Salome

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

Don Giovanni

Live performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 2000.

La Gazzetta

The writer Dario Fo applies his inventive genius to Rossini's comic opera in its premiere DVD release. Recorded in 2005 under the musical direction of Maurizio Barbacini, Fo's production brings fresh vitality and colour to the story of Lisetta, and of her father Don Pomponio's increasingly ridiculous attempts to find a husband for her through an advertisement in the newspaper LA GAZZETTA. Filmed using high definition cameras with multitrack sound.

Ermione

Recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1995, this acclaimed presentation of composer Gioachino Rossini's epic opus ERMIONE is based on Jean Racine's play "Andromache." Set in Troy after the city fell to the Greeks, the production recounts the rancorous battle between widow Andromache and Helen of Troy's green-eyed daughter, Ermione for the love of Pyrrhus

Rodelinda

Jean-Marie Villegier's modern interpretation of Handel's "Rodelinda" – filmed live at the world-renowned Glyndebourne Opera House in the United Kingdom, sets the timeless tale of jealousy and treachery in the black-and-white world of the silent-movie era. Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci sings the title role of Rodelinda, with tenor Kurt Streit and bass Umberto Chiummo performing the parts of Grimoaldo and Garibaldo, respectively.

Otello

The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.

Don Giovanni

Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting and directed for television and video by Brian Large.

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. This version is conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala, Milan.

The Mikado

In a small Japanese town, Ko-Ko is appointed to the unenviable position of executioner. Knowing he must successfully perform before the appearance of the Mikado in a month's time, Ko-Ko finds a suitable victim in Nanki-Poo, who is distraught over his unrequited love for the maiden Yum-Yum. Nanki-Poo agrees to sacrifice his life if he is allowed to spend his remaining days with Yum-Yum, who is betrothed to Ko-Ko. Filmed live from the 1982 Stratford Festival in Ontario.

The Ghosts of Versailles

What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One possible sequel is told in John Corigliano’s “grand opera buffa” The Ghosts of Versailles—an uproariously funny and deeply moving work inspired by Beaumarchais’s third Figaro play, La Mère Coupable, and commissioned by the Met to celebrate its 100th anniversary. This telecast captures its world premiere run, conducted by James Levine. Håkan Hagegård is Beaumarchais, Figaro’s creator, who is deeply in love with Marie Antoinette (Teresa Stratas in a heart-searing performance) and determined to rewrite history and save her from the guillotine. A young Renée Fleming, at the beginning of her international career, sings the unfaithful Rosina. Gino Quilico is the wily Figaro who tries to take matters in his own hands, and Marilyn Horne stops the show as the exotic entertainer Samira.

The Pirates of Penzance

Sasha Regan’s award-winning All-male Company are set to lift everyone’s spirits with a treat in their new West End pirate’s cove. The swashbuckling pirates and their winsome lasses sail into the Palace Theatre with their inventive new take on W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan’s classic operetta THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. Featuring a dazzling cast singing songs including: “I am a Pirate King”; “Oh, happy day, with joyous glee” and “A rollicking band of pirates we”, they are sure to raise the roof off the Palace Theatre!

Carmen

David McVicar's exhilarating new production, with Anne Sofie von Otter in the title role, restores the Opera Comique to Bizet's masterpiece. Philippe Jordan, in his Glyndebourne debut, conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Chorus, and a cast which includes Marcus Haddock, Laurent Naouri, and Lisa Milne.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Stage director Emilio Sagi's production of the legendary Barber of Seville is enriched by a bright distribution. Maria Bayo returns to one of her signature role as Rosina, opposite Juan Diego Florez, the Rossini expert tenor. The title role is embodied by the Italian baritone Pietro Spagnoli, while Ruggero Raimondi and Bruno Pratico reconcile the audience with Don Basilio and Don Bartolo.

La Belle Hélène

This is a joy from beginning to end. Although there are many tricks and ideas from Laurent Pelly, as always he seems to still retain the Offenbach magic. La Lott and Monsieur Beuron are a joy, but so is everyone else. The Patriotic Trio by the sea is both a hoot and wonderfully sung, the score seems truly complete yet never flags and the finale sequences for especially acts 1 & 2 are a joy of movement and sound fused as one glorious Offenbachian moment.

Bizet: Carmen

Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili gives a dynamic performance as Bizet’s iconic gypsy, the woman who lives by her own rules. Aleksandrs Antonenko is Don José, the soldier who falls under her spell, and Ildar Abdrazakov plays Escamillo, the swaggering bullfighter who takes Carmen away from Don José—an action that seals Carmen’s tragic fate. Anita Hartig is Micaëla, and Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Richard Eyre’s hit production, set in 1930s Spain.

Rigoletto

A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterpiece. A vengeful but misguided court jester strives to save his daughter from a duke’s licentious clutches, but can't part with the feeling that a curse looms over all of his actions. In Rigoletto, the composer introduces several of his most iconic arias and duets—as well as an 11th-hour quartet that counts among the finest moments in opera.

Giuseppe Verdi - La forza del destino

Die Walküre

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is the second of the four operas that form Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The story of the opera is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda.[1][2] In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one in a group of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which live. Die Walküre's best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries". DVD release June 2009.

Manon Lescaut

"Manon", wrote Puccini to his publisher Giulio Ricordi in 1889, "is a heroine I believe in and therefore she cannot fail to win the heart of the public." This turned out to be a truly prophetic statement since none of Puccini’s other world successes were received on their first nights as rapturously as Manon Lescaut. The popularity of Puccini’s great masterpiece has never waned and the highly acclaimed Götz Friedrich production at Covent Garden was hailed as an operatic milestone. Two of the world’s leading stars--Kiri Te Kanawa and Placido Domingo--head a strong cast conducted by the brilliant Italian conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Live performance from Zürich Opera House, 2001. “Vesselina Kasarova’s Rosina turned this Barber into a major event. Pearling coloratura, endless resources of vocal colour and nuance and phenomenal acting versatility became mere means to an end: that of making Rosina into a human being of flesh and blood, with heart, humour and considerable brains.