Live performance, part of Monteverdi cycle staged by Oper Zürich with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Zürich Opera House Monteverdi Ensemble. Staged and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Filmed 28 March – 20 April 1978 in Vienna, sound recorded 1 – 25 December 1977 in Zürich.
Philippe HuttenlocherOrfeo
Dietlinde TurbanEuridice
Rachel YakarEuridice (singing voice)
Trudeliese SchmidtLa Musica / Speranza
Roland HermannApollo
Glenys LinosMessaggera / ProserpinaWerner GröschelPlutone
Hans FranzenCaronteSuzanne CalabroNinfaPeter KellerPastor 1After the destruction of Troy, the Trojan warrior Énée sets out on a journey to found a new dynasty. He meets Didon, Queen of Carthage, and falls in love. But will Énée's love for Didon prove stronger than his sense of duty? LES TROYENS ('The Trojans') is a tour de force of music that ranges from fiery military marches to intense choruses, passionate soliloquies – such as those of the prophetess Cassandre – and the lyrical love duets of Didon and Énée. It is Hector Berlioz's largest work and he wrote the libretto himself, drawing upon his intimate knowledge of Virgil's Aeneid. To the composer's disappointment, LES TROYENS was only performed once in full during his lifetime and was often presented in shortened form during the 20th century. The Royal Opera's production provides a rare chance to see this epic work in its entirety. David McVicar's staging is on an enormous scale, assembling one of the largest casts ever seen at Covent Garden.
Live from Glyndebourne 1997
Performed at Madrid's historic Teatro Real in 2018, Ivor Bolton conducts Benjamin Britten's opera based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History. In her repeated clashes with the Earl of Essex-a longtime favorite of the queen who was ultimately put to death for treason-Elizabeth I is depicted as flawed and vain, human and sympathetic.
New production. UK professional premiere May 21, 2015. Live from Glyndebourne.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The story concerns the enlightenment of the Christian King Roger II by a young shepherd who represents pagan ideals. Kasper Holten’s production (The Royal Opera’s first) of Król Roger (King Roger) brought the opera back to the London stage after an absence of almost 40 years. Karol Szymanowski’s masterpiece powerfully presents the dilemmas of culture versus nature and man versus beast, and movingly depicts King Roger’s inner struggles as he moves from an impossible life of repressed desires to the other extreme, giving in to his own demons. Meanwhile, Roger’s people, seduced by the promises of the mysterious Shepherd, are drawn towards totalitarianism and repression. Antonio Pappano conducts Szymanowksi’s opulent and beautiful score, with a cast including Mariusz Kwiecień as Roger (one of the greatest interpreters of the role today), Saimir Pirgu as the Shepherd, and Georgia Jarman in her Royal Opera debut as Roger’s loving queen Roxana.
Love conquers all – ruthlessly and irresistibly – as Emperor Nero and his mistress Poppea remove the obstacles to their union. At Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu David Alden’s visually sumptuous production, with its suggestions of a giant game of chess, puts the opera’s potent blend of sex and politics in a context that sets ancient against modern– just as the action juxtaposes scurrilous comedy and stark drama. Monteverdi’s magnificent score, meanwhile, accommodates intrigue, wit, nobility, tragedy and sensuality, and, led by the intense Sarah Connolly and the delectable Miah Persson, the cast brings both drama and music startlingly to life.
The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s, this opera tells the story of Amahl, a crippled shepherd boy, and his destitute mother, who provide temporary shelter to three men who are following a star to the newly-born Christ child.
Recorded on the 13th. of August 2016 in the city Torre del Lago doing the Festival Puccini at the Gran Teatro Puccini venue.
From the gorgeous scene deep in the river Rhine that opens the opera, up to the magic Rainbow Bridge that appears at the end, leading to a glistening Valhalla, Otto Schenk’s production captures the scenic world of Wagner’s Ring as brilliantly as James Levine and the Met orchestra capture the musical world. The cast is incomporable: an astounding James Morris as the young god Wotan, the great Christa Ludwig as his wife Fricka, incandescent Siegfried Jerusalem as Loge, the wily god of fire, and Ekkehard Wlaschiha as a complex Alberich.
