Hungarian choreographer Youri Vámos combined E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Nutcracker" story with Dickens' immortal "A Christmas Carol". A colourful dance production in which ballet, music and film are skillfully combined.

Monteverdi is generally regarded as the father of European opera. His "Poppea" is a blood and thunder melodrama, set in Nero's Rome and loaded with passion, jealousy, murder and savage ambition.

This film is a perfomance of the work recorded in Tokyo during the Deutsche Oper Berlin's 1993 Japan tour in Götz Friedrich's highly respected, much-discussed staging.

The 420-member company of the Deutsche Oper Berlin brought "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", "Tristan and Isolde" and "Lohengrin" to Tokyo. The privately-operated Tokyo Ballet performed "Kabuki" and "M", in Berlin. Our film takes a look at the work…

The Japanese pianist Aki Takase is a veritable typhoon of power and clarity. Her playing shows what can happen when the European rules of melody, harmony and rhythm come face to face with a distinctly Asian way of thinking!

Sir Peter Ustinov traces the life and achievements of Felix Mendelssohn. Sketches and drawings by Mendelssohn, extracts from his fascinating correspondence and music performed by the Gewandhausorchester and the Thomaner-Chor are just a few of the…

Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk... these names are synonymous with the great Jazz Age. But how many people know Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, to whom we owe the recorded memory of our Jazz legends? Two German…

Junko Onishi is one of the most exciting new discoveries of 'Blue Note'. Her imaginative interpretations of music from Duke Ellington to Sonny Rollins, together with her own compositions, have shown her to be a virtuoso pianist and composer of…

The Czech composer based his libretto on the play "Le Voyage de Thésée" by his friend and trusted source of inspiration, Georges Neveux. Martinu is said to have written the opera for Maria Callas. In this production, the role is sung by the…

A fabulous tale of amourous intrigue based on Shakespeare's "Merry Wives of Windsor". Here in a delightfully humorous production, recorded at the Schwetzinger Palace Theatre.