Donizetti's great tragedy is his undisputed masterpiece of melancholic romanticism, with the doomed love between Lucia and Edgardo retold from Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor. The 1992 production heightens the story’s powerful libretto with its dramatic visual design and first class musical performances.

Au moment de cet enregistrement, au début des années quatre-vingt, Sir Georg Solti était encore tout auréolé du prestige d'une précédente interprétation du Bal masqué réalisée en 33 tours. Plus encore que dans la première mouture, le chef d'origine hongroise exacerbe ici la violence du drame, poussant tous les personnages vers leur destin, dans un souffle épique d'une rare intensité. Une distribution quasiment idéale fait face au chef : un Pavarotti de la grande époque, un Bruson idiomatique et une Christa Ludwig d'une ardeur insoupçonnée.

Stage and television director Werner Herzog, one of the most highly acclaimed German film makers of all time, joins forces with the great Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly to effect a masterful rendition of this rarely-performed opera involving spectacular scenes of alternating light and dark, pageantry and intimacy. The production is further complemented by the great Italian baritone Renato Bruson as Giacomo, the American soprano Susan Dunn as Giovanna and the outstanding tenor Vincenzo La Scola as the Dauphin. The magnificent Teatro Comunale di Bologna provides an intimate yet ornate setting for this production of Verdi's seventh opera, the story of the Maid of Orleans.

This release captures a performance of the Verdi opera Don Carlo recorded at the Theatre Antique d'Orange in Orange, France on July 13, 1984. The cast of the performance includes Montserrat Caballé, Giacamo Aragall, Simon Estes, Grace Bumbry, and Renato Bruson.

Norah Amsellem as Violetta leads a cast of outstanding talent in Pier Luigi Pizzi’s beautiful production filmed with High Definition cameras and recorded in multi-track surround sound. Jesus Lopez Cobos conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real (Madrid Symphony Orchestra and Chorus) in an acclaimed reading of one of Verdi’s greatest works.

This production of Verdi’s ever-popular, melodic opera was filmed in Busseto, near Parma, Italy, close to the composer’s home and birthplace. The story of the opera concerns the plight of Violetta a mid-19th century Parisian courtesan who is dying of consumption. She responds to the ardent love of the young Alfredo but sacrifices him when his father, Giorgio pleads that their love will ruin his daughter’s happiness and his son’s career. Leaving the musicality of the opera to conductor Plácido Domingo, Franco Zeffirelli is here concerned with a natural expression of Verdi’s opera – and Alexander Dumas’ story.

Giovanna d’Arco is based on Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy The Maid of Orleans and deals with the life of Joan of Arc. But Verdi and his librettist Temistocle Solera departed from both Schiller and historical fact by turning Joan’s father into the opera’s powerful antagonist. Ever since its first performance in Milan in 1845, Giovanna d’Arco has been admired and loved for its emotionally affecting arias and thrilling choral writing.

Unlike Verdi's earlier successes, Nabucco and I Lombardi, both of which had been composed for the large stage at La Scala, Milan, Ernani was written for the smaller stage and more intimate atmosphere of Teatro La Fenice, Venice and he was in his thirty third year when it was composed. This recording is superb in every way. The singers, led by Placido Domingo as Ernani and Mirella Freni as Donna Elvira, entertain us with bravura performances and it's a joy to listen to and watch from beginning to end.

When Carlo Maria Giulini returned to conducting public performances of opera after an absence of fourteen years, he chose for the occasion one of the enduring comic masterpieces - Verdi's Falstaff. The composer was almost eighty when he broke the six-year silence following the premiere of Otello, and startled the musical world by revealing his complete mastery of comic invention. Renato Bruson, the renowned interpreter of Verdi and one of the leading lyric baritones of the day, sings the title role.

The great Italian stage and screen director Franco Zeffirelli made these widely acclaimed films, both starring Plácido Domingo. with Georges Prêtre conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala. Pagliacci, which co-stars the great singing actress Teresa Stratas, brought Zeffirelli the coveted Emmy as Best Director in the category of Classical Music Programming. Cavalleria was filmed on location in Sicily, which adds immeasurably to the power and atmosphere of this timeless story of love, honour, justice, and violence.

Josep Maria Carreras i Coll born 5 December 1946, better known as José Carreras, is a Spanish tenor who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini.
Born in Barcelona, he made his debut on the operatic stage at 11 as Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro and went on to a career that encompassed over 60 roles, performed in the world's leading opera houses and in numerous recordings. He gained fame with a wider audience as one of the Three Tenors along with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in a series of mass concerts that began in 1990 and continued until 2003. Carreras is also known for his humanitarian work as the president of the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation (La Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia), which he established following his own recovery from the disease in 1988.

Macbeth signifies the beginning of Verdi"s life-long preoccupation with William Shakespeare where he came close to emulating the master with his congenial composition of Othello and whom he even surpassed with Falstaff. Aware of the great musical as well as literary challenge, Verdi wrote the scenario himself and essentially concentrated the piece on three main protagonists: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the prophecy of the witches . . . During the first performance on 14 March 1847 in Florence the audience reacted with great displeasure. The piece only gradually established itself in the world of opera. Luca Ronconi’s new production of Verdi’s early masterpiece which was first performed in June 1987 at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin was received in Germany and around the world with great praise.

Opera superstars Renée Fleming and Rolando Villazón star in the sumptuous 2006 Los Angeles production of Verdi's tragic masterpiece.
"Violetta has lately become one of Fleming's signature roles, and she acted the part as compellingly as she sang it, which was warmly, with sparkling top notes and an ease with the vocal line that any singer would envy." (Los Angeles Times)