Turnage: The Silver Tassie

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

An opera based on the life of celebrity and actress Anna Nicole Smith.

Death in Venice was Britten's final opera--an extraordinarily atmospheric and haunting adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, evoking the grandeur and shabbiness of a Venice in the grip of disease. He eloquently and evocatively describes the moral and physical degeneration of Aschenbach, the writer whose obsessive pursuit of beauty in the form of a boy leads him into humiliation and death. Robert Tear takes the demanding role of Aschenbach opposite Alan Opie, who sings the various baritone parts. To portray the beauty and fascination of the Polish family and Tadzio, Britten made prominent the use of dance, by turning these characters into dancers, choreographed in this production by Martha Clarke. This new production for Glydebourne is directed by Stephen Lawless and conducted by Graeme Jenkins.

Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The 2015 Production was led by Romeo Castellucci in Paris. Moses und Aron was filmed for television by film director François-René Martin, in co-production with the Paris Opera, Bel air Media and Arte, with support from the CNC.

The new Bayreuth production of the Ring Cycle that premiered in 2013 offered spectacular sets, courtesy of Aleksandar Denić. As is regularly the case in Frank Castorf's productions, live video recordings add an extra dimension and in this performance Die Walküre is set at the beginning in the 19th century and then moves ahead to the Stalin era. The geographic setting is Baku, Azerbaijan, so in addition to Wild West capitalism, Castorf also takes aim at Soviet communism. The leading roles are also strongly cast in this third revival of Castorf's production, with Christopher Ventris, Heidi Melton, Catherine Foster and John Lundgren.

Frank Castorf revolutionised German-language theatre in the post-Berlin Wall era, bringing to the stage intellectual and political acuteness, brash references and a not infrequent use of crude humour. He brought these qualities to the Bayreuth Festival where his production of the Ring ran from 2013 to 2017. This 2016 recording of Das Rheingold captures Marek Janowski's festival debut as conductor of this unique production, in which Castorf replaces the Rheingold with oil as the central commodity in a pre-capitalist society. The first night of the Ring cycle begins at a gas station off of Route 66, the main road connecting the East and West coasts of the USA, that played an important role in commerce in the 1920s.

The story of a little boy named Sam, who is exploited by two evil chimney sweeps to clean narrow chimneys.

John Adams’s mesmerizing score, in the powerful production of Penny Woolcock, tells the story of one of the pivotal moments in human history—the creation of the atomic bomb. Conducted by Alan Gilbert in his Met debut, this gripping opera presents the human face of the scientists, military men, and others who were involved in the project, as they wrestled with the implications of their work. Baritone Gerald Finley gives a powerful star turn in the title role as the brilliant J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Live from Glyndebourne 1994. The first production to be filmed Live in Glyndebourne´s new opera house May 1994. The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single “day of madness” in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. This follows the Count trying to obtain favours from Susanna, Figaro’s bride to be, under the nose of the Countess.

The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. This follows the Count trying to obtain favours from Susanna, Figaro's bride to be, under the nose of the Countess.

Glyndebourne's Saul stole the summer and had critics raving. The Guardian (****) applauded virtuoso stagecraft from director Barrie Kosky in his debut production there, calling the show a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing. For The Independent, which ranked it amongst five top classical and opera performances of 2015, there was no praise too high for the cast. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivor Bolton sparkles from the pit with period panache, and designer Katrin Lea Tag's exuberant costumes (The Times ****) set the Old Testament story in Handel's time, with a witty twinge of the contemporary.

David McVicar's spellbinding production of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO is set in 1830s post-revolution France, where the inexorable unravelling of an old order has produced acute feelings of loss. In the relationship between Finley's suave, dashingly self-absorbed Count and Röschmann's passionately dignified Countess, which lies at the tragic heart of the opera, the sexy ease between a feisty Figaro (Erwin Schrott) and a sassy Susanna (Miah Persson) is starkly absent, the tenacious spark between Marcellina (Graciela Araya) and Bartolo (Jonathan Veira) suggesting what might be rekindled. The production is superbly complemented by the beauty of Paule Constable's lighting and Tanya McCallin's evocative sets. Antonio Pappano conducts (and accompanies the recitatives) with invigorating wit and emotional depth.

The European premiere of the opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars, in a co-production of the San Francisco Opera (where the work premiered), the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and De Nederlandse Opera. The plot focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb (the "Trinity" test) was being prepared.

