Mahler: Symphonies 1-7

The most famous Scenes and Arias from French operas

Count Almaviva is in love with Rosina. However, she is currently staying with Dr. Bartolo – who desires to marry her. By using a series of disguises, Almaviva manages to pass letters to Rosina and serenade her with his beautiful voice. Dr. Bartolo does his best to stop Almaviva but is constantly thwarted. In the end, Count Almaviva marries Rosina and Dr. Bartolo comes to terms with his defeat.

The historic 1984 revival performance of Il viaggio a Reims was the first time in over 150 years the opera was performed. Set in a luxurious hotel in Plombières-les-Bains, the opera follows a diverse group of aristocratic characters as they gather to celebrate the coronation of King Charles X of France. Amidst the festivities, wacky antics ensue, romantic entanglements unfold, and the characters face various comedic and dramatic challenges, showcasing Rossini's masterful blend of music, comedy, and drama.

For this performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3, recorded live in 2007 at the Congress and Concert Hall Lucerne, Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are joined by the Arnold Schoenberg Chor and the Tölzer Knabenchor. The soloist is Anna Larsson.

World-renowned maestro Claudio Abbado opens up about his life and work in this profile that effectively combines images of the conductor in rehearsal and in concert and interviews with friends, colleagues and Abbado himself. The video includes footage of Bruno Ganz, Daniel Harding, Marcel Prawy, Albrecht Mayer, Wolfram Christ, Kolja Blacher, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and more.

An extraordinary performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Claudio Abbado, recorded in the Great Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna in 1997 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Johannes Brahms. With soprano Barbara Bonney and baritone Bryn Terfel with the acclaimed Swedish Radio Choir and Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

Claudio Abbado conducts the Orchestra Mozart with Giuliano Carmignola, principal violinist, live at the Teatro Municipale Valli, Reggio Emilia, April 21, 2007

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Mahler’s birth and just one month short of his own 85th birthday, composer-conductor Pierre Boulez marked his forty-five-year collaboration with the Cleveland Orchestra by directing this very special Mahler-only concert at Ohio’s splendid Severance Hall. Following the Adagio from the unfinished Tenth Symphony, he presented Twelve Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with soloists Magdalena Kožená and Christian Gerhaher, both much-sought-after opera and concert singers on the world’s leading stages.

The vote was over, and a decision had been made: Claudio Abbado was the new chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was in 1989, when – for the first time – the orchestra itself decided who was to be its artistic director. The result was a surprise for the music world – and also for Abbado himself. This documentary traces the first year of the new chief conductor in Berlin.

Mozart's opera telling the story of the King of Crete who returns from Troy to find his his son in love with the daughter of the slain Paris, King of Troy. Conducted by Sir Roger Norrington and performed by Ramon Vargas, Magdalena Kozena, Anja Harteros and Ekaterina Siurina.

A dream has come true for Yuja Wang: for the first time, she is more than “just” the star soloist—from the piano, she conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. In George Gershwin's popular and jazzy Rhapsody in Blue, she shines alongside solo clarinetist Jaan Bossier.

Staatsoper Berlin’s new production of Rameau’s tragédie lyrique, directed by Alletta Collins; featuring costumes, sets and lighting designed by Ólafur Eliasson; and musical direction by Simon Rattle, who makes his debut with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

Love, power and ambition meet on the stage of the Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona with L'Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi directed by Jordi Savall and directed by Calixto Bieito.

“As I child, I always had music in my head. I thought everybody did,” the legendary conductor Sir Simon Rattle recalls. His charming and humorous reflections on the unifying magic of conducting are complemented by interviews with well-known contemporaries and accompanied by thrilling concert footage. His music is a joy to all those who listen to it!

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená joins the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, to perform Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in Prague.

Film recording of Robert Wilson’s stage production of the opera by Gluck. John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz’s 1859 revision of Gluck’s opera “Orphée et Eurydice” at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Soloists Magdalena Kožená, Madeline Bender and Patricia Petibon are accompanied by Gardiner’s regular chorus, The Monteverdi Choir, and the 19th-century period instruments of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performed for the first time in its history at the Palais Garnier on May 11, 2025. A centuries-old institution, this orchestra has been the embodiment of musical excellence in Europe and around the world for more than 180 years.

