Il matrimonio segreto is Cimarosa's most famous opera buffa and it is one of the few comic operas to have maintained its place in the repertoire until today. At its first performance in 1792, Austrian emperor Leopold II is reputed to have liked this…

This disc captures the Vienna Boys’ Choir’s fitting celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday in January 2006. Together with well known Mozart interpreters like Sandrine Piau, they sing Mozart’s finest sacred works, including the Coronation Mass. The…

When Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s opera was first performed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, it caused a sensation among music critics worldwide. Based on Lewis Carroll’s famous and fascinatingly enigmatic novel Alice in Wonderland, it is a…

“Once again Loy has created the happiest of marriages between a role and it's interpreter, and Edita Gruberova faces up to the manifold demands of this difficult part with uncompromising assurance, relying on her phenomenal technique, her radiant top…

Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) is one of Mozart’s five great repertoire operas alongside Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Die Zauberflöte. A typical ‘Singspiel’, a form in which all the dialogue is…

One reviewer of Susan Graham's Verbier Festival recital praised her 'radiant voice' and marveled at her ability to convey the subtle nuances of what seems like 'her second native language'. Her programme offers a 'tasting menu' of the French mélodie…

This festive celebration concert from Berlin’s Gethsemanekirche on the Day of German Unity also marks the 60th anniversary of the RIAS Kammerchor. Founded in 1948, this choir today enjoys a worldwide reputation as one of the best ensembles of its…

Mussorgskis monumental “national music drama” Khovanshchina in the brilliant instrumentation of Dmitri Shostakovich is regarded as one of the most important works of Russian Opera. The five-act opera about the Moscow Uprising of 1682 was unfinished…

As a very young man, Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) wrote several humorous one-act operas. These so-called “farse giocose“ are full of saucy elegance, sizzling wittiness, cheeky orchestration and touching lyricism. Four of these gems, filmed at the…

First staged at the Weimar Court Theatre under the baton of Richard Strauss in 1893, who hailed it as “a masterpiece of the highest quality”, Humperdinck's debut opera Hänsel und Gretel has remained a solid favourite since its 1893 première…