Così fan tutte - Teatro alla Scala di Milano

A seventeen year old travels from London to the Austrian Alps to attend the legendary Mozart boarding school. There, he discovers a centuries-old forgotten passageway into the fantastic world of Mozart's "The Magic Flute".

Live performance, Bayerische Staatsoper, 2011. The Tales of Hoffmann (French: LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN) is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach that combines three short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann into a haunting whole: a melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer. One of the questions this opera poses for any director is how to link the 'tales' of Hoffmann's three lost loves together and knit them satisfactorily into the Prologue and Epilogue. In this production, Richard Jones solves the puzzle by turning it into an autobiographical journey which ends with a grand meet-up of all the characters Hoffmann has encountered: for once, Hoffmann is not presented as a rollicking kind of drunken story-spinner, but rather a sad-eyed, sobered-up depressive, who reaches for the bottle only because his disastrous love life has gone wrong yet again.

Massenet's opera centres on its charming but contrary heroine, the vivacious young Manon who longs for luxury and excitement. We first encounter her en route to a convent, where her family are sending her to be educated. Along the way, she falls in love with the young student Des Grieux, and, impetuously, runs off with him. She soon leaves him, however, to become the mistress of a rich nobleman. Thus begins her descent into criminality and depravity, all too soon dragging the besotted Des Grieux with her, until she is imprisoned. Despite its tragic story, the opera is full of French charm and vitality – typified by the ambiguous Manon herself. Her plight is touching because of the subtle play of innocence and calculation in her character. The score contains many sparkling arias and ensembles, moving rapidly from moods of exuberance to tenderness, with perfect dramatic timing. Recorded live at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, April/May 2007.

Giacomo Puccini's immortal opera, in a high budget feature-film version directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Dornhelm, stars opera's 'Golden Couple', Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi. The chemistry between them is electric, unrivalled in the theatre today. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is not only beautiful but has a marvelous voice and technique; Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon, has a wonderful voice and an incredible charisma. The director not only wanted to remain steadfastly faithful to Puccini's design but also document two of the leading singers of the modern age rather than embarking on a 'trendy' contemporary re-creation.

Containing some of the most beautiful arias and attractive ensembles in all opera, Così fan tutte is packed with both pathos and humour. Mozart and Da Ponte's witty, compassionate examination of young love has ensured its lasting popularity. Jonathan Miller’s original 1995 production for Covent Garden is dear to the hearts of London audiences and has been revived numerous times. Necessity, they say, is the mother of all invention. With no money left for costumes, Miller has the genius idea of asking Giorgio Armani to lend a hand... This production is from Sept 2010.

Rolando Villazon's Baden Baden version of the Donizetti's opera set as an early Hollywood shoot of a western.

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, takes over Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Germany for a lyrical concert featuring soprano Golda Schultz, tenor Rolando Villazón, and baritone Ludovic Tézier. In this grandiose building constructed by Ludwig II of Bavaria, the prestigious trio performs works by Mozart, Verdi, and Lehár.

Dalibor is based on events that took place in the 15th century: having led a peasant revolt, the Knight Dalibor of Kozojedy was imprisoned, by order of King Vladislav II of Bohemia, in a tower in Prague Castle that still bears the name “Daliborka” to this day. Legend has it that he learned to play the violin while he was incarcerated, and that the people passing by the tower would be moved on hearing his music.

Two men enter a bet with intriguer Alfonso that their women will stay true, but disguise themselves, switch partners, and regretfully seduce their targets.

Divested of its traditional attributes – glass slipper and pumpkin carriage – and dominated by a tyrannical stepfather instead of a cruel stepmother, Rossini’s la Cenerentola plays with these most conventional of fairy‑tale characters. Nonetheless Cinderella lives in a closed world devoid of tenderness and under the yoke of the tormentor whom she protects. Deep beneath her goodness smoulders a fire that her encounter with the prince will set free… Guillaume Gallienne subtly highlights the halftones of this dramma giocoso, somewhere between opera buffa and opera seria, and ranging from sombre melancholy to the burlesque.

The Salzburg Festival presents one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpieces: the opera Le Nozze di Figaro, in a new production staged by Sven-Eric Bechtolf and conducted by Dan Ettinger. Set-List: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492.

Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove makes a major Met debut with a new take on Mozart’s tragicomedy, re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the dark corners of the story and its characters. Maestro Nathalie Stutzmann makes her Met debut conducting a star-studded cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as a magnetic Don Giovanni, alongside the Leporello of bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Ying Fang make a superlative trio as Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina—and tenor Ben Bliss is Don Ottavio.

Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Juan, creating a vivid portrait of a man who is a law unto himself, and all the more dangerous for his eternally seductive allure. Adam Plachetka is his occasionally unruly servant Leporello. It’s when Giovanni tangles with Donna Anna (Hibla Gerzmava) that things start to unravel, aided by the reappearance of Donna Elvira (Malin Byström), who is determined not to let her seducer go. With Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s eternally steadfast fiancé. Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

This occasionally off-the-wall but finely sung and colourfully staged La Cenerentola was Rome Opera’s first foray into the media market, shown on television and in cinemas across Italy in 2016. It clearly had the funding. Emma Dante’s production will not have come cheap – Vanessa Sannino’s costumes are a particular feature – nor would the singers, given that this is as good a Cenerentola cast as any international house might currently muster.

Live performance from Salzburg Festival Opera, August 2007. The story tells of Cellini's love for Teresa, daughter of the Papal Treasurer Balducci. His rival, the Papal Sculptor Fieramosca, overhears Cellini plotting to run away with Teresa during the carnival.

The Marriage of Figaro is one of the most emblematic operas in the repertoire. Brahms spoke of it as a “miracle” and the Countess' complaint still resonates today as one of the most heartbreaking musical pages. It was by resuming Beaumarchais' comedy, which caused a scandal in Parisian society, that Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte began their first collaboration. The play was banned by Joseph II in 1785 at the Vienna Theater. Is it because it exposed too much to the forefront the contradictions of an already faltering regime, ready to collapse with the French Revolution? Netia Jones preserves the very essence of Beaumarchais' play by questioning human relationships with humor but not without mischief, in a production which confuses reality and fiction to the point of asking, like the Count: "Are we playing a comedy?" »

Count Almaviva lives with his Countess on their estate near Seville. The Count has his eye on his wife’s maid Susanna, who is betrothed to the Count’s servant, Figaro. Much to Figaro’s dismay, the Count plans to seduce Susanna on wedding night. Meanwhile, Cherubino, the Count’s young page, is infatuated with the Countess, but has just been dismissed after being discovered with Barbarina, the gardener Antonio’s daughter.

A live recording of Don Giovanni from the Festspielhaus Baden Baden, recorded on May 23rd 2013.

The successful artist and playboy Juan is a notorious seducer of women, through his ability to be just what a woman dreams of: Charming, charismatic, strong, sensitive, sexual. Driven by a restless urge to conquer new women, use them, and throw them away, he has hired his friend Leporello to help create a masterpiece: A filmed database of all the women whose dreams Juan has shattered. We follow Juan and Leporello through 24 compressed hours. Juan seduces the young upper-class girl Anna, but ends up accidentally killing her father, a powerful police commissioner. The two friends run away, but Juan's constant need to seduce new women keeps interrupting their flight. As the police gains in on them, Juan also steals the young bride Zerlina from her groom Masetto, and soon a feverish manhunt is on for Juan.

Based on a poem published in 1810 with more ethnographic than dramatic focus, Britten constructed a sombre parable about the conflict between the masses and the individual. The maritime atmosphere, the crudity of people’s lives and passions, and the complex, impenetrable personality of the protagonist come together in a tragedy which ferments and explodes in the din of silence and hearsay. New production of the Teatro Real, in co-production with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden of London, the Opéra national of Paris and the Teatro dell’Opera of Rome

Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini arrives in 1889 New York City and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society's most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini uses her entrepreneurial mind to build an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…

This documentary tells the story of the creation and cultural impact of the world's most famous Christmas carol, composed in 1818 in Salzburg, Austria, and since then translated into about 140 languages.

Mozart under the stars and on the big screen. This is the principle of the operation proposed on 16 July 2011 by the Opéra de Lyon. The representation that was played on his stage was broadcast simultaneously and outdoors in thirteen Rhône-Alpes cities including Ambérieu-en-Bugey, Valence and Grenoble. Thousands of spectators were able to attend a free version of the opera "Cosi fan tutte". It is Adrian Noble who signs the mise-en-scene of this umpteenth production of the famous masterpiece, a joke on the banter that will turn to drama. The American made a bold choice by transposing the plot to a beach in California . The idea came to him during a stay in Santa Monica: the skaters on the sidewalk made him think of the characters Ferrando and Guglielmo who play with their lovers.