Günther Groissböck

Verdi: Otello

Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher’s bold new production probes the psychological underpinnings of Verdi’s dynamic setting of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. At the helm of this performance is riveting conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who brings out all the cascading emotions in Verdi’s turbulent score. Aleksandrs Antonenko is the Moor Otello, the triumphant general of the Venetian army who is ultimately brought down by the sly insinuations of his friend Iago (Željko Lučić). Sonya Yoncheva continues to win fans as Desdemona, Otello’s faithful and long-suffering wife. With Günther Groissböck as Lodovico and Dimitri Pittas as Cassio.

Doktor Faust

Faust - a lonely scholar, despairing of life, who has so far failed to discover its highest meaning - is given a book on black magic from three mysterious students from Cracow. When Mephistopheles appears and proposes a pact with Faust, the two of them set off together on a (dream) journey. Doktor Faust remained a fragment at the time of the composer's death. Busoni died in 1924, unable to complete what he himself described as his "state masterpiece" - an opera to which he had a deep personal attachment. The missing scenes from the score were completed by his pupil, Philipp Jarnach, whom Busoni had become acquainted with during his period in exile in Zurich. In this form the opera was given its first performance in Dresden in 1925. Then in the 1980s the conductor Anthony Beaumont came across previously undiscovered sketches by Busoni and produced a new version of Doktor Faust. The current recording uses the Jarnach score.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Fidelio

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is the conductor in this 2004 production of Beethoven's only opera staged at the Zurich Opera House. Finnish soprano Camilla Nyland takes the title role, with performances by Jonas Kaufmann, Laszlo Polgar and Alfred Muff.

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

With their “musical comedy” in the spirit of Mozart, Richard Strauss and his brilliant librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created the most popular of all their works and one of the most frequently performed operas of all time. Disguised as a refined comedy, light as a feather and extremely entertaining, “Der Rosenkavalier” tackles universal themes such as love, sexuality, marital fidelity, and the changes that human relationships undergo over time. All set to music of the most sumptuous kind. With its prestigious cast under the inspired direction of Harry Kupfer, the 2014 Salzburg Festival production of *Der Rosenkavalier* was one of the most internationally acclaimed interpretations of the work since the start of the new millennium.

Eugene Onegin

In Trelinski's timeless production he leads a superb, first-class young cast headed by Artur Ruzinski as Onegin and Kristīne Opolais as Tatyana. Mariusz Trelinski, Polish filmmaker and theater director, has created a series of dream-like, surrealist tableaux of great suggestive beauty.

The Marksman

Max, a young hunter, must win a shooting competition to claim the hand of his beloved Agathe. But on the eve of the competition, seemingly having lost all shooting prowess, Max allows himself to be convinced by his rival Kaspar to make a pact with the devil to use seven magic bullets which never miss their target. Wagner said that Carl Maria von Weber’s early-Romantic gem was the most German of German operas. With touches of the eerie supernatural, Der Freischütz is an irresistible mix of colourful folklore, tender romance, and a passionate struggle between good and evil - all captured in Weber’s tuneful and dramatic score. Successful Russian theatre, opera and film director Kirill Serebrennikov makes his debut in Amsterdam. In his approach to the opera, the struggle for success is transposed from the world of hunters and that of artists.

Idomeneo

Mozart's opera telling the story of the King of Crete who returns from Troy to find his his son in love with the daughter of the slain Paris, King of Troy. Conducted by Sir Roger Norrington and performed by Ramon Vargas, Magdalena Kozena, Anja Harteros and Ekaterina Siurina.

Soldier Monika

Monika Donner is a transsexual elite soldier, a front figure for gender rights and an author celebrated by the political right-wing. She, who was once a he, quickly becomes a lone fighter between the ideological fronts.