In its most ambitious effort yet to bring the joy and artistry of opera to audiences everywhere during the Met’s closure, the company presented an unprecedented virtual At-Home Gala, featuring more than 40 leading artists performing in a live stream from their homes all around the world.
Wagner’s soaring masterpiece makes its triumphant return to the Met stage after 17 years. In a sequel to his revelatory production of Parsifal, director François Girard unveils an atmospheric staging that once again weds his striking visual style and keen dramatic insight to Wagner’s...
A dream cast assembles for Strauss’s grand Viennese comedy. Soprano Lise Davidsen is the aging Marschallin, opposite mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as her lover Octavian and soprano Erin Morley as Sophie, the beautiful younger woman who steals his heart. Bass Günther Groissböck returns as the...
Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher’s bold new production probes the psychological underpinnings of Verdi’s dynamic setting of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. At the helm of this performance is riveting conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who brings out all the cascading emotions in Verdi’s...
Monika Donner is a transsexual elite soldier, a front figure for gender rights and an author celebrated by the political right-wing. She, who was once a he, quickly becomes a lone fighter between the ideological fronts.
It is about nothing less than love. This is what the Wartburg singing community asks for, and this is what Tannhäuser also seeks: he finds almost endless lust with the goddess of love Venus, and hopes to attain bliss with the "pure" Elisabeth. In his vacillation between satisfaction and...
The Zurich Opera presents a stunning new production of Verdi’s most popular, most spectacular work. Responding superbly to the role, Swedish soprano Nina Stemme – she of the richly clear voice – offers an Aida vibrant with love and emotion. Heading a magnificent cast, she makes a poignant...
Max, a young hunter, must win a shooting competition to claim the hand of his beloved Agathe. But on the eve of the competition, seemingly having lost all shooting prowess, Max allows himself to be convinced by his rival Kaspar to make a pact with the devil to use seven magic bullets which never...
R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (Salzburger Festspiele)
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With their “comedy for music” in the spirit of Mozart, Richard Strauss and his inspired librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created the most popular of all their works and one of the most frequently performed operas of all time. In the guise of a gossamer-light and supremely entertaining...
Met Music Director James Levine leads this Live in HD presentation of Wagner’s early Romantic opera, starring Johan Botha in the title role of the minnesinger torn between earthly passion and true love. Eva-Maria Westbroek is Elisabeth, whose unswerving devotion redeems Tannhäuser’s soul, and...
From the Queen of the Night's vocal pyrotechnics to Papageno's chirpy birdsongs, The Magic Flute is one of Mozart's most charming and engaging operas. However, its fairytale surface conceals the mysteries of an initiation ritual and a multi-layered plot, packed with allegories to fire up the...
This is an effective staging, though the set looks medieval and the costumes are modern. It’s well paced, well played, well sung. Jonas Kaufmann is an ideal Tito. His voice is not only beautiful and flexible, it’s also ample, retaining warmth and sweetness when he sings out. The character of...
Production Bayreuth 2024. There is no arrival in Tristan and Isolde, only the longing for the unattainable, for the place “where the end of deception promised me my heart”. Two people who strive to fall out of the roles ascribed to them, to escape the supposed lies of the day. Two people...
Schubert Opera composed in 1823 but not performed until 1988. It is set in a medieval world and based on La Chanson de Roland and the legend of the love between Eginhard and Emma. Live performance from 2007 at the Opernhaus Zürich.
Faust - a lonely scholar, despairing of life, who has so far failed to discover its highest meaning - is given a book on black magic from three mysterious students from Cracow. When Mephistopheles appears and proposes a pact with Faust, the two of them set off together on a (dream) journey. Doktor...
Rusalka is not a happily tragic fairy tale. Rusalka’s lake is a dark, damp cellar, where she is imprisoned with her sisters by her abusive father. But once she finally escapes, she is thrown mute and alone into an equally brutal world where she is utterly unequipped to survive, and he...
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Bayreuther Festspiele
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The high-point of the 2017 Bayreuth Festival, Barrie Kosky’s astonishingly entertaining and convincing new Meistersinger is a triumph: a production of enormous insight and great quality... that plumbs the depths of both the opera and its composer.
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.
