Der Schmied von Gent

Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.

On a June night in 2017, opera lovers thronged to the Royal Opera House in London to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann, recently acclaimed by The Daily Telegraph as the world s greatest tenor, make his eagerly anticipated debut in the title role of Otello Verdi s greatest and most demanding role for tenor voice. As the New York Times wrote Mr. Kaufmann made his debut in the part, and he calmly, confidently sang it for the ages.

Kirill Serebrennikov is staging *Das Rheingold* as a global post-apocalyptic drama for the 2026 Easter Festival. The director is known for his uncompromising productions. In this new interpretation, he transforms the material into a symbol-laden global theatre piece. Kirill Petrenko will be the musical director of *Das Rheingold*.

The 2021 production by the Dutch National Opera of the work by German composer Rudi Stephan (1887–1915) "Die ersten Menschen" ("The First Humans"), completed in 1914 to a libretto by Otto Borngräber interpreting the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden through symbolism and the then nascent science of psychoanalysis. This production was part of the Holland Festival of Amsterdam.

A sizzling tale of lust, seduction and betrayal, featuring some of opera's most famous melodies... it can only be Bizet's Carmen! See it live at your local cinema on July 1.

From the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, The Fiery Angel, with music by Sergei Prokofiev. Orchestra and choir of the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, conducted by Alejo Pérez in a visionary production by Emma Dante. Ewa Vesin gives voice to Renata and her tragic obsession with Madiel, her guardian angel.

Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real.

An adaptation from the controversial John Adams opera about the true life incident that took place in the mid 80s. The liner "Achille Lauro" is on a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean. While the ship is docked in Alexandria, a maid discovers that four of the passengers are actually members of the Palestine Liberation Organization traveling incognito. Startled by their discovery, the PLO cadre is forced to act. They take the passengers on board hostage and demand the release of 50 Palestinian activists held in Israeli jails. As Egyptian, American, Italian, and Palestinian authorities bicker over the best way to handle the situation (and who would negotiate with the terrorists), the kidnappers find themselves dealing with rebellion among their captives, and an argument between the four PLO members and Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American confined to a wheelchair, eventually escalates into violence.

The production by Calixto Bieito extracts all the potential from this work in a most convincing and spine-chilling way. The action takes place in a closed society of the 1950s, taking this story of witchcraft, sex and religion to the realism of imitation leather sofas, crochet cardigans, medical abuse and child molestation.

Sarah Connolly's 'outstanding' (The Guardian) portrayal of the wronged Roman noblewoman, written originally for Kathleen Ferrier, lies at the hear of David McVicar's powerfully stark production for English National Opera as 'an everyday sort of woman who could be living at any time or place'. Her nemesis is the arrogant Tarquinius of Christopher Maltman, 'who made the air tingle with danger' (Financial Times). Sung in English.

More than anything in the world, Rusalka, a mysterious and elusive water nymph, yearns to become human to win the heart of a young prince. But this metamorphosis comes at a price: she will lose her voice and be damned forever should their love story fail. Rusalka, a lyrical fairy tale inspired by The Little Mermaid and Undine, is Dvořák’s penultimate work and one of his greatest successes. In Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s production, Norwegian director and choreographer Alan Lucien Øyen adds a new dimension to this masterpiece of the Czech repertoire by representing the main characters on stage twice: by a singer and a dancer. This doubling reinforces the opera’s deeply dreamlike nature. The impressive South African soprano Pumeza Matshikiza embodies the character of Rusalka, while the Lithuanian conductor Giedré Šlekytė leads the orchestra with brio and intensity.

Spectacular! Opera in three acts. Filmed at a series of outstanding performances at the Teatro Real de Madrid in December 2016, this recording will especially delight lovers of Wagnerian music drama with its faithful reflection of the grandiose staging of Alex Olle, a member of La Fura dels Baus, whose earlier productions have attracted widespread attention. A conductor equally at home in Monteverdi, Boulez, Praetorius and Schumann, Pablo Heras-Casado can rely on a cast totally committed to this breathtaking musical hurricane!

Take a philandering and arrogant Count who is no match for his wily servant Figaro and his soon-to-be-wife Susanna, as manipulative as she is charming. Add in one beautiful, disillusioned Countess and one irrepressible, testosterone-laden teenage boy Cherubino. Mix with the genius of Mozart and you have one of the most perfect operas ever written.

Antonio Pappano conducts a full performance of the second opera in Richard Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen. During a storm, Sieglinde gives shelter to a wounded stranger. They find themselves drawn to each other. He is Siegmund, the twin from whom Sieglinde was separated in childhood. Unknown to them, their father is Wotan, the most powerful of the gods. Through Siegmund, Wotan hopes to retrieve a gold ring of ultimate power that he cannot take himself.

Lost in a forest, a prince meets a mysterious woman and takes her home to a dark castle haunted by repressed longings. There she grows fonder of her new husband's half-brother, sparking a fatal love triangle between the three of them. In a perfect synergy of the arts, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, together with the legendary performance artist Marina Abramovic, stage Pelléas et Mélisande as a cosmic dream. Like Debussy through his impressionistic music, the performers and creators of this production dispense with any illustration and instead bring out the hidden emotions of the characters.

In times of religious violence, the young mother Vigdis Adelaïs is torn between her Christian upbringing and the Jewish faith, to which she has converted for her beloved. The Belgian composer Wim Henderickx and librettist Krystian Lada have created a new opera from Stefan Hertmans' haunting novel about identity, impossible love, faith and human strength. Western early music, modernism and film music merge with Jewish and Arab traditions to create a contemporary opera in which Vigdis' epic story is told through sound. Koen Kessels tackles the challenge of conducting not only the Orchestra, Chorus and Children’s Chorus of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, but also a cast with singers from different vocal traditions, instrumentalists who play the qanûn, duduk or oud, and a newly formed city choir made up of Antwerp citizens from diverse backgrounds.

In the trenches, soldiers are locked in endless fighting: they move some kilometres forward only to return back to their former position in a deadly cycle. Elsewhere, a woman returns to a house she has once known and finds it now poised at the edge of an abyss. Wanting to leave, she encounters inexplicable obstacles. Chaya Czernowin’s harrowingly sublime work Infinite Now interweaves two seemingly unconnected storylines - Luk Perceval’s play FRONT based on Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All quiet on the Western front and Can Xue’s novella Homecoming - that both speak to the human condition of entrapment and existential nakedness, and beyond that to a will to survive.