Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi) - Arena di Verona

Anthony Minghella’s stunning production of Puccini’s opera opened the Met’s 2006–07 season and was seen by thousands of people around the world as part of the company’s Live in HD series. Patricia Racette is Cio-Cio-San, the trusting and innocent young geisha of the title, who disastrously falls in love with American Navy lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton (Marcello Giordani), only to be abandoned by him. Maria Zifchak is her loyal servant Suzuki and Dwayne Croft is Sharpless, the sympathetic American consul who does all he can but is unable to avert tragedy. Performance Date Mar 7, 2009

This spectacular opera film was taped in 1967 and is based on the 1966 Salzburg Festival production directed by Herbert von Karajan himself, who also conducts the fabulous Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The production features the three greatest exponents of their respective roles at the time: Grace Bumbry’s magnificently seductive-toned Carmen, Mirella Freni’s ineffably lovely, touching Micaëla and Jon Vickers’s thrillingly manic-depressive Don José. On its release the film was hailed by Die Presse, (Vienna) as a “unique artistic event”, while Le Monde felt that Karajan’s production brought “a whole new dimension” to the opera, “combined with a magisterial interpretation”. A classical and utterly dramatic approach to probably the world's most beloved opera – Karajan’s Carmen is as much a delicacy for opera fans as it is a perfect starter for newcomers.

Recorded in 1992 at the Ludwigsburger Schlosstheater, this release from Art Haus Musik features a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's two-act opera Die Zauberflote. The production stars Deon Van Der Walt as Tamino and Ulrike Sonntag as Pamina and includes music by The Ludwigcburger Festspiele

Live performance at Opernhaus Zürich in 2006. Nello Santi conducting Orchester der Oper Zürich and Chor der Oper Zürich. Directed for the stage by Gilbert Deflo.

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

Antonín Dvořák: Stabat Mater op.58

Experience Claudio Monteverdi's three-act opera in the environment it was meant to be seen with this release of a filmed performance captured live during a 2000 production staged at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France. Mireille Delunsch, Anne Sofie Von Otter, and Sylvie Brunet star, and conductor Marc Minkowski leads the Les Musiciens du Louvre, Grenoble. Klaus Michael Grüber directs for stage.

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

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

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.

David McVicar's atmospheric and brooding production captures the drama of this riveting piece of British history, retold as only Donizetti could. International superstar Anna Netrebko is Queen Anne Boleyn, trapped in an unhappy marriage to King Henry VIII (Ildar Abdrazakov) whose roving eye has settled on another woman—Jane Seymour (Ekaterina Gubanova), Anna's friend, but now her unwitting rival. Add in Anna's early love, Percy (Stephen Costello), just returned to the court from exile, and the result is a haunting, explosive account of Queen Anna's tragic final days, before she goes to her execution in one of the most moving and dazzling final scenes in all of opera.

Verdi wrote this five act opera with a French Libretto for the Paris opera. Premiere 1867. Then there are three versions of this opera, the French 1867 version, the revised Italian four Act Don Carlo 1884, plus the Modena version 1886. This version is the 1884 version with Act One reinstated, as well as the original beginning of Act 2. To complicate matters the French opera was simply translated into Italian, and then the changes were made. There is an even newer edition completed in 1980 by Ricordi, and others floating around as well.

Day 2 of the Ring Cycle. DVD release June 2009.

Day 3 of the Ring Cycle. DVD release June 2009.

More than anything in the world, Rusalka, a mysterious and elusive water nymph, yearns to become human to win the heart of a young prince. But this metamorphosis comes at a price: she will lose her voice and be damned forever should their love story fail. Rusalka, a lyrical fairy tale inspired by The Little Mermaid and Undine, is Dvořák’s penultimate work and one of his greatest successes. In Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s production, Norwegian director and choreographer Alan Lucien Øyen adds a new dimension to this masterpiece of the Czech repertoire by representing the main characters on stage twice: by a singer and a dancer. This doubling reinforces the opera’s deeply dreamlike nature. The impressive South African soprano Pumeza Matshikiza embodies the character of Rusalka, while the Lithuanian conductor Giedré Šlekytė leads the orchestra with brio and intensity.

After over a century out of the Met’s repertoire, audiences were thrilled to discover just what a sensational evening in the theater Thomas’s Hamlet can be. Simon Keenlyside’s riveting performance as the tortured Prince of Denmark in Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s starkly brooding production had critics raving that Keenlyside’s superb singing, coupled with his deftly delineated three-dimensional Hamlet, was one of the greatest examples of operatic drama of our time. The cast includes Marlis Petersen as the long suffering Ophélie, who brilliantly shows why her mad scene is so justly famous, along with Jennifer Larmore and James Morris as Gertrude and Claudius.

Der fliegende Holländer

At the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the stage director Nikolaus Lehnhoff signs a remarkable production of Wagner's LOHENGRIN, the third of the German composer's main operas. This production stars an incredible cast, including Hans-Peter König, Klaus Florian Vogt, Solveig Kringelborn, Tom Fox and Waltraud Meier, accompanied by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kent Nagano's baton.

Maria Ewing, as Dido, heads an outstanding cast of young British singers in a film adaptation of Henry Purcell’s much-loved tragic opera. With spectacular sets, this intense tale of heroism, passion, betrayal and ultimate tragedy is played out against a backdrop of fiery rituals, evil spells and pageantry.

One of the composer's most beguiling scores, La Favorite is Gaetano Donizetti's La favorita in it's original French form; a tale of love and war that represents a glorious mix of Italian bel canto and 19th c. grand opera. Vincent Boussard's arresting Toulouse production does full justice to this newly renewed masterpiece. Three international principals take on the work's demanding roles: Chinese tenor Yijie Shi is a 'revelation' as Fernand, the rich-toned, authoritative French baritone Ludovic Tezier as King Alphonse XI and lauded American mezzo Kate Aldrich - 'the Carmen of this generation' - plumbing the emotional depths of Leonor's music. Conductor and bel canto specialist Antonello Allemandi adds to the passionate proceedings onstage. Maestro Allemandi demonstrated full authority over the stage for the musically complex scenes, and in the arias and duets demonstrated his confidence in the singers by establishing ample tempos to support their soaring vocal lines.