David McVicar’s spellbinding production of Le nozze di Figaro is set in 1830s post-revolution France, where the inexorable unravelling of an old order has produced acute feelings of loss. In the relationship between Finley’s suave, dashingly self-absorbed Count and Röschmann’s passionately dignified Countess, which lies at the tragic heart of the opera, the sexy ease between a feisty Figaro (Erwin Schrott) and a sassy Susanna (Miah Persson) is starkly absent, the tenacious spark between Marcellina (Graciela Araya) and Bartolo (Jonathan Veira) suggesting what might be rekindled.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin had hardly opened on 24th September 1961 before it started preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. How was that possible? Had it entered into some sort of time warp? That might indeed have been possible for a theatre that in the past had devoted itself to Richard Wagner’s works. But there was a simpler explanation: the Deutsche Oper Berlin had, in fact, originally opened on 7 November 1912 under the title of Deutsches Opernhaus.

Covent Garden’s 2003 production of The Magic Flute , designed by John F. Macfarlane, directed by David McVicar, and conducted by Sir Colin Davis, is magnificent from a strictly musical standpoint. More than that, it’s vastly entertaining. The comedic elements of the story integrate far more comfortably than is often the case with Schikaneder’s high-minded (if vague) theme of a quest for enlightenment, particularly in the second act. Visually, the production is a feast, yet it doesn’t distract from the music.

Mozart's genius in setting to music Da Ponte's comic play of love, infidelity and forgiveness marks Così fan tutte as one of the great works of art from the Age of Enlightenment. Nicholas Hytner's beautiful production for the Glyndebourne Festival in 2006, with its sure touch and theatrical know-how, lives up to its promise to be 'shockingly traditional', while Iván Fischer teases artful performances from an outstanding international cast of convincing young lovers.

Obsessive in gambling and in love, the soldier Hermann is the protagonist of Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame, based on a story by Pushkin. He is smitten with the aristocratic Lisa and fixated on learning the winning secret of ‘the three cards’ from her grandmother, the Countess, played by iconic contralto Ewa Podles. This opulent production from Barcelona’s Liceu captures St Petersburg in the era of Catherine the Great, while the house’s Music Director Michael Boden conducts a large and impressive cast.

The vulnerable young woman at the heart of Janacek's breakthrough opera is a signature role for the English soprano Amanda Roocroft. Here, in Stéphane Braunschweig's clear but deeply affecting production, she is partnered by the Slovak tenor Miroslav Dvorsky, as the man through whom she finds redemption, love and hope. The complex figure of the Kostelnicka becomes both tormentor and tormented in this fearless interpretation by the great dramatic soprano Deborah Polaski.

Mozarts beliebte Oper "Die Zauberflöte" unter der Leitung von Wolfgang Sawallisch - jetzt erstmals auf DVD erhältlich! 1983 live aufgenommen, zeigt diese Produktion aus der Bayerischen Staatsoper eine der bekanntesten Opern überhaupt - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts "Die Zauberflöte" in der Inszenierung von August Everding. Edita Gruberova als begehrteste Königin der Nacht der Welt, Francisco Ariza als einer der berühmtesten Taminos unserer Zeit, machen neben anderen Weltstars der Oper (Kurt Moll, Lucia Popp, Wolfgang Brendel, u.a.) diese Produktion zu einem Fest für Augen und Ohren. Eingerahmt und kongenial geleitet wird dieses Ensemble von Wolfgang Sawallisch. "Zeigt das Ernsthafte - vergesst aber den Humor nicht" - mit dieser Einstellung beweist Everding in dieser einzigartigen Inszenierung sein Genie auf dem Gebiet der Opernregie. Diese Zauberflöte ist ein absolutes Muss für alle Opernfans.

“A performance simply crackling with excitement from the Wiener Staatsoper in 1978, conducted by Leonard Bernstein and featuring sublime performances from Gundula Janowitz as Leonore, René Kollo as Florestan, and Lucia Popp as Marzelline. The celebrated quartet, Mir ist so wunderbar, is nothing short of exquisite.” (James Longstaffe, Presto Classical)

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Leonard Bernstein, whose performances of the Seventh were instrumental in pushing the woek towards mainstream status, conducts it here with white-hot communicative power. When he prepared the huge "Symphony of a Thousand" with the Vienna Philharmonic for the 1975 Salzburg Festival there had been only one previous Austrian performance. The DVD encompasses the exultancy of the opening movement, Mahler's setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust, Bernstein drives the music to the final redemptive blaze of glory.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Bernstein's youthful, urgent conducting of the Fourth takes a refreshing slant on the symphony's classical temper, while in the Fifth he coaxes from the Vienna Philharmonic a detailed response to the work's tragic beginning and triumphant conclusion. The reverie of the Adagietto is uniquely intense in this performance. Bernstein's thrilling traversal of the epic Sixth Symphony comes from the end of his Mahler cycle in Vienna, during which the conductor and his orchestra forged an unbreakable bond.

Collection of all five Beethoven piano concertos, played by a young Vladimir Ashkenazy at the height of his piano-playing career. Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the great conductor Bernard Haitink, this was a first for television.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Beginning with the First Symphony, Bernstein reveals Mahler's position at the hinge of modernism, while emphasizing his emotional extremism. The uplifting Second "Resurrection" Symphony, with which Bernstein had an especially long and close association, is recorded here in a historic performance from 1973, set in the Romanesque splendour of Ely Cathedral. In the Third, Bernstein encompasses the symphony's spiritual panorama like no other conductor - with the Vienna Philharmonic players alive to every nuance.

For the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin, the renowned Ruhr Piano Festival in Essen invited the Staatskapelle Berlin to give a truly special program: the rare combination of Chopin‘s two piano concertos in one concert. For this purpose Daniel Barenboim, the orchestra‘s principal conductor, handed over the reins of „his“ ensemble to up-and-coming young conductor Andris Nelsons, assuming the role of piano soloist instead. The press raved: „Storms of applause for a dream couple: Daniel Barenboim and Andris Nelsons won over the audience […] with their rousing Chopin interpretations“.

Composed for La Scala in Milan in 1819, Bianca e Falliero is an opera of extraordinary dramatic originality, rich in highly spectacular stage solutions, and a fundamental work for our understanding of the full significance of the authentic revolution that the composer from Pesaro brought about in opera; a revolution that was destined to have a decisive influence on the development of Italian opera in the nineteenth century. The singing cast features Maria Bayo, Daniela Barcellona, Francesco Meli and Carlo Lepore, conducted by Renato Palumbo and directed by Jean-Louis Martinoty.

“…this live 2006 performance… is given in its original orchestral form in the location for which it was intended - the chapel of Santa Cueva in Cádiz… Played on period instruments the performance… expertly motivated by Jordi Savall, achieving a fine blend of solemnity and austerity with intimacy of feeling. …this is the ultimate in authentic performance.” (BBC Music Magazine)