Vladimir Ashkenazy has had a particular affection for the music of Rachmaninoff throughout his professional life, and his performances have long had the ring both of authenticity and of deep commitment. This is not surprising in a Russian-born and…

Vladimir Ashkenazy closed the 1984/85 season in London with a recital at the Royal Festival Hall that was regarded by many of those present as a new peak in his musicmaking. If that perception is correct, it is a remarkable achievement in a career…

A rococo beauty who ultimately drags everything into the abyss, Puccini’s Manon Lescaut is never fully satisfied. She becomes addicted to the admiring glances she receives from others, and the luxury and diamonds in which she bathes don’t warm her…

For the Easter Festival 2017 in Baden-Baden, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker draw their inspiration from Tosca, the most well-known and also most brilliant of all the Puccini operas. And that is deservedly so, since Tosca is not…

The essence of Verdi’s Requiem can be found in the words Libera me - “Free me”. The great composer employs every means at his disposal to portray man as prisoner of himself, with both his fear of death and yearning for salvation. Recording Dates: 14…

Arrigo Boito's only finished and preserved opera, Mefistofele, recorded in Baden-Baden was praised by critics and loved by the audience - a very rare concurrence. And this could hardly have come as a surprise, since it was no other than Erwin Schrott…

“Swan Lake” by Peter I. Tchaikovsky is the most famous ballet of all time. Since its world premiere in 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow there have been countless interpretations of this romantic dance fairy tale. The epitome of these remains…

Barbarian Nights is the second oeuvre of Hervé Koubi with twelve Algerian and Burkinan dancers, selected on an audition in Algeria in 2009. When Koubi speaks of barbarians it is in its historical sense , and to remind us that the Mediterranean…

1970 was the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth and, to mark the occasion, Daniel Barenboim and Christopher Nupen collaborated on a thirteen-part series about the man and his music. Close friends at the time, Barenboim as artist and…

Filmed in June 2013 during three extraordinary performances that took place during the Aldeburgh Festival, "Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh beach" takes place in the heart of the town that inspired it and is the film interpretation of Britten’s Peter…