Rossini's "Le Comte Ory" tells the story of a libidinous and cunning nobleman who disguises himself first as a hermit and then as a nun in order to gain access to the virtuous Countess Adele, whose brother is away at the Crusades. The 2011 Met production was directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, who presented the action as an opera within an opera, updating the action by a few centuries and giving the costume designer, Catherine Zuber, the opportunity to create some particularly extravagant headgear. Juan Diego Florez starred as the title role while Diana Damrau plays Countess Adele, and Joyce DiDonato was in breeches as his pageboy Isolier. Conducted with verve and finesse by Maurizio Benini, the production also features the stylish French baritone Stephane Degout as Ory's bibulous conspirator Raimbaud, charismatic Italian bass Michele Pertusi as the Count's long-suffering Tutor, and, formidable as Adele's housekeeper Ragonde, the Swedish dramatic mezzo Susanne Resmark.
Cecilia Bartoli stars in this ebullient Zurich Opera House production of Rossini’s first French-language comedy opera described by the international press as “pure, unadulterated fun” and reminds us of her comic gifts and her naturalness as a stage actor — as well as her total sympathy with the music of Rossini.
Japan, early twentieth century. U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker. The broker, Goro, has procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. He is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. In a quiet moment, Cio-Cio-San shows her bridegroom her few earthly treasures and tells him of her intention to embrace his Christian faith. The Imperial Commissioner performs the wedding ceremony, and the guests toast the couple. The celebration is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San's uncle, a Buddhist priest, who bursts in, cursing the girl for having renounced her ancestors' religion. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, her husband dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Oberto (2007) Parma. Oberto was the first of Verdi’s operas to be staged and was heard for the first time at La Scala, Milan, in November 1839. As a young and unknown composer, Verdi was subject to the rules then governing the opera industry in Italy. Even so, there are already many scenes in this early work that reveal unmistakable signs of the composer’s individual style.
Live from Glyndebourne 1987.
Legendary director Hans Neuenfels once again proves his great skill with this interpretation of Mozart’s “Entführung aus dem Serail” (Abduction from the Seraglio). This extraordinary production conducted by Lothar Zagrosek, and with Catherine Naglestad, Kate Ladner and Matthias Klink in the main roles, won the Bavarian Theatre Prize in 1999 and offers a refreshingly new view of one of the most frequently played operas worldwide. Special highlight: Neuenfels places an actor at every singer’s side who not only takes over his role for the spoken original scripts, but also interacts with his singing double and other characters of the piece. In recent decades, directors have sought to revitalise the somewhat naive plot of the “Entführung” with fresh interpretations. Hans Neuenfels, who produced his “first Mozart” here in Stuttgart, retains the story’s naivety and absurdity. He does this in a very stimulating and intelligent way.
Mozart's Marriage of Figaro is a comedy whose dark undertones explore the blurred boundaries between dying feudalism and emerging Enlightenment. Herman Prey's Figaro is admirably sung in a firm baritone and aptly characterized. So too, is his antagonist, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the Count perpetually frustrated by the scheming wiles of Figaro and Susanna, here the perky Mirella Freni, who sings and acts like a dream. The Countess is creamy-voiced Kiri Te Kanawa, and the Cherubino, Maria Ewing, looks just like the horny, teenaged page she's supposed to be. The all-star leads are complemented by worthy supporting singers, the Vienna Philharmonic at the top of its form, and the experienced Mozartian, Karl Böhm conducting a stylishly fleet performance.
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The 2015 Production was led by Romeo Castellucci in Paris. Moses und Aron was filmed for television by film director François-René Martin, in co-production with the Paris Opera, Bel air Media and Arte, with support from the CNC.