The choir and the orchestra of the Bach Collegium Japan perform the St John's Passion with a small ensemble - as was customary in the composer’s life time - under Masaaki Suzuki, former student of one of the nestors of authentic interpretation, Ton…

Rossini’s first staged opera already contains all the elements that would take the music world by storm in Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’italiana in Algeri and La Cenerentola in the years to come: melodic inventiveness, ingenious connections between…

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…

L´occasione fa il ladro is one of the five one-act operas - farsa giocosa - in which the teenage Rossini first demonstrated his operatic genius. This farce about arranged marriages, role reversals and other amorous confusions is, in musical terms, by…

The famous Thomanerchor Leipzig – a traditional specialist in Bach’s choral music – is joined by the superb Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and excellent soloists to perform one of Bach's most acclaimed pieces of religious choral music, the “Mass in B…

Recorded live at the Leipzig Opera in November 2005, this film of Verdi’s famous Un Ballo in Maschera, brings DVD viewers an lively musical evening. Riccardo Chailly, who made a critically acclaimed start in his position as General Music Director of…

The Kuijken Ensemble, made up of the three Belgian Kuijken brothers on flute, violin and viola da gamba and the harpsichordist Robert Kohnen count among the most distinguished of all present-day early-music specialists. They have long since branched…

As their personal tribute to Mozart in his anniversary year 2006, Gil & Orli Shaham performed a selection of violin sonatas by the Austrian master in the Palais Daun-Kinsky in Vienna. Brimming with energy and bravery, tempered only by a deep…

Live from Salzburg, the opening production of the Festival 2005 and a long forgotten masterpiece: Franz Schreker’s three-act opera Die Gezeichneten. Composed and first performed during the last stages of the First World War, the demanding piece – it…

Mozarts »Zauberflöte« ist nicht nur eine der berühmtesten Opern, sondern zugleich ein aufregendes Märchen. Da gibt es einen tapferen Prinzen und eine schöne Prinzessin, ein furchtbares Ungeheuer, eine böse Zauberin, einen weisen Priester – und…