Arrigo Boito's treatment of the Faust legend is imaginative yet also faithful to Goethe's original conception, and the score is memorable for its rich orchestral sounds, beautifully punctuated with lyrical passages and choral interludes.

Robert Carsen's sumptuous, post-modern production of Mef...

Mefistofele by A. Boito from Teatro Massimo di Palermo, performed at Teatro Massimo, 2008. Directed by Giancarlo del Monaco, conductor Stefano Ranzani. Starring Ferruccio Furlanetto (Mefistofele), Giuseppe Filianoti (Faust), Dimitra Theodossiou (Margherita, Elena), Sonia Zaramella (Marta), Monica...

Carl Heinrich Graun (1704–1759) wrote a total of 27 operas for the Berlin court and not least for Frederick II. In 1742 his “Cleopatra e Cesare” was performed at the opening of the “Haus Unter den Linden”, and in 1755 he wrote his most impressive work – “Montezuma”. The opera tells the tragic sto...

"After more then 30 years of absence, the Vienna State Opera dedicates a new staging to Schoenberg’s unfinished opera Moses und Aron with Franz Grundheber as Moses and Thomas Moser as Aron – a breathtaking and multimedia opera highlight accompanied by the chorus and orchestra of the Vienna State ...

Motezuma by A.Vivaldi, from Teatro comunale di Ferrara, 2008. Directed by Stefano Vizioli, conductor Alan Curtis, starring Vito Priante, Gemma Bertagnolli, Mary-ellen Nesi, Franziska Gottwald, Theodora Baka and Laura Cherici. Performed in Italian and subtitled in English, German, Spanish, French...

Nabucco by G. Verdi, from Arena di Verona, 2017. Directed by Arnaud Bernard, conductor Daniel Oren, starring Zaccaria, Nino Surguladze, Paolo Antognetti, Elena Borin, George Gagnidze, Rubens Pelizzari, Susanna Branchini, Nicolò Ceriani. Performed in Italian and subtitled in English, German, Frenc...

Nabucco by G. Verdi, from Teatro Regio di Parma, 2019. Directed by Stefano Ricci, conductor Francesco Ivan Ciampa, starring Annalisa Stroppa,Gianluca Breda, Michele Pertusi, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Elisabetta Zizzo,Ivan Magri,Saioa Hernández, Manuel Pierattelli. Performed in Italian and subtitled in...

Norma by V. Belliini from De Nederlandse Opera, performed at The Stopera, Amsterdam, 2005. Directed by Guy Joosten, conductor Julian Reynolds. Starring Hasmik Papian (Norma), Hugh Smith (Pollione), Irini Tsirakidis (Adalgisa), Giorgio Giuseppini (Oroveso), Anna Steiger (Clotilde), Carlo Bosi (Fla...

A powerful story of love, betrayal and honour, “Norma” is a classic of the belcanto tradition, combining lavish vocal splendour with a story of great passion and nobility. Over the centuries, opera composers and librettists have created scores of spectacular roles for sopranos. And of all the gre...

Norma by Bellini from Sferisterio Opera Festival, performed at Arena Sferisterio, 2007. Directed by Massimo Gasparon, conductor Paolo Arrivabeni. Starring Dimitra Theodossiou (Norma), Carlo Ventre (Pollione), Daniela Barcellona (Adalgisa), Simon Orfila (Oroveso), Roberta Minnucci (Clotilde) and G...

Norma by V. Bellini, from Sferisterio Opera Festival, performed at Arena Sferisterio, 2016. Directed by Luigi Di Gangi and Ugo Giacomazzi, conductor Michele Gamba, starring María José Siri, Nicola Ulivieri, Rubens Pelizzari, Sonia Ganassi and Manuel Pierattelli. Performed in Italian and subtitled...

Libretto by Wolfgang Rihm after Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation of Sophokles “Oedipus der Tyrann” and texts by Friedrich Nietzsche and Heiner Müller As one of the most versatile and best-known contemporary German composers, Wolfgang Rihm has always impressed and shocked with the powerful expres...

