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…

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…

This wonderful ballet by the second Johann Strauss finally receives its world première recording on DVD! Recorded live in December 1999, this celebrated Vienna State Opera production combines everything a romantic ballet needs: excellent soloists…

“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…

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…

Thunderous applause and loud cries of “bravo” greeted the première of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the inaugural performance of the first opera season in Valencia’s new Palau de les Arts. With this spectacular production directed by Pierluigi Pier’Alli…

In the dense forest planted on the stage of the Haus für Mozart by director Claus Guth is the home of the rugged macho Don Giovanni. Assisted by his unsavory accomplice Leporello, he lures the ladies with the heady scent of danger. Christopher…

Alban Berg is recasting Büchner’s fragmentary drama in the form of three self-contained acts by drawing on existing musical genres and traditional styles, by quoting various types of songs and dance forms and, by reverting to earlier compositional…