Written On Skin

When a precious hoard of gold is stolen from the river Rhine, it unleashes a chain of destructive events, pitting gods and mortals against one another for generations. Wagner’s Ring cycle boasts some of the greatest music ever written for the opera stage. Join us as we embark on a spectacular journey into the world of myth, dream and memory, with the figure of Erda – Mother Earth herself – at its centre.

Not The Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) is a comic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian, which retells the tragic tale of Mandy, impregnated by a Roman soldier, giving birth to Brian, a reluctant revolutionary of the People's Front of Judea who falls in love with Judith, gets mistaken for a Messiah and is arrested by the Romans and sentenced to be crucified. It ranges in reference from Handel, through a naughty Mozart duet, to the Festival of Nine Carols, Bob Dylan, and the classic finale "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

Raised by a scheming dwarf and unaware of his true family origins, a young man embarks on an epic journey.

The Emerson String Quartet embarks on the final season of a fifty-year history that includes 9 GRAMMYs and thousands of concerts. Interweaving vivid memories with delicate observations of life on the road, the film explores the difficult decision to walk away from the things they cherish: the music they play and the friends they hold dear. At once a frank examination of the tyranny of aging and a cri de cœur to pass the torch to a new generation, the film culminates with one final performance, leaving all to ponder what happens to us after the final curtain.

Doctor Who returns to the Proms to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the popular BBC series. As well as showcasing Murray Gold’s music from the past eight years, the concert also journeys back to the early days of Doctor Who and the groundbreaking work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Featuring special guests from the series, big screens and a host of monsters ready to invade the Royal Albert Hall, this is not the year to be exterminated!

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.

Opera based on the story of Edward II and Piers Gaveston. Music by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp. BBC broadcast of the 2018 premiere at the Royal Opera House, the composer conducting, prefaced by commentary and interviews.

A humourous "domestic opera" about an upwardly mobile couple in their mid thirties who can't resolve an argument about the cap being left off the toothpaste.

The chamber opera One represents a new kind of music multimedia drama. Michel van der Aa's poetic production of technological virtuosity fuses libretto, video, live music and soundtrack with the soprano voice and stage presence of Barbara Hannigan into One. Projected images and electronic sounds add emphasis to the onstage performance of the protagonist, while the recorded and live voice interact with incredible synchronicity.

Alone in a secluded mansion, Giacomo Casanova cries out then collapses. When the mysterious and beautiful writer, Elisa von der Recke, comes to visit, it breathes new life into the old man. A movie that captures the myth of the greatest seducer of all times, Casanova, his story is told both through fiction and on-stage opera performances that unravel the tale of his adventures, his passions, and ultimately his fear of death.

Claus Guth's exciting 2017 staging of Handel’s "Rodelinda" at Madrid’s Teatro Real, featuring Lucy Crowe and Bejun Mehta as Rodelinda and Bertarido, with conductor Ivor Bolton. After the successes of "Giulio Cesare" in 1723 and "Tamerlano" in 1724, Rodelinda completes the trilogy of Handel’s great opera seria masterpieces. The work was composed in 1725 using Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto, a work inspired by Antonio Salvi’s earlier libretto which had been itself adapted from Pierre Corneille’s tragedy "Pertharite, roi des Lombards". Rodelinda thus brought one of the most glorious compositional periods in the Handel’s career to a close, about a decade after his arrival in the British capital. Mixing romantic storytelling and political intrigue, Handel produced one of his most beautiful scores, a true operatic tour de force.

Barbara Hannigan conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France performing works by György Ligeti and Igor Stravinski.

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.

George Frederic Handel's oratorio Theodora, in its first-ever staged version at the Salzburg Festival, was among the highlights of Handel Year 2009. Acclaimed director Christof Loy presented Theodora as the profoundly moving tale of a woman who prefers death to denying her faith, an interpretation captivated with bravura by world-renowned video director Hannes Rossacher. A luminous Christine Schaefer and countertenor Bejun Mehta formed a perfect leading couple altogether suited to conductor Ivor Bolton's vigorus reading.

Based on Gluck's masterpiece and performed entirely on location in and around the environs of the Baroque Theatre at the Cesky Krumlov Castle in the Czech Republic; it's an opera production designed specifically for the film with outstanding sets and production values. Countertenor Bejun Mehta sings the role of the torn main character and acts as an artistic advisor, making for an involving and impeccably performed opera.

In a court trial, Joan of Arc is charged with high treason ... Dmitri Cherniakov presents a modern reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s least frequently performed opera, set entirely in a courtroom, with soprano Elena Stikhina in the title role.

The definitive version of this rare opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The costume and set design is truly visionary and other worldly and gives a convincing insight into what staged operas must have looked like during the Baroque and Rococo period. Singers are all excellent and well cast in their respective roles. One of the most thrilling things I have seen, just wish I could see this live.

