Callas Forever

This superb 2006 production of the Los Angeles Opera's La Traviata stars Renée Fleming, who joins the ranks of the elite handful of sopranos whose vocal and acting talents make their portrayals memorable. Her Violetta Valéry is a vulnerable figure torn between self-indulgence and love, sacrificing personal happiness to become a victim of the social mores of mid-19th-century bourgeois France. Fleming's acting captures the complexity of the character and her vocalism is flawless. She negotiates the wild coloratura of Act One with aplomb, and is stunning in the lyric passages that pervade the opera, and touching in her scenes with her lover, Alfredo, and his father. Her singing is free of the mannerisms that have sometimes crept into her work and at the same time she brings countless personal touches to the role, phrasing and verbal emphases that shed fresh light on the character.

To open its 2019-2020 season, La Scala in Milan has chosen Tosca, in a new production directed by Davide Livermore. The production is part of the rediscovery of Italian opera led by Riccardo Chailly, the conductor of the production and music director of La Scala. He has chosen the original version of Tosca, as created by Puccini in Rome in January 1900, which included eight "additional musical inserts" that were removed from the work after its second performance in Turin in February 1900 and will now be rediscovered for the first time on December 7 at La Scala.

17-year old Sarah, filled with adolescent angst, is an extreme person who in her rehearsals with a theatre group is transformed until she is almost in a trance, and her performances at home or elsewhere verge on excess. A cold, intellectual father, a timid mother, a younger sister and an older brother who has left home complete the picture: a silent time bomb.

A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterpiece. A vengeful but misguided court jester strives to save his daughter from a duke’s licentious clutches, but can't part with the feeling that a curse looms over all of his actions. In Rigoletto, the composer introduces several of his most iconic arias and duets—as well as an 11th-hour quartet that counts among the finest moments in opera.

Politics and love leads to a love triangle between father, son and stepmother.

An aging opera singer looks back on her long life, including her relationships with her vocal teacher and a student.

Leonora plans to elope with Don Alvaro, but he accidentally shoots and kills her father, who curses them as he dies. The lovers go on the run, but get separated. Bent on revenge, Leonora's brother Don Carlo, hunts them down. Verdi painted an immense canvas with this dark but tuneful opera, vividly brought to life in John Dexter’s production, with sets by the great Eugene Berman. The legendary Leontyne Price is seen in one of her greatest roles, Leonora. Price’s soaring voice encompasses every nuance of Leonora’s emotion as she moves from joy through resignation to ultimate heartbreak. James Levine’s brilliant leading of the Met orchestra and chorus is a lesson in Verdi style. Giuseppe Giacomini is Alvaro, the man Leonora loves, and Leo Nucci is Don Carlo, the dark instrument of their Fate.

In the 50's, in Paris, the neighbors Rodolfo and Mimi meet each other when Mimi's candle blows out in a cold and dark night. They immediately fall in love for each other, in times of financial difficulties in the post-war. Rodolfo introduces Mimi to his close friends Marcello and his beloved Musetta; Colline; and Schaunard and together they have a good-time in Café Momus. Some time later, Mimi tells Marcello that she can not support the jealousy of Rodolfo any longer and when Marcello discuss with Rodolfo, Mimi overhears the real reason for the behavior of her beloved Rodolfo.

Starring the exquisite coloratura soprano Emma Matthews as the innocent girl priestess Lakmé, and superb tenor Aldo Di Toro as the love-struck Gerald, the story tackles religion and cross-cultural love against a backdrop of British rule in India in the mid-19th century. French conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak brings out the full depth of the lush, dramatic score, with familiar high points being the beautiful renditions of the well-known Flower duet and Bell Song. Dominica Matthews adds her rich voice as Mallika and Stephen Bennett is darkly dominating as Brahmin priest Nilakantha, Lakmés father, while Roxane Hislop is a consumate Mistress Bentson. Set and costume designs by Mark Thompson fill the stage with rich colour, atmosphere and exoticism, complemented by Nigel Levings warm lighting. This restudied production, originally conceived by Adam Cook, is skilfully directed by Roger Hodgman.

Berlioz’s colossal masterpiece requires stupendous forces—dozens of soloists, enormous chorus, orchestra and ballet, a superb conductor who understands the uniqueness of the score—plus a production that does visual justice to the work. “A stupendous achievement” was one critic’s assessment of Peter Wexler’s inventive production. And with James Levine’s wizardry galvanizing the marvelous all-star cast, this is truly a gem. Plácido Domingo is the legendary hero Aeneas, Jessye Norman the obsessed prophetess Cassandra, and Tatiana Troyanos is Queen Dido, who commits suicide when Aeneas leaves her.

In ancient Babylon, SEMIRAMIDE (Anderson) encourages her lover Assur (Ramey) to murder her husband, King Ninus. Her son, Ninius, disappears, believed dead, and Semiramide rules in her own right. 15 years later, as the opera opens, she is about to announce the name of her successor. Idreno (Olsen) and Assur are the leading candidates for the throne and the hand of Princess Azema (Shin), but Semiramide has taken a fancy to young Arsace (Horne), her victorious military leader who has been summoned back to Babylon. Only the high priest Oroe (Cheek) knows that Arsace is actually Ninius, spirited away to safety after the coup. As the queen announces Arsace as her successor, the ghost of her husband appears from his tomb, demanding that Arsace punish the late king’s murderers... Filmed at New York's Metropolitan Opera, John Copley's production of Rossini's last, longest and most elaborate dramatic opera brings together what many consider the definitive contemporary cast.

Libuše

A melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.

17-year-old Lisa feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in causing a traffic accident that claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right, she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and, most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course with the realities and compromises of the adult world.

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.

Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina, in this screen adaptation of the beloved Mozart opera. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive.

The world premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's opera, "Innocence", at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Finland is the setting but the protagonists come from the four corners of Europe: a Finnish groom and his Romanian bride, a French mother-in-law and a Czech maid. Around them memories unravel in a contemporary tragedy of guilt and lost innocence.

Set in 16th-century France and Spain, Don Carlos tells of the political and amorous rivalry between King Philip II and his son, Don Carlos, over Elisabeth de Valois. Krzysztof Warlikowski strips down a tragedy haunted by ghosts, and places the intimate at the heart of an imaginary fresco truer than history itself. Along with Philippe Jordan, he reveals to the public the very first version of this great five-act opera: the version modified by Verdi himself for the work’s first performance in 1867.

Star soprano Anna Netrebko adds Donizetti’s hapless heroine to her growing list of Met triumphs in this production by Mary Zimmerman that updates the events to the 19th century. Rising young tenor sensation Piotr Beczała is Edgardo and Mariusz Kwiecien plays Lucia’s brother Enrico whose brutal authority forces her to deny her heart and marry for the sake of her family. The famous mad scene brilliantly depicts the cascading fragments of Lucia’s disintegrating mind.