Mussorgsky was inspired to compose his masterpiece Boris Godunov after reading Pushkin’s Shakespeare-inspired play of the same name. It features one of the most dramatically rewarding bass-baritone roles: a noble ruler who loves his children and his people, but whose thirst for power has led him to commit a terrible crime. Bryn Terfel is “a powerful new Boris” (The Observer) in Richard Jones’ new production of the original 1869 score. Antonio Pappano conducts an outstanding cast that also includes John Graham-Hall as the crafty Prince Shuisky and John Tomlinson as the vagabond monk Varlaam.

Renée Fleming is Countess Madeleine, the beautiful, enigmatic woman at the center of Strauss’s sophisticated “Conversation Piece for Music.” She is being courted by two men: Joseph Kaiser sings the composer, Flamand, and Russell Braun is Olivier, the poet. The stellar cast also includes Peter Rose as the theater director La Roche, Sarah Connolly as the actress Clairon, and Morten Frank Larsen as the Countess’s brother. John Cox’s elegant production places the action in the 1920s. Andrew Davis conducts.

The imperious Onegin rejects naive Tatiana's proposal of love and also incites a duel with his best friend turned rival Lenski (Piotr Beczala). This sets the scene for a dramatic story of love, loyalty and betrayal. Acclaimed theatre director Deborah Warner presents this lavish new interpretation of the timeless tale. Set in the 19th century and moving episodically from farmhouse to ballroom, the production culminates in an unforgettable finale set during a snowstorm.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and their Music Director Riccardo Chailly have already acquired legendary status – glorious reviews and many awards for their recordings testifying to their continuing success. At Leipzig’s International Mahler Festival, to mark the centenary of Mahler’s death, they performed his monumental Second Symphony in the Gewandhaus – together with two marvellous soloists and choral forces quite beyond compare. About the final movement the composer said: “The increasing tension, working up to the final climax, is so tremendous that I don’t know myself, now that it is over, how I ever came to write it.” The painting “Morgenrot” was chosen by internationally acclaimed artist Neo Rauch to feature on the cover of this release on DVD and Blu-ray.

Emmanuelle Haïm has established herself as one of the world’s leading performers, conductors and interpreters of Baroque repertoire, not only with Le Concert d’Astrée, the ensemble she founded in 2000, but with several of the world’s greatest orchestras. Known for her fresh and expressive approach to Baroque music, she has garnered critical acclaim and several international awards with her own ensemble, including Victoires de la Musique Classique, ECHOs, Gramophone Awards, and Grammy nominations.

The Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet, and director-choreographer Wayne McGregor bring us an interpretation of DIDO AND AENEAS, an opera composed by Henry Purcell, with a libretto by Nahum Tate; based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid. We find Dido in her court with her attendants. Dido fears that her love for Aeneas will make her a weak monarch, but her attendants assure her that heroes, too, love....

Rusalka, a water spirit, lives with her family in the pure waters of the forest lake. When she falls in love with a Prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves her home in the hope of finding true love in a new world – a world that does not love her back.

Part of an epoch-making release of Mozart's complete operas on DVD, here is the 18-year old composer's first mature opera buffa. Hilarity mingles with passionate emotions when belfiore believes he has killed his lover in a fit of jealousy, but then encounters her disguised as gardener sandrina. Famed filmmaker Doris Dorie directs a superb young cast in this tale of love, hate and intrigue across class barriers, all vividly depicted by Mozart's astonishingly rich and varied music.

Calixto Bieito's controversial but visually stunning production of Wozzeck is set in a grisly, chaotic, post-industrial maze, giving a contemporary edge to the disturbing and hair-raising intensity of Alban Berg's expressionistic masterpiece.

Live performance, new production season 1984-5. BBC 2 Television relay on 30 March 1985 of performance of February 11.

At the English National Opera, Deborah Warner has been directing Benjamin Britten's final opera, Death in Venice, conducted by Edward Gardner.

"La Clemenza di Tito" was Mozart's last stage work. It was commissioned for an Imperial coronation ceremony while Mozart was at work on "Die Zauberflöte" and was composed in great haste. Indeed, time was so short that composition of the secco recitatives was assigned to Mozart's pupil Süssmayr. As in the earlier "Idomeneo", Mozart sought to produce an opera seria that was dramatically viable. He enlisted the poet Mazzolà to substantially revise the Metastasio libretto, which had already been set some fifty times. The number of arias was reduced from 25 to 11, and ensembles and choruses were added to enliven the proceedings. Though perhaps not the very top-drawer Mozart, the music is wonderful.