Benjamin Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Heavenly Voices tells the story of the castrato phenomenon, and how the most gifted amongst these singers rose to international stardom. Max Emanuel Cencic and Philippe Jaroussky, two of today's singing stars, take us back in time and talk about operatic entertainment in the Baroque Age. This is illustrated by paintings and prints from the time as well as major performances of today. In this film, many countertenors are featured in famous roles and in interviews, amongst them Jochen Kowalski, Andreas Scholl, David Daniels, Daniel Behle and Valer Barna-Sabadus.

Don José is a guard who begins an affair with the tempestuous Carmen. He is imprisoned and loses his job, then flees with her to the mountains. When the relationship starts to break down José refuses to acknowledge it and will not leave, even when he gets news that his mother is dying. Carmen, meanwhile, has taken up with the bullfighter Escamillo. Bizet's most famous opera is brought to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera by Sir Peter Hall, with Maria Ewing and Barry McCauley heading an international cast.

The tale of a quick-witted fox and her escape from confinement for a life in the forest.

In 2002, Nicholas Maw's opera Sophie's Choice, based on the novel by William Styron, was given its premiere at the Royal Opera House. The subject had struck Maw when he had first watched the film several years previously, and he immediately felt it would be ‘the most extraordinary basis for an opera’. Commissioned by the Royal Opera House and BBC Radio 3, Maw embarked on an adaptation of Styron's book, which took six years to complete.

The oppressive atmosphere before a storm and the tragic fate of a tormented young woman form the indivisible elements of "Katia Kabanova". The opera's action is set in a small Russian village around 1860 and represents the annihilation and subsequent suicide of Katerina Kabanova, a sensitive young woman married to a weak man and bullied by her mother-in-law, who is searching for liberation through love and ends her life consumed by remorse for her infidelity. The story's common denominator is the Volga river, a witness of the main character's hapless family relations and her frustrated passion, and in whose merciful waters she finally finds peace. The adaptation into the Czech language of Ostrovsky's tragic play "The Storm" allowed Janáček to create one of his most outstanding operas, in which the conciseness and intensity of the musical language are merged with the dramatic force of his libretto. This is the Teatro Madrid Production Recorded in December, 2008.

Gloriana, Op. 53, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History It was written to mark the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

David McVicar’s inventive hit production of Handel’s most popular opera sets the story of Caesar’s conquest of Egypt—and of its queen, Cleopatra—in the era of British 19th-century imperialism while also including elements of Baroque theater and Bollywood movies. David Daniels in the title role and Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra lead the cast. Christophe Dumaux is Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s brother, and Alice Coote and Patricia Bardon star as Sesto and Cornelia, son and widow of Caesar’s opponent Pompey. Early music specialist Harry Bicket conducts and plays harpsichord continuo.

With ancient Rome as a backdrop, composer Benjamin Britten's chamber opera chronicles the undoing of the virginal Lucretia at the hands of Tarquinius. Stars Kathryn Harries, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Russell Smythe and Jean Rigby imbue the lead roles with fervor and suspense while the English National Opera Orchestra provides spectacular musical accompaniment to this powerful synthesis of Greek tragedy and opera.

Robert Carsen's production of Benjamin Britten's opera for Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona.

Calixto Bieito controversial take of the Verdi classic "A Masked Ball"

An opera of two halves? A comedy of two halves? Ariadne auf Naxos is both at once and centres around the proposal of ‘the richest man in Vienna’ to commission two entertainments, one from a serious opera composer and one from a troupe of comedians. When he discovers that sitting through both separately would delay the firework display he has planned, he gives orders for the two shows to be performed simultaneously on the same stage. The earnest young Composer is horrified while the pragmatic Zerbinetta is happy to give it a go. As a result, the story of Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos and despairing of her lost love, is interrupted repeatedly by the comedians, keen to help and to advise her that the best way to cure a broken heart is to find another lover.

Based on a true story, the "Dialogues des Carmelites" sets the life of the Carmelites nuns at the dawn of the French Revolution. “Robert Carsen's production is effective in its simplicity, allowing the drama to speak for itself. Dagmar Schellenberger compellingly conveys Blanche's journey from distress to acceptance… Anja Silja's portrayal of the old Prioress is outstanding, with its disturbing transformation from serene wisdom to terrified, blasphemous, near-madness as death approaches. ...Riccardo Muti and the La Scala orchestra in magnificent form, captured in magnificent sound. Ultimately, it is the final scene, with its multiple executions, that makes or breaks a production of Dialogues. Carsen's allegorical solution is both elegant and deeply moving.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007

At a glittering party in 18th-century Paris, the poet Andréa Chenier delivers an impassioned denunciation of Louis XVI. Five years later, the Revolution has given way to the Terror, transforming the power balance between Chénier, his beloved Maddalena, and Gérard, the man who could destroy him...

Bizet's masterwork, Carmen, directed for stage by the Spanish actress Núria Espert. Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in 1989.

Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, composer Benjamin Britten's satirical look at life in an English market town delivers plenty of laughs. When Lady Billows (Patricia Johnson) realizes no girls in town are worthy of the May Queen title, she crowns virtuous Albert Herring (John Graham-Hall), the greengrocer's son, as the village's May King. The comic opera features a strong ensemble cast including Alan Opie and Felicity Palmer.

This modern interpretation of Georg Frederick Handel's opera focuses on Rinaldo's attempts to break free from enchantress Armida and reunite with his true love, Almirena. In addition to the live performance, the program also includes a Handel documentary, which explores the composer's career and many achievements.

Tragic story of Golaud, his marriage to the long-haired Mélisande, her subsequent love for Pélleas, and their deaths.

The Peter Sellars production of Handel's "Theodora", recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival in May 1996. Dawn Upshaw stars as Theodora, with David Daniels as Didymus, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson as Irene, Richard Croft as Septimius, and Frode Olsen as Valens. William Christie conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

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.

Trapped in an unhappy marriage, a woman mourns the devastation of the forest around her. An unexpected affair instigates an explosive metamorphosis, and she finds perfect release as a tree. But the world is a dangerous place for trees, and deep in the forest a forester and a student lay claim to a body of wood and leaf - one for money and one for love. A subversion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Like flesh is the fruit of a collaboration between a group of committed young artists. The Israeli composer Sivan Eldar creates an intriguing sound world by combining orchestral and electro-acoustic music. The British playwright Cordelia Lynn is already well known in English theatre circles for, among other things, her collaboration with Katie Mitchell to re-stage The Tempest.