The last days of the American icon Walt Disney form a powerful and poignant subject for Philip Glass's latest opera, which was filmed at its first performances in Madrid in January 2013.

When Australian composer Brett Dean’s Hamlet had its world premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2017, The Guardian declared, “New opera doesn’t often get to sound this good … Shakespeare offers a gauntlet to composers that shouldn’t always be picked up, but Dean’s Hamlet rises to the challenge.” On June 4, this riveting contemporary masterpiece appears live in cinemas, with Neil Armfield, who directed the work’s premiere, bringing his acclaimed staging to the Met stage. Many of the original cast members have followed, including tenor Allan Clayton in the title role. Nicholas Carter makes his Met debut conducting a remarkable ensemble, which also features soprano Brenda Rae as Ophelia, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly as Gertrude, baritone Rod Gilfry as Claudius, and legendary bass John Tomlinson as the ghost of Hamlet’s father. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe

Live from Glyndebourne 2009

A filmed performance of the January 2016 world premiere production of Toshio Hosokawa's opera dedicated to the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

On 22 December 1808, four works by Ludwig van Beethoven were premiered at a major concert in Vienna: Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 6, known as the ‘Pastoral’, Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 4 and the Fantasy for piano, choir and orchestra. Philippe Jordan and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra recreated this historic musical moment on 11 January 2020 in the Vienna Konzerthaus.

Triumphantly premiered in 1724 at the King's Theatre in London, George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto masterfully combines human emotions: Triumph with sorrow, despair with happiness and love with profound melancholy in the face of the transience of all earthly life. Star director Keith Warner creates a production that imaginatively blends silent film and baroque opera, delightfully echoing Mankiewicz's legendary Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton. An excellent cast of singers is led by two of the world's leading countertenors: Bejun Mehta and Christophe Dumaux. Louise Alder shines as the seductive Cleopatra. Patricia Bardon, Simon Bailey and Jake Arditti are further highlights in this extraordinary group of singers, while Ivor Bolton provides the appropriate soundtrack on the podium of the Concentus Musicus Wien.

Britten’s The Rape of Lucretiabased on the play by André Obey—returned to Glyndebourne in 2015, nearly 70 years after its premiere there in 1946. Fiona Shaw, also known for her performance as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, directed the staging for this production.

Brett Dean's multi-award-winning opera received its world premiere at Glyndebourne Festival 2017. The world premiere recording of Brett Deans new opera based on Shakespeares best-known tragedy: To be, or not to be. This is Hamlets dilemma, and the essence of Shakespeares most famous and arguably greatest work, given new life in operatic form in this original Glyndebourne commission. Thoughts of murder and revenge drive Hamlet when he learns that it was his uncle Claudius who killed his father, the King of Denmark, then seized his fathers crown and wife. But Hamlets vengeance vies with the question: is suicide a morally valid deed in an unbearably painful world?

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

A medieval cult travels to the 20th century and kills people in an attempt to bring about the end of the world. The policeman must stop them by summoning the spirit of Nostradamus.

Réné Jacobs reinvents Handel’s Orlando for the 21st century with the help of the young period instrument ensemble B’Rock and a brilliant cast of soloists led by Bejun Mehta as the title hero and Sophie Karthäuser as his adored Angelica.

Titus and Berenice love each other; under the watchful eye of Antiochus, the hopeless lover, they try yet refuse to understand each other. Taking up the “majestic sadness” of these alexandrines, among the greatest verses in the French language, Michael Jarrell amplifies the power of words, making them a vehicle for spaces and identities that, from Rome to Jerusalem, are unceasingly questioned.

In a poetic composition of song, narration, and images, this film follows Canadian soprano and orchestra conductor Barbara Hannigan, accompanied by the Ludwig Orchestra, as she records her album Crazy Girl Crazy. Why did she choose these three pieces, in essence so different, but which intimately resonate with her: Berio’s Sequenza III, Berg’s Lulu Suite, and Gershwin’s Girl Crazy? With this musical voyage peering into a world of precision and sharing, where a passionate woman brings forth a vocal tour de force, Mathieu Amalric, César winner for Best Actor in 2005 and 2008, shows us once more his talent behind the camera with this new opus that goes beyond a mere artist’s portrait.

Opera North’s enchanting staging of The Adventures of Pinocchio, Jonathan Dove’s 21st opera, is a wittily inventive feast for the eyes and ears.

Les Boréades, this great life lesson delivered by a nearly 80-year-old Rameau, a carpe diem forged to the very essence of the dances, orders us to choose love over power, freedom over love. The most striking thing is without a doubt the intelligence of an actor’s direction that osmotically blends music, theater and ballet, encompassing expression, sensitivity, humor, narration and psychology in a single gesture.