Verdi Macbeth Chailly

The Raft of the Medusa(de)

Hans Werner Henze’s “The Raft of the Medusa” is directly inspired by Théodore Géricault’s famous painting. The German composer sets to music the fate of 150 people who have been shipwrecked and abandoned to their destiny. This is a radical work that fluctuates between hope and inevitability, agony and sudden bursts of life. The Raft of the Medusa is an oratorio that was first performed in 1968. Fifty years on, the Italian director Romeo Castellucci underscores its immense modernity, drawing a striking parallel between Hans Werner Henze’s work and the current migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.

La Gioconda - Opera Bruxelles(en)

Conspiracies and regattas form the backdrop to the fortunes of a young singer. Harassed by a heartless spy, she sacrifices everything to save the man she loves and the woman he prefers over her. Ponchielli based his flamboyant opera on Victor Hugo’s play Angelo, tyrant of Padua. An expert on Hugo, director Olivier Py offers us a dream-like version of this dark Romantic tragedy, presided over by sex and death. Paolo Carignani conducts an exceptional cast in the six demanding main roles.

Abesalom and Eteri(ka)

Prince Abesalom runs into an orphaned Eteri while hunting, falls for her and brings the woman to his palace as his fiancé. The Prince’s aid Murman loses his self-control at Eteri’s beauty and gives her a spelled necklace as a wedding gift. Eteri contracts a mysterious disease that only Murman is capable to heal.

Amours divins !(fr)

The most famous Scenes and Arias from French operas

The ROH Live: La forza del destino(it)

Verdi's sweepingly ambitious opera on war, religion, love and fate is given a cinematic staging by Christof Loy. The Marquis of Calatrava forbids his daughter Leonora to marry the South American nobleman Don Alvaro. The lovers attempt to elope, but the Marquis catches them. In the ensuing altercation, Alvaro accidentally kills the Marquis, who curses his daughter as he dies. Leonora and Alvaro become separated during their escape. Leonora's brother Don Carlo di Vargas decides to find them and avenge his father.

Faust | ROH |(es)

Disillusioned with life, the aged philosopher Faust calls upon Satan to help him. The devil Méphistophélès appears and strikes a bargain with the philosopher: he will give him youth and the love of the beautiful Marguerite, if Faust hands over his soul. Faust agrees, and Méphistophélès arranges matters so that Marguerite loses interest in her suitor Siébel and becomes infatuated with Faust. Faust initially seems to love Marguerite in return, but soon abandons her. Her brother Valentin returns from the war and is furious to find his sister pregnant. Will Faust repent his destructive actions, and can his soul, and Marguerite's, be saved?

Richard Strauss - Ariadne Auf Naxos(es)

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites(en)

At the end of 2013, the year that marked the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulenc’s death, his gripping and moving operatic masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmélites was staged in Paris by director Olivier Py with a cast featuring some of France’s finest female singers – Patricia Petitbon, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau and Sophie Koch – under the baton of Jérémie Rohrer. Le Figaro described the production as “a thing of wonder,” while Le Monde called it: “A masterpiece ... the most exciting and consummately achieved show to have been seen on a Parisian stage in a long time … This was great work, magisterial and unforgettable.” “The memorable Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées marked the climax of commemorative activities for the 50th anniversary of Poulenc’s death,” wrote Opera magazine of the production of Poulenc’s gripping and moving opera that was staged by the French director Olivier Py in Paris in December 2013.

Don Carlo(en)

Ghiaurov, Freni, and Bumbry were great voices in their time, and they are still effective here -- good enough musicians to put over the quite heavy vocal and expressive demands of their roles. Louis Quilico was never quite in that league, and he sounds a bit spread and woofy in places here, but he works hard and effectively to bring Rodrigo to life. Placido Domingo recorded his first Don Carlo, for EMI with Giulini, about 15 years before this production, but he looks and sounds fine here -- in the early 1980's he was doing very good Otellos and Lohengrins too, and Furlanetto, still in his 30's, brings a rich, young voice to an old part and succeeds in making the Grand Inquisitor vocally as well as expressively formidable. Levine brings both weight and energy to the score, and that reading fits well with the overall "traditional" design and production -- the Met's wardrobe budget must have been severely taxed, but everybody looks splendid.

