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.

Woody Allen's production of the Puccini comic opera at LA Opera in 2015

The production was the Vienna State Opera debut for the young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan – the ...

Sasha Regan’s award-winning All-male Company are set to lift everyone’s spirits with a treat in thei...

Holly Golightly is an eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. ...

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the...
Eugen Suchoň's opera Svätopluk returns to the stage of the Slovak National Theatre Opera in 2023. Si...

37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts...

This is the 2004 version of Kaija Saariaho's opera performed by the Finnish National Opera and condu...

Johann Strauss, Jr., a would-be composer of waltzes in mid-19th Century Vienna, attempts to thwart h...

Vivian, Roe, JJ, Ines and a mysterious French man through a 20 year musical memory of New York City....

Still an unsuccessful punk rock musician at 36, Stefano returns to his hometown in the countryside t...

A man who accused a catholic bishop of abusing him when he was a child dies in the Austrian city Sal...

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there ...

Jules Massanet's lyrical opera is transformed into a superb film production by Petr Weigl, shot on l...

Frantisek Filip film version of the Smetana opera.

Take a perfect cast, a great conductor and a groundbreaking staging in-out makes a 'Tristan' for ete...

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orc...

Rarely has a production of Verdi’s Otello been staged in such a prestigious location: the courtyard ...

A hotel porter is left a fortune but after living it up for a while he returns to his old place of w...

A romantic opera in three acts with music and libretto by Richard Wagner, performed by the Orchestra...