23-year-old Gioachino Rossini completed his masterpiece IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA incredibly quickly – legend has it in just 13 days – which Rossini attributed to ‘facility and lots of instinct’. The opera, characterized by youthful energy and bold wit, has all the ingredients for comic chaos: an imprisoned young woman, her lecherous guardian and a young noble suitor. Skilfully plotting behind the scenes is Figaro, an irrepressible and inventive character in whom many have seen a resemblance to the young Rossini himself. The score fizzes with musical brilliance, from Figaro’s famous entrance aria to the frenzy of the Act I finale. This recording sees Joyce DiDonato (Rosina) bring literal meaning to the old theatrical motto Break a leg! She did just that in an earlier show but was determined to finish her commitment and was re-staged into the production to allow for the additional challenges that come when a leading lady in a lively physical role must wheel around the other performers...

Fierrabras of 1823 is the last of Franz Schubert’s stage works. Rarely performed to this day, this h...

On a June night in 2017, opera lovers thronged to the Royal Opera House in London to hear tenor Jona...

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the...

Drama lyrique in five acts, after the play by Maruice Maeterlink

Running through Bartók’s disenchanted tale, whose haunting music was initially condemned as unplayab...

Mirella Freni, Placido Domingo, Christa Ludwig, and Robert Kerns star in this Jean-Pierre Ponnelle-d...

Live performance from Zürich Opera House, 2001. “Vesselina Kasarova’s Rosina turned this Barber int...

The stupendous climax to Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle is brilliantly realized by the Otto Schenk/Gü...

Renée Fleming stars in the title role of one of Handel’s greatest dramas, seen in Stephen Wadsworth’...

"Orango" - prologue to an unfinished opera by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), conducted by Esa-Pekk...

Part folklore, part opera-ballet, this féerie presents local pagan traditions on the day of the summ...

Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die tote Stadt" in a Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2019, directed...

Disenchanted opera star Carlotta Manson falls for ruffian cat burglar Barney McGann and gives up her...

Set in 16th-century France and Spain, Don Carlos tells of the political and amorous rivalry between ...

Lumee, one of the two main characters (of the opera p r i s m), sings this aria while smoking outsid...

An operatic film adaptation of the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar of the same name.

The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout th...