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...

A 12-year-old boy tries everything to join a music lovers club.

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Bi...

With his affinity for the 16th-century sculptor Benvenuto Cellini's advocacy of artistic and persona...

An excellent performance of this delightful opera. The principals are superb, especially the sisters...

Richard Wagner's Parsifal, staged at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in 2020, opened the opera season ...

Part of an epoch-making release of Mozart's complete operas on DVD, here is the 18-year old composer...

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

Who loves whom in Così fan tutte, Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s cruelly comic reflection on desire, fideli...

This is a good video of "Figaro", but there are a couple of better ones available. The Bohm and the ...

All the throbbing eroticism—and ultimate heartbreak—of Puccini’s youthful score is unleashed by Jame...

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with ...

Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thril...

Premiered immediately before the enduring masterpieces Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, Lui...

Deep in a forest where druids and warriors seek revenge against the conquering Romans, Norma is scor...

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as ...

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pag...

Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a ...

Performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder by SBR, conducted by Mariss Jansons

Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the e...