"Il Ballo delle Ingrate" is based on the Idea that the "Ingrate" (women who have been hard-hearted in love) should return to earth from hell to warn the ladies in the audience against a similar fate. The warning is not expressed in the form of…

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.

Recorded during the "Schwetzinger Festspiele" 1989 in the cathedral of Speyer.

Monteverdi’s iconic opera articulates Orpheus’ attempts to soothe the keepers of Hades with his voice and his lyre. He is allowed to release his beloved Eurydice from the realm of the dead, on the one condition that he does not turn around to look at…

At the centre of events is the power-crazed Poppea. She aspires to the top level of the hierarchy and seduces Emperor Nero. He is totally captivated by Poppea and does everything possible to marry her, even if it leads to murder. A classic drama…

Cliff Richard with Network 3 and Garth Hewitt in a Rock Gospel Music Concert in the Chichester Theatre.

In the “country of melodrama”- Italy - exists a very exclusive club consisting of only 27 persons, each of whom is named after one of Verdi’s operas. The club will not accept any more members than those 27, but a little boy strives to become one of…

Johann Sebastian Bach's most famous Christmas work was recorded live at the Salle Henry Le Bœuf in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Who would have thought, three centuries ago, that these cantatas, written by Bach for the services from…

What a strange idea Mondonville had! Based on a cruel fable by La Fontaine with a tragic ending, he wrote a charming opera libretto with a happy ending, and composed a delightful pastoral. In the prologue, Dame Clémence Isaure, the mythical founder…

Das Rheingold is the prologue to Wagner's Ring cycle, and opens up the rich world of gods, dwarves, giants, dragons and humans that the story inhabits. With beautiful orchestration and an unerring sense of the dramatic, the first opera explains how…