Verdi Ernani(en)

It truly is an historic performance. Domingo looking and singing like a god pouring out golden tones; Renato Bruson sounds, like the sublime Verdian Baritone that he was at that time; Nicolai Ghiaurov proves again that he was one of the greatest "Verdi Basses"; Mirella Freni shows that there was more to her than just being Mimi and Susannah-in fact I can remember reading that at the time of the premiere of this production that there were fist fights (not unusual in La Scala's gallery) between Mirella's many fans--between those fans that just wanting her to continue singing the light lyric repertoire that they were use to her singing and those that felt she should and could sing the lyric-spinto repertoire which, of course, she proved that,indeed, she could (She's still singing more than twenty years later). This performance captures some of the best Verdi singers of the time doing dear ole wonderful Giuseppi proud.

Funding(en)

Vivian, Roe, JJ, Ines and a mysterious French man through a 20 year musical memory of New York City. As people and places in their lives drift away, visual impressions meld with sound and narrative stories to reveal a complex yet moving tableau. As the characters recall their own personal histories, conflicting images reveal their past, present and future.

Notre Dame de Paris - Live Arena di Verona(it)

Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.

Verdi: Macbeth(en)

Macbeth" was Giuseppe Verdi's first attempt at music drama and also the first manifestation of his profound love for Shakespeare's work. Verdi took great pains with this opera, displaying special enthusiasm for it as he concentrated on the main characters of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth and the witches. This recording of Luca Ronconi's production is conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli, who brings fresh color to Verdi's score. The cast, headed by Renato Bruson and Mara Zampieri, are strongly supported by a fine-toned and adaptable chorus who ably meet the demands of Verdi's great "chorus opera.

Boris Godunov(en)

Mussorgsky's quintessential Russian opera is captured live on stage in this performance by the Bolshoi Opera featuring Rimsky-Korsakov's revised vision and starring Evgeny Nesternko and Vladislav Piavko.

Boris Godunov(en)

Modest Mussorgsky's opera in prologue and four acts is performed by the Kirov Opera with performances from Olga Borodina, Alexei Steblianko and Sergei Leiferkust. Boris Godunov has obtained the throne of Russia by murdering the rightful heir Dmitry. An old monk, Pimen, witnessed this, and convinces his apprentice Grigory to avenge Dmitry's death. In the following years Grigory poses as Dmitry, raising an army against Boris, who is now convinced that he is being punished for the murder. Filmed in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union, this particular production of Mussorgsky's 1872 tale of political upheaval is considered a highly unique and historical moment in opera. Robert Lloyd stars in the title role of Boris Godunov.

Antikrist(en)

A religious mystery opera; a magnificent doomsday vision. Composer Rued Langgaard's opera on the moral decay of modern society features the Royal Danish Opera and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. Performers include Sten Byrel, Anne Margrethe Dahl, John Lundgren and Camilla Nylund. A Danish co-production by the Royal Danish Opera and the Danish Broadcasting corporation from 2002.

Elektra(en)

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.

Die Soldaten(de)

Nancy Shade is persuasive as the awkward adolescent Marie, whose naiveté leads relentlessly to her downfall. Michael Ebbecke is sympathetic as Stolzius, her jilted lover and avenger, while William Cochran is properly brutish as Desportes, the officer who initiates her spiral of decline. Bernhard Kontarsky gets a dedicated response from his Stuttgart Opera forces, who perform with belief in this often excessive but always engrossing work. Recorded at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, 1989.

The Narcissistic Fish(en)

A phone call during a busy shift in the restaurant kitchen of The Narcissistic Fish sparks a war between the owner Angus and his brother Kai. As they argue over their dead father, talented and underpaid chef Belle has a revelation of her own. Join Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists (Charlie Drummond, Mark Nathan and Arthur Bruce) for a visceral exploration of the clash between class, gender and workplace pressure in 21st century Scotland, in this brand new digital opera with music by Samuel Bordoli, libretto by acclaimed Scottish writer Jenni Fagan and directed by in-house film-maker Antonia Bain.

Marcos Morau : La Belle au bois dormant(fr)