René Pape is a star who represents like no other a new generation of opera singers: casual and up-to-date in appearance, hungry for new challenges and open to ambitious experiments. In the musical film My Heart Is Burning René Pape sings and plays…

Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi were the two most celebrated artists of the second half of the last century. Made into hostile enemies by their admirers, the two became untouchable goddesses of the opera. To their fans, Callas was known as “the…

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has the character of an appeal. From the very start, the four-note “fate” motif casts a spell on listeners. The German Beethoven expert Wulf Konold illustrates the ingenious variations of this motif on piano…

Robert Schumann’s famous piano concerto is not a traditional virtuoso showpiece but a cooperative venture between the soloist and the orchestra. This new relationship transported the piano concerto into the realm of symphonic music. The German…

The Concerto for Orchestra by Bela Bartok is one of the most frequently performed works of the twentieth century. The French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez explains how he interpreted this composition with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also…

Almost no musical work has had such a powerful influence or evoked as much controversy as Igor Stravinsky's ballet score “The Rite of Spring”. The work's premiere on May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, was scandalous. The…

The story of Caffé Taci, downtown Manhattan: the craziest place in the opera universe, with diamond dealers, losers, up-and-coming singers, opera stars like René Pape, an-85-year-old Russian pianist, aficionados, agents and bohemians. Life is a big…

Legendary pianist Lang Lang performs Beethoven, Chopin, Prokofiev and Albéniz in his very unique way. In personal interview situations he explains his individual access to the different pieces. Original and extraordinary - these words describe both…