In February 1972, the American president Richard Nixon went to China to meet Mao Zedong. In the context of the war in Vietnam and the cold war, this encounter marked a turning point in Chinese‑American relations. John Adams, a major musical figure of the last forty years, made this event of contemporary history the subject of his first opera. Nixon in China tackles the political thaw instigated by ping-pong diplomacy, begun by the invitation of the American table tennis players by their Chinese counterparts, one year before the presidential visit. A mesmerising work in which the pulsations and repetitions typical of minimalism are combined with melodic lines of great lyricism. For its entry into the Paris Opera repertoire, this work has been entrusted to the director Valentina Carrasco, who underlines the importance and the mediating power of Chinese national sport in history.
Franco Zeffirelli directs these two legendary La Scala productions telling tragic tales of jealousy...
This DVD of a live 2005 performance from the Zürich Opera under the musical direction of Franz Welse...
Royal Opera favourite Bryn Terfel heads the cast for this new production of Donizetti’s comedy of do...
The water fairy Rusalka falls in love with an earthly prince. In vain, Father Aquarius warns her. He...
Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical C...
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the...
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make...
Mozart’s early masterpiece returned to the Met for the first time in more than a decade with Music D...
Tchaikovsky’s setting of Pushkin’s timeless verse novel is presented on the Met stage in Deborah War...
In his new production, Robert Carsen places the action at the end of the Habsburg Empire, underscori...
A Ukrainian comic opera with spoken dialogue in three acts with music and libretto by the composer S...
Adapted from the opera written by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky.
Opera lies at the heart of Rimsky-Korsakov's colourful idiom, but performances are few and far betwe...
Semyon Bychkov conducts a cast of young, up-and-coming talent including American soprano Corinne Win...
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco...
While excerpts of the score are popular today, like the Hungarian March in the first part or Marguer...
Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo are opera’s classic lovers in Gounod’s lush Shakespeare adaptation...
The legendary Plácido Domingo brings another new baritone role to the Met under the baton of his lon...
Prince Abesalom runs into an orphaned Eteri while hunting, falls for her and brings the woman to his...