When the most voluptuous, sought-after courtesan in the world meets an ascetic monk whose life is devoted to God, you know erotic sparks are going to fly. And when the clash takes place in a glorious, but rarely performed, opera by Massenet, it’s a delight to the ear just as much as to the eye. Renée Fleming is every inch the glamorous Thaïs, swathed in elegant gowns designed by Christian Lacroix. Thomas Hampson is Athanaël, the tortured man of God. This production by John Cox, which premiered in December 2008, brilliantly sets the stage for a confrontation as old as civilization itself.

Here is a rare and exceptional example in which the director and costume designer amuse themselves w...

La Vie parisienne (Parisian life) is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach in ...

The first words uttered by Carmen mark one of the greatest entrances in the history of opera and exp...

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1879 opera, adapted from Alexander Pushkin's novel. Performed by the Finn...

Part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the death of the Pesaro composer, Il Barbiere ...

The moon landing is juxtaposed to Dante and Beatrice's journey through paradise in this visual orato...

Opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, Hector Berlioz's version (1859)

"Yenufa" is an outstanding phenomenon in the music of the 20th century. Drawing on Moravian folklore...

In October 1733, the audience at the Académie Royale de Musique witnessed the birth of a revolutiona...

Benjamin Britten’s opera of the Henry James novel. An inexperienced governess is sent to a country h...

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Paw...