LA PIETRA DEL PARAGONE (The Touchstone) concerns the Count Asdrubale who is wealthy and therefore of great interest to many women – notably Aspasia, Fulvia, and Clarice. Only Clarice, however, loves him for something other than his riches. There are also male hangers-on: the corrupt journalist Macrobio, the poetaster Pacuvio, and Giocondo, who is Asdrubale's true friend, but who has his own eyes on Clarice. To test his friends and would-be fiancées, Asdrubale pretends that he has been bankrupted. Sure enough, only Clarice and Giocondo stand by him, and when his fortune is "miraculously" saved, the three have the last laugh on everyone else... or do they? This production is set in what looks like the early 1960s. But the real innovation is the use of blue screen technology: using tiny cameras and sets, along gigantic screens hanging over the stage, a kind of video mixing makes the singers appear to inhabit any number of fanciful settings and perform a myriad of improbable actions.
A colorful and comedic staging of the classic opera buffa by the Vienna State Opera.
Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautif...
The first-ever audio-visual recording of this opera – directed by Christof Loy, conducted by Marc Al...
Starring Jonas Kaufmann as Bacchus and featuring Emily Magee with Daniel Harding conducting the Vien...
"Die tote Stadt" is a psychologically layered drama with Hitchcock-like features, about Paul who, af...
Sasha Regan’s award-winning All-male Company are set to lift everyone’s spirits with a treat in thei...
Live performance from Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1992. Based on Voltaire's tragedy, TANCREDI is a sto...
Donizetti’s timeless comedy shines in Otto Schenk’s enchanting production, conducted by James Levine...
IL CAMPANELLO DI NOTTE, Farce in one act by Gaetano Donizetti, is set in Naples. Don Annibale Pistac...
In ancient Babylon, SEMIRAMIDE (Anderson) encourages her lover Assur (Ramey) to murder her husband, ...
Star soprano Anna Netrebko adds Donizetti’s hapless heroine to her growing list of Met triumphs in t...
Madcap physical comedy and impeccable coloratura come together for Natalie Dessay’s indelible portra...
Verdi’s IL TROVATORE again storms the Met stage in a star-studded, anvil-wielding cast , including S...
"Irresistible" (Opera News) rising-star mezzo Elina Garanca triumphs as Rossini's Cinderella in this...
23-year-old Gioachino Rossini completed his masterpiece IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA incredibly quickly –...
Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical C...
When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of...
The gypsy Azucena (Fiorenza Cossotto) takes revenge for her mother who was accused of putting a curs...
Holly Golightly is an eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. ...
Witness the Zurich Opera's stunning production of Richard Wagner's masterpiece "Tannhauser," conduct...