At the Lightroom in London, pianist Yuja Wang offers an extraordinary recital at the heart of the immersive exhibition devoted to David Hockney. In this concert, the British painter's brightly coloured canvases enter into communion with the musical works performed, ranging from Bach to Samuel Barber. An unusual unison of the visual and audio arts.

Two classical superstars and two of the most remarkable pianists of their generation join forces: Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson come together at the Philharmonie in Berlin for what promises to be an unmissable meeting of musical minds. As part of an extended tour that sees them performing together for the first time, they present a programme built around two classics of the four-hand repertoire – Schubert's haunting Fantasie in F Minor and the two-piano version of Rachmaninoff's powerful Symphonic Dances – alongside John Adams's 1996 masterpiece Hallelujah Junction and further works by Adams, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow and Arvo Pärt. Filmed on 30 October 2024.

Be there for a live musical gathering at Munich’s Odeonsplatz in the company of two of the classical stage’s brightest lights! Maestro Lorenzo Viotti, at the helm of the Munich Philharmonic, and virtuoso pianist Yuja Wang invite us to join them at the world-famous open-air venue, beginning the festivities with an electrifying rendition of Rachmaninov's poignant Piano Concerto No. 2. The ensemble then unveils a Spanish-inflected program: Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol leads into Chabrier's España, a "rhapsody for orchestra," before Ravel's perennially beloved Boléro, an undisputed masterpiece of orchestration, ends the concert with flair. Live Concert, performed and aired Friday, July 9, 2021.

The star pianist Yuja Wang releases her latest album with the live recording of her concert from April 2022 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The eclectic program displays once more Wang’s fiery virtuosity, musical imagination and mature musicality in both lesser known and recognised masterpieces by Albéniz, Beethoven, Ligeti and Scriabin. The pianist commented on the selection: “I believe that every program should have its own life and reflect my current feelings.”

A documentary about the life of Andrei Tarkovsky in exile in Western Europe including Italy, Sweden, Germany and France until his sad demise to a fatal cancer.

Mozart did not write the Requiem as despairing funeral music for his impending death. Rather, the piece proclaims eternal light and redemption. Together with a first-class quartet of soloists, the choirs of the Bavarian and Swedish radios and the distinguished musicians of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado uncovers this more hopeful and forgiving essence of the Requiem.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle was one of the outstanding events of the past season. As before with the St Matthew Passion, star director Peter Sellars succeeded in creating a staging which made the spiritual and dramatic content of the Passion story even more intensive. The New York Times also praised the “brilliant and energetic” playing of the orchestra, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the “haunting, almost unsurpassable singing of all those involved.”

Sir Simon Rattle was in no doubt: the performance of the St Matthew Passion which he realised together with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin in 2010 was for him “the single most important thing we ever did here”. Critics around the world agreed. They praised the semi-staged “ritualization” by American star-director Peter Sellars, as well as the outstanding musical performances by the soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Christian Gerhaher, Thomas Quasthoff and Mark Padmore as the Evangelist.

The concert on Saturday, July 15, 2017, was opened by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Manfred Honeck. In the first part of the concert, percussionist Martin Grubinger delighted the audience with highlights from his Parade concertos by Tan Dun and Bruno Hartl, among others. In the second part, a concert waltz by Carl Michael Ziehrer was played, as well as his own fantasy based on themes from Antonín Dvořák's fairytale opera "Rusalka" with the popular "Song to the Moon", and the evening ended with a variety suite by Dmitri Shostakovich. On July 16, 2017, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra took to the stage in the Feldherrnhalle. The chief conductor was Valery Gergiev. Chinese pianist Yuja Wang played one of her absolute favorite concertos: the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Johannes Brahms. And the Russian maestro also contributed Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the bombastic orchestral version by Maurice Ravel.