Carmen (Arena di Verona)

"Giovanna d'Arco; ossia, la pulzella d'Orléans" is an operatic dramma lirico with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The opera partly reflects the story of Joan of Arc and is based on a play by Friedrich von Schiller, although claimed by the librettist to be "an entirely original Italian drama." If the thought of Anna Netrebko strutting her stuff in a suit of armour and tin hat sets your factor tingling then this is a must. It's an inconsistent opera but has some quite wonderful music along the way. The rest of the cast is good and the production won't offend either. Get it for Ms Netrebko's incredible performance alone.

Carlos Álvarez takes the title role in the first of Verdi's Shakespearean operas, with Maria Guleghina as the manipulative wife whose desire to gain the Scottish throne drives her husband to murder and leaves both with blood on their hands. Bruno Campanella conducts the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2004 recording of Phyllida Lloyd's powerful production, first staged at London's Royal Opera House.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni returned to Teatro alla Scala in October 2006 in a new production directed by Peter Mussbach, who also designed the sets, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the orchestra and chorus. Blending psychological intensity with stark, contemporary theatrical imagery, the staging explores the darker dimensions of Mozart’s drama of seduction, power and moral reckoning. Carlos Álvarez stars as the defiant libertine, with Ildebrando D’Arcangelo as his resourceful servant Leporello, alongside Anna Samuil as Donna Anna, Francesco Meli as Don Ottavio and Monica Bacelli as Donna Elvira. A co-production with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, this interpretation brings fresh dramatic tension to the timeless story of a man who refuses to face the consequences of his actions.

La del manojo de rosas, the Teatro de la Zarzuela's most emblematic and popular production, turns 30 years old. At its premiere in September 1990, it was very well received by the public and critics, and has continued to be so during the last three decades. Several generations of singers, artists, technicians and the public have enjoyed what is now Sorozábal's best-known zarzuela.

For the first time since the 1904 La Scala premiere, Riccardo Chailly restores Puccini's original two-act version to the La Scala stage.

Mozarts Don Giovanni, in the beautiful staging by legendary Franco Zeffirelli is a spectacle with a strong aesthetising component, a feast for the eyes. In this production Zeffirelli returns to a representative Super classic line, renewing the complex mechanisms of almost all his other productions (Il corriere musicale) with beautiful classic costumes by Maurizio Millenotti and lights by Paolo Mazzon (L'ape musicale). Carlos Álvarez is of beautiful voice (GP Opera) and presumably todays best Don Giovanni (L'ape musicale) while Irina Lungu is one of the best lyric sopranes (L'ape musicale). Donna Elvira, being sung by Maria José Siri was clearly and advantageously represented by her mellow and beguiling voice. (MTG Lirica)

Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro returned to Teatro alla Scala in 2016 in a new production directed by Frederic Wake-Walker and conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Created to mark the 225th anniversary of Mozart’s death, the staging offers a fresh perspective on the composer’s celebrated comedy of love, deception and social hierarchy. Antony McDonald designed the sets and costumes, framing the intricate intrigues surrounding Figaro and Susanna’s wedding. The international cast features Markus Werba as Figaro, Golda Schultz as Susanna, Diana Damrau as the Countess, Marianne Crebassa as Cherubino, and Carlos Álvarez or Simon Keenlyside as Count Almaviva.

Fromental Halévy’s five-act grand opera La Juive (‘The Jewess’) is one of the most popular operas of the 19th century, captivating audiences ever since its debut at the Opéra de Paris in 1835. Set in the 15th century and full of pageantry, the subject is the forbidden love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman, and the tragedy that ensues. Oper Frankfurt’s contemporary staging won great acclaim, with Ambur Braid being lauded for her ‘luminous soprano’ as the heroine Rachel, and ‘vocal phenomenon’ John Osborn heralded in the role of her father Éléazar as ‘immensely moving’.

Operetta in two acts. A production by Teatro Arriaga de Bilbao, co-produced by Teatro Campoamor de Oviedo, Teatro Calderón de Valladolid and Teatro Español de Madrid.

Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of American naval officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return. Three years later, Cio-Cio-San and her son, Dolore, see Pinkerton’s ship in the harbour. She excitedly awaits his visit – but when Pinkerton and his American wife Kate arrive and learn about Dolore's existence, they ask to take the boy away, and raise him in America. Cio-Cio-San bids her son farewell and takes her own life.

2013 revival of Andrei Serban's 1984 production. Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, September 2013. Andrei Serban's spectacular and thrilling 1984 production of Puccini's final and grandest opera has long been a classic at the Royal Opera House. First filmed for BBC TV in the 80s, this new recording – of its fifteenth revival – is in stunning HD and makes this famous production available for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray. The release will rightfully take its place alongside the outstanding Royal Opera Puccini DVDs of La Bohème, Tosca (on EMI) and Trittico. American Lise Lindstrom is one of the very few contemporary Turandots who can genuinely sing this ‘killer’ role, and is supported by a touching Liù from Japanese soprano Eri Nakamura and an unashamedly Italianite Calaf from Marco Berti. The young Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási directs the large orchestra and all-important chorus.

In celebration of Verdi's 200th birthday in 2013, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence produced the composer's colorful masterpiece Rigoletto for the first time in its history. Verdi expert Gianandrea Noseda conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a production that marked the return of the Canadian stage director Robert Carsen to the festival following a 17 year hiatus. Carsen sets his interpretation of this classic opera in the cutthroat world of the circus. Based on Victor Hugo's play Le roi s’amuse, Verdi's opera in three acts Rigoletto premiered in 1851. Similar to the play that inspired it, the opera faced censorship because of its controversial subject of libertinism at court. The opera’s tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunchbacked court jester Rigoletto, and the jester’s beautiful daughter, Gilda.

When a beautiful young woman in rural Moravia becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she learns that love is sometimes only skin-deep. Asmik Grigorian as Jenůfa in her Covent Garden debut and Karita Mattila as the Kostelnička lead a star cast with Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási conducting a stunning score infused with traditional folk melodies of Janáček’s native Moravia. Claus Guth’s acclaimed staging - both elegant and open while being utterly claustrophobic and oppressive - captures the great humanity at the heart of the opera.

The corsair Corrado, having taken refuge on an island in the Aegean Sea, decides to launch an expedition against the Muslims, during which he is taken prisoner. Gulnara, the favorite of Pasha Seïd, falls in love with Corrado and helps him escape after murdering Seïd herself. Meanwhile, Medora, Corrado’s beloved, has poisoned herself upon hearing the false news of her lover’s death. She dies in the arms of her lover, who has returned too late. Corrado, in despair, throws himself into the sea, while Gulnara collapses, overcome by grief. “Il corsaro” is a lyric drama (“melodramma tragico”) in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron’s poem “The Corsair.” It premiered on October 25, 1848, at the Grand Theatre in Trieste. The opera was taken off the bill after three performances and replaced by “Macbeth.” From the “Tutto Verdi” box set of 27 Verdi operas. Recorded live at the Teatro Regio in Parma on October 19 and 21, 2008.

Disillusioned with life, the aged philosopher Faust calls upon Satan to help him. The devil Méphistophélès appears and strikes a bargain with the philosopher: he will give him youth and the love of the beautiful Marguerite, if Faust hands over his soul. Faust agrees, and Méphistophélès arranges matters so that Marguerite loses interest in her suitor Siébel and becomes infatuated with Faust. Faust initially seems to love Marguerite in return, but soon abandons her. Her brother Valentin returns from the war and is furious to find his sister pregnant. Will Faust repent his destructive actions, and can his soul, and Marguerite's, be saved?

Live performance from the Komische Oper Berlin, February 15 2016.

Disillusioned with life, the aged philosopher Faust calls upon Satan to help him. The devil Méphistophélès appears and strikes a bargain with the philosopher: he will give him youth and the love of the beautiful Marguerite, if Faust hands over his soul. Faust agrees, and Méphistophélès arranges matters so that Marguerite loses interest in her suitor Siébel and becomes infatuated with Faust. Faust initially seems to love Marguerite in return, but soon abandons her. Her brother Valentin returns from the war and is furious to find his sister pregnant. Will Faust repent his destructive actions, and can his soul, and Marguerite's, be saved?

In the cold of winter, an exuberant poet lives in poverty with his three bohemian flatmates. His heart is warmed when he falls in love with his fragile neighbour, but then her illness takes a turn for the worse. In Opéra de Monte Carlo's production of Puccini’s beloved opera, set in Paris to the interwar period, the artists’ misery looks more like a chosen lifestyle than a suffered fate. Jean-Louis Grinda’s sumptuous staging reflects on Puccini’s romantic glorification of the precariousness of the human condition.

Lluis Pasqual's powerful production for the Spanish capital sets Da Ponte's timeless story of sleaze and seduction into the dark world of 1940s Spain. Carlos Álvarez, in the title role, toys with the affections of Donna Anna, Zerlina and the Spanish lady Donna Elvira, before his overpowering methods finally bring his own destruction.

As Aragon descends into unrest, a count jealously fights for a noble lady's heart. But she has already given it to a passionate troubadour whose mother holds a terrible secret. Surpassing its hugely successful spiritual predecessor Rigoletto, Il Trovatore was an instant triumph. Verdi’s music is so passionate and transcendent that one almost loses sight of opera’s notoriously most implausible plot, complete with burning babies and bloodthirsty vengeance. NCPA's production of Verdi's opera Il Trovatore will be performing at Opera house of NCPA from October 23-27, 2019.

Francesco Cilea’s Gloria, performed here in its 1932 revised edition, takes as its theme the ultimately tragic story of two lovers caught up in a conflict in 14th-century Siena. The libretto is based on Victorien Sardou’s play La Haine (Hatred) and the opera features Cilea’s refined orchestral writing inspired by the Russian and French schools, with vocal lines that are varied and rewarding. Opera Today called this production “musically magical”, while Operawire.com extolled the inventive and convincing staging along with Francesco Cilluffo’s compelling musical direction.

The Gran Teatre del Liceu’s 2017/2018 season opened with Rossini’s dramma giocoso Il viaggio a Reims, the “event piece” written exclusively for the coronation of France’s Charles X in Reims in 1825. Apart from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (one of the co-producers), this otherwise infrequently performed work has received a bright yet perhaps over-minimalist staging by Emilio Sagi. A fixed set portraying the sun deck and furnishings of a spa hotel (using only the stage front) provides the opera’s eclectic group of European aristocrats an unexpectedly informal aspect from the outset, replete with bathrobes, towels and slippers. This is novel, but confuses the audience as to who is who in the story. Not until the end of the second act, an hour and a half into the performance, does the cast change to more formal dining attire and the audience has a minimally clearer idea of the different nationalities (and idiosyncracies) portrayed.