La Traviata - Gran Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona

The former corsair Simon Boccanegra has risen to power in Genoa but carries the burden of personal loss and old rivalries. He is unexpectedly reunited with his long-lost daughter, and their renewed bond becomes entangled with conflicts involving noble families, love and revenge. Simon struggles to preserve peace in the city while protecting those closest to him. Can he overcome betrayal and reconcile the forces tearing his world apart before it is too late?

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla continues her high-profile championship of the works of the composer Mieczysław Weinberg with this new Salzburg Festival production of his final opera, The Idiot, with a libretto based on Dostoevsky’s great novel of innocence destroyed by corrupt society. Featuring music of great power and intensity, the opera, completed in 1985, showcases Weinberg’s remarkable skill as a musical dramatist, while this new production by Krzysztof Warlikowski promises to mark a watershed in its brief performance history.

New production of Rigoletto at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, co-produced with the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Opéra de Wallonie Liège, and the Shaanxi Opera House. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave.

First staged at the Teatro La Fenice in 1846, Verdi’s ninth opera, Attila, returns to the stage of La Scala on December 7th. Following the inauguration of the 2015-2016 Season with Giovanna d’Arco and in anticipation of Macbeth, with Attila Musical Director Riccardo Chailly continues his study of Verdi’s early works, renewing a successful collaboration with creative director Davide Livermore that began with his acclaimed production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for La Scala. In this complex opera Verdi experiments with fresh perspectives, featuring spectacular historical settings, introspective angles and moral uncertainties. Attila demands of its performers not only passion and confidence, but also the ability to find subtle accents and psychological nuances.

Emmerich Kálmán’s Csárdásfürstin (The Gypsy Princess) was once one of the most popular works in the operetta repertoire, but has appeared only sporadically on the operatic stage in recent decades. The plot tells the story of a love triangle involving Sylva Varescu, a spirited variété artist of humble origin, and the aristocrat Edwin, who is already promised to another woman. The obstacle to their love is their difference in social status.

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.

Gualtiero is an exiled count, forced to become a pirate. His enemy Ernesto blackmails Imogene into marrying him, even though he knows she loves Gualtiero. In the searing final scene Imogene goes insane when Gualtiero is condemned to death. This is riveting bel canto drama as you have seldom hear it.

This ever-popular opera is given a fresh point of view in Barrie Kosky’s highly physical production, originally created for Frankfurt Opera. The Australian director is one of the world’s most sought-after opera directors, whose Royal Opera debut with Shostakovich’s The Nose in 2016 was greeted with delight. For Carmen he has devised a far-from-traditional version, incorporating music written by Bizet for the score but not usually heard, and giving a new voice to the opera’s endlessly fascinating central character.

Recorded at Bayerische Staatsoper on March 3-9, 2016.

Two lovers, Don Alvaro and Leonora, are preparing to elope, but they are surprised by the young woman's father. Misfortune follows them when Don Alvaro, while throwing his pistols on the ground, unintentionally fires one and kills the father. Fortune is capricious and laughs at the fate of men.

With this wonderful production, Mozart’s “Munich” opera returns to the place where it was first performed in 1781, the lovingly restored Cuvilliés Theatre, a veritable jewel of Rococo architecture. In Dieter Dorn’s production, the characters are real people of flesh and blood, their emotions and conflicts intelligible to every member of the audience. The cast includes some of the finest Mozart singers of our day, headed by the British tenor John Mark Ainsley in the title role, while Kent Nagano in the orchestra pit appears to unleash an elemental force of nature.

Very rarely staged, Il corsaro tells the story of an exiled corsair called Corrado, who goes to war against the Turkish and helps a slave recover her freedom. But back from a long absence, he realises his heroism has cost the life of his beloved Medora, and not only hers...

When a sharp-tongued court jester Rigoletto is cursed for his spiteful words, he is forced to hide his unworldly daughter Gilda from his own licentious master the Duke. For Verdi’s wonderful ambivalent hunchback, paradise is the peaceful home and family that he struggles to protect.

Director Claus Guth heightens the surrealism of this initially extremely cruel fairy tale, which he prefers to see as a »parable«, into the grotesque. Guth sees Calaf, son of the fugitive Tartar king Timur, »thrown into a world that he cannot understand«. It is a system that functions according to its own logic: Princess Turandot, in order to protect herself, has built a bureaucratic apparatus around her that is as brutal as it is effective. For director Claus Guth, it is clear that Turandot is describing her own experience when she speaks of the terrible things done to her ancestor Lu-o-lin; the terror state is her reaction. The stage by Etienne Pluss, the costumes by Ursula Krdina and the choreography by Sommer Ulricksen show it from the outside as well as the inside - and also its decay, which is the necessary prerequisite for Turandot and Calaf's happy ending.

Strauss’s elegant romance brings the glamour and enchantment of 19th-century Vienna to cinemas worldwide in a sumptuous production by legendary director Otto Schenk that “is as beautiful as one could hope” (The New York Times). Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen stars as the title heroine, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Radiant soprano Louise Alder is her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the dashing count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.

In three heart-rending acts named “The Woman,” “The Lover,” and “The Heroine,” a poignant tale unfolds on the Florentine stage: the prince’s mistress Stephana falls in love with lieutenant Vassili and follows him to a labor camp where her plan to escape with her beloved leads to her own tragic fate…

Considered by some to be the greatest opera ever written, Don Giovanni was the second product of an incredibly fruitful collaboration between two geniuses: the legendary W.A. Mozart and the talented Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. Based on Molière's Don Juan, the two-act dramma giocoso premiered in October 1787 at Prague's state theater to rave reviews. The 2017 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence brought Mozart's fabulously devious work to the stage once more in a production by stage director Jean-François Sivadie. Starring Philippe Sly (Don Giovanni), Nahuel di Pierro (Leporello), and Eleonora Buratto (Donna Anna), the excellent performance featured the acclaimed maestro Jérémie Rhorer at the head of the period instrument ensemble Le Cercle de l'Harmonie.

2012 production

Guiseppe Verdi's Lusia Miller returns to the Wiener Staatsoper after an absence of 36 years. This production is conducted by Michele Mariotti and stars Nadine Sierra and Freddie DeTommaso. Stage direction by Philipp Grigorian.

An arresting and star-studded production of Mozart’s Singspiel nonpareil: in the 2013 Baden-Baden Easter Festival, a group of outstanding soloists joined Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker for Die Zauberflöte in an attractive and naturalistic staging by Robert Carsen.

The classic opera by Giuseppe Verdi, brought to Teatro Real Madrid with stars such as Ermonela Jaho and Gregory Kunde in 2016, conducted by Renato Palumbo.

Vera Nemirova’s challenging production of Berg’s operatic masterpiece Lulu won critical acclaim when first seen at the Salzburg Festival in 2010. It was successfully repeated in 2011, when the production was filmed for DVD. Supporting Nemirova’s powerful vision of corruption, decadence and death are the highly praised set designs by the young artist Daniel Richter. Musically, the production is led with style and assurance by the brilliant German conductor Marc Albrecht, currently director of the Netherlands Opera. Singing Lulu with allure and passion is the lauded French soprano Patricia Petibon, whose charms grip an outstanding cast of top European singers. Berg’s score is performed in the completed version by the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha.