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...

The sets and costumes by Ponnelle are truly reflective of the 'grand style'. Plus the fact that the ...
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco...

Robert Lepage’s dreamlike production, with its thousands of twinkling LED lights stretching across t...

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

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Live performance from the Opéra National de Paris, 2003.

This filmed version of Strauss' shocker features Teresa Stratas as opera's most depraved teenager, a...

A lonely mother and her son go to the opera where a performance of Cherubini’s opera Medea is given....

Adapted from the opera written by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky.

Dvořák's "Rusalka" in a production by David Pountney at the English National Opera in 1986. Mark Eld...

Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy or opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto b...

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

Opera in three acts, a prologue and an epilogue, by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), with a libretto i...

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The man looks back on a turbulent love life, which he does not dare to opt definitively for a perman...

Trapped in an abusive marriage, a wealthy German prince desperately seeks a way out. But what appear...

Two years prior to the opening scene, the nobleman Florestan has exposed or attempted to expose cert...