Olivo e Pasquale by Donizetti, from Festival Donizetti Bergamo, performed at Teatro Sociale, Bergamo, 2016. Directed by Ugo Giacomazzi, conductor Federico Maria Sardelli, starring Giovanni Romeo, Silvia Beltrami, Matteo Macchioni, Laura Giordano, Filippo Morace, Bruno Taddia, Pietro Adaini, Edoar...

Orfeo by C. Monteverdi, from Basilique Cathédrale de Saint-Denis, 2017. Directed by Julien Condemine, conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcon. Starring Choeur de Chambre de Namur; Valerio Contaldo (Orfeo); Francesca Aspromonte (Euridice); Giuseppina Bridelli (La Messagiera); Konstantin Wolff Plutone.

"Harry Kupfer's version of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, originally conceived for the Berlin Komische Oper and now in the repertory of The Royal Opera, won the Olivier Award for ""Most Outstanding Achievement in Opera".

According to legend, Orpheus' magical power as a musician enabled him to rega...

“Orlando teaches all of us that love is often responsible for our loss of reason,” runs a line from Act 3 of the opera. It is a modest moral, and perhaps one not demanding of the dramatic finesse and musical diversity that Handel serves up in Orlando – for the opera’s complex of problems is rathe...

Orlando furioso by A.Vivaldi, from Festival della Valle d'Itria, performed at Palazzo Ducale, Martina Franca, 2017. Directed by Fabio Ceresa, conductor Diego Fasolis, starring Riccardo Novaro, Sonia Prina, Michela Antenucci, Lucia Cirillo, Loriana Castellano, Konstantin Derri, Luigi Schifano. Sub...

Orpheus in the Underworld represents a quantum leap in Offenbach’s operetta output, for it would have been unthinkable to have created a stage work of such opulence and extravagance in Paris prior to that time. Strict regulations dating from the era of Napoleon I assigned to each of the city’s th...

"Orpheus in der Unterwelt", Offenbach’s satirical answer to Gluck’s “Orfeo”, was premiered in Paris 1858 and portrays society as amoral, the upper class as lax and indifferent to all and public opinion in charge of both.

In the early 1980s legendary director Götz Friedrich created his own cont...

Orphée et Eurydice (ed. Berlioz) by C. W. Gluck, from Opéra Comique, 2018. Directed by Aurélien Bory, conductor Raphaël Pichon, starring Marianne Crebassa,Lea Desandre,Hélène Guilmette,Charlotte Siepiora,Margherita Mischitelli,Claire Carpentier,Élodie Chan,Tommy Entresangle,Yannis François. Perfo...

When Renata Tebaldi sang “Desdemona” in Verdi’s Otello at London’s Covent Garden in 1950, it was her first operatic performance outside Italy. It was also the role in which she made her last appearance on the opera stage, at the Metropolitan Opera New York in 1973. Between these two performances ...

Walter Felsenstein (1901–1975), founder and general director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, was one of the twentieth century’s greatest creative theatre directors, who played a hugely important role in the revival of opera as a theatrical art form. A brilliant artist who directed over 190 produc...

Otello by Verdi from Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, 2006. Directed by Willy Decker, conductor Antoni Ros-Marbà. Starring José Cura (Otello), Krassimira Stoyanova (Desdemona), Lado Ataneli (Jago), Vittorio Grigolo (Cassio) and Ketevan Kemoklidze (Emilia). Subtitled are Catalan, German, English,...

Otello by Rossini from Zurich Opera, performed at Paris Opera Bastille, 2012. Directed by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, conductor Muhai Tang. Starring John Osborn (Otello), Cecilia Bartoli (Desdemone), Peter Kalman (Elmiro), Javier Camarena (Rodrigo), Edgardo Rocha (Jago), Liliana Nikiteanu (...