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...

Starring the exquisite coloratura soprano Emma Matthews as the innocent girl priestess Lakmé, and su...

Berlioz’s colossal masterpiece requires stupendous forces—dozens of soloists, enormous chorus, orche...

A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterp...
Politics and love leads to a love triangle between father, son and stepmother.

In the 50's, in Paris, the neighbors Rodolfo and Mimi meet each other when Mimi's candle blows out i...

Nabucco - live from Metropolitan Opera, June 2002. On its surface, Nabucco is about the epic strugg...

A new generation of rising stars shines in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production of Puccini’s most ...

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

The Royal Ballet performs Tchaikovsky's classic ballet, choreographed by Liam Scarlett and starring ...

Shortly after WWII, the DEFA Studios produced a series of operas and operettas which belonged to the...

A musical drama based on Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto.

Götterdämmerung, the final instalment of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, is a story of human passions...

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

The painter Lili Elbe was the first person to have gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. The hom...

This superb 2006 production of the Los Angeles Opera's La Traviata stars Renée Fleming, who joins th...

Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur was inspired by the real-life story of a celebrated actress at ...

Recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1995, this acclaimed presentation of composer Gioachi...

The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singe...