Nina van Essen

An idle country gentleman lives a double life as a city libertine. But when he proposes to his best friend’s cousin, the mysteries of his past begin to unravel. Winner of the 2012 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Large-Scale Composition, Gerald Barry’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s farcical comedy has become one of the most celebrated new operas of this decade. This colourful new production by Nouvel Opéra Fribourg has been praised by ConcertClassic as ‘a joyful hallucination, with millimetre precision,’ thanks to its witty stage direction by Julien Chavaz and electric tartan designs by Severine Besson.

In Handel's oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (1707), the desire to live is at odds with the realisation of one's own mortality. In his early masterpiece, the composer was able to open up clear emotional spaces to the simultaneity of the incompatible. What does it mean to be alive - and what does it mean to demand to be fulfilled with this life? And who am I when the mirror only gazes at me in silence? In Handel's music the questions begin to float.

With equal parts danger and desire, Carmen is an intoxicating cocktail that never fails to excite the senses. Staatsoper Hannover offers this new staging by house director Barbora Horáková in an arrangement for chamber ensemble by Marius Felix Lange. It promises to tackle head on the topicality of Carmen who challenges stereotypical role models. Staatsoper Hannover makes no compromises with questions of freedom and OperaVision salutes their courage to create sensuality on stage and to offer us all a livestream in challenging times.

A count has designs on his personal valet's fiancée and is determined to stop their wedding taking place. Meanwhile, the countess tries to regain her husband's love by any means necessary. Mozart's great comic opera is a tale of intrigue, misunderstanding and forgiveness. Director Lydia Steier teases out the touching melancholy of the characters with the mixture of opulence and black humour. Oper! magazine’s ‘Opera house of the year’ in 2020, Staatsoper Hannover is on an artistic high and happy to share this production worldwide via OperaVision.

When he sings, the animals stop and listen; Orpheus can literally melt stone. To find Eurydice, who disappears on their wedding day, this master of harmony must charm the underworld with his musical talent. Orpheus’s appeals convince Pluto to free Eurydice, under certain conditions. But when this gifted and infallible hero fails, he must live on with the consequences.

When he sings, the animals stop and listen; Orpheus can literally melt stone. To find Eurydice, who disappears on their wedding day, this master of harmony must charm the underworld with his musical talent. Orpheus’s appeals convince Pluto to free Eurydice, under certain conditions. But when this gifted and infallible hero fails, he must live on with the consequences.