi opera about lovers on the run after the accidental death of the girl's father.

The Heart Is a Dark Forest

A woman's life is destroyed when she discovers that her husband has another family.

The Right to Live

A man with a broken back dies after his wife has an affair with his brother.

Les contes d'Hoffmann - Opéra Bastille novembre 2016

Plot unavailable

Kaija Saariaho: Innocence

The world premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's opera, "Innocence", at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Finland is the setting but the protagonists come from the four corners of Europe: a Finnish groom and his Romanian bride, a French mother-in-law and a Czech maid. Around them memories unravel in a contemporary tragedy of guilt and lost innocence.

La Traviata - The Met

James Levine leads a remarkable cast in one of Verdi’s most enduringly popular operas and brings fresh insights to this beloved score. Ileana Cotrubas is poignant and touching as Violetta, the consumptive courtesan who finds true love with Alfredo, sung with style and passion by the great Plácido Domingo. Cornell MacNeil is Germont, Alfredo’s father, who forces the two apart, setting in motion events that lead to a shattering and tragic conclusion. Colin Graham’s production features design by Tanya Moiseiwitsch and choreography by Zachary Solov.

The Magic Flute

During World War I, in an unnamed country, a soldier named Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the supposedly evil Sarastro. But all is not as it seems.

Giuseppe Verdi: Simon Boccanegra

This evocative production by Giancarlo Del Monaco sumptuously captures the look and feel of 14th century Genoa and is a perfect compliment to Verdi’s setting of this story of searing conflict between public duty and private grief. Plácido Domingo is Gabriele Adorno, sworn enemy of the doge of Genoa, Simon Boccanegra (Vladimir Chernov). Gabriele is in love with the beautiful Amelia (Kiri Te Kanawa at her most affecting) who turns out to be none other than the long-lost daughter the doge. James Levine’s authoritative conducting of the Met orchestra and chorus reveals the dark power of Verdi’s score. Performed January 26th, 1995.

Dinorah, or The Pardon of Ploërmel

Giacomo Meyerbeer's pastoral opera,based on a Breton tale, is the tale of DINORAH who has gone mad because her bridegroom Hoël has disappeared during their wedding. This production, performed as part of Théâtre Impérial de Compiegne's purpose of reviving obscure French opera, is the only version of 'Dinorah' available on DVD, but it is a great production! The painterly pastoral settings and décor and rustic costumes are very easy on the eye. Opera traditionalists who dislike modern stagings will be delighted to know that this is a traditional production. Pierre Jourdan's stage direction is charming and always involving, never once falling into static movements or gestures, gratuitous distaste and irrelevance. With Isabelle Philippe, Armand Arapian and Frédéric Mazzotta. Conducted by Olivier Opebeek.

From the House of the Dead

Condensing the life stories – memories of prison in Silesia – related by Dostoyevsky in his work The House of the Dead, Leoš Janáček composed an opera filled with burning desire and longing. Contagious savagery, cruelty and brutality are exacerbated by the confines of the prison. However, within its concrete walls emerge both tenderness and cruelty at the sight of an injured bird; a multitude of stories and highly personal monologues. With this production, first performed at the Wiener Festwochen in 2007, the Paris Opera pays tribute to Patrice Chéreau.

Puccini: La Bohème

No one better described the half-starved, struggling artists than Murger in his Scènes de la Vie de Bohème: artists ready to burn a manuscript to try to keep warm yet,in an era of triumphant bourgeois materialism, dreaming of another existence. Taking up these scenes of Bohemian life, Puccini offers us a heart-breaking love story and some of the most beautiful music in the history of opera in the story of the poet Rodolfo and fragile Mimi. The staging of this new production has been entrusted to Claus Guth who sets the drama in a future devoid of hope in which love and art become the sole means of transcendence.

Handel: Jephtha

When Jephthah, a biblical parable adapted from the Book of Judges, begins, the people of Israel are under the yoke of neighbouring nations which pillage and oppress them. Jephthah, destined to become their saviour, has grown up in the desert until becoming a powerful military leader. On leaving for battle, he swears to the god Jehovah that he will sacrifice the first person he meets on his way home. Alas, as he returns victorious, it is Iphis, his only daughter, who comes to meet him… Claus Guth directs this oratorio in which grief‑stricken voices interweave as they confront an apocalyptic situation.

Benvenuto Cellini

The Florentine sculptor and silversmith Benvenuto Cellini rapidly attained a degree of renown that went beyond the confines of Italy. Invariably embroiled in conspiracies, intrigues and quarrels, Cellini is commissioned by the Pope to cast a large sculpture of Perseus. He is loved by Teresa, but she is promised to Fieramosca, an academic artist who has not been favoured with a papal commission. Terry Gilliam’s exuberant production draws the protagonists into a delirious and joyful yet claustrophobic and megalomaniac world: a flaring up of contagious madness.

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov

There are elements of Macbeth in this political fable, in which the ghost of the child that Boris has had killed in order to seize the throne appears as an impostor. Adapting Pushkin's epic poem, Mussorgsky composed a meditation on the solitude of power, a populist drama in which the real protagonist is the Russian people with its burden of eternal suffering. Ivo Van Hove is no stranger to grand political frescos. This is his first production for the Paris Opera.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Every morning at dawn, in the Lammermuir hills in Southern Scotland, the beautiful Lucia meets Edgardo of Ravenswood, a mysterious young man with whom she is in love. However, just as in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are the progeny of two feuding families and do not have the right to love each other. Lucia, a magnificent flower shattered by the violence of a society of men, is embodied by South Africa’s Pretty Yende, a rising star of the opera stage, in this production by Andrei Serban, conducted by Riccardo Frizza.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

Motivated by the love that bound him to Mathilda Wesendonck, Richard Wagner’s composition of Tristan und Isolde goes far beyond any simple operatic gesture. Peter Sellars’ production pours oil onto this troubled sea of emotions in an almost dematerialised setting bared of all earthly contingencies whilst Bill Viola presents the lovers’ initiatory quest for nirvana in videos detached from the stage, suspended like altarpieces.

Jarrell: Bérénice

Titus and Berenice love each other; under the watchful eye of Antiochus, the hopeless lover, they try yet refuse to understand each other. Taking up the “majestic sadness” of these alexandrines, among the greatest verses in the French language, Michael Jarrell amplifies the power of words, making them a vehicle for spaces and identities that, from Rome to Jerusalem, are unceasingly questioned.

Opéra National de Paris: Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots is a monumental fresco featuring various impossible loves in the context of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre. Andreas Kriegenburg places these timeless conflicts of love and religion in an immaculate setting in which the costumes appear yet more flamboyant and the victims’ blood more violently red.