Sacred Music: God's Composer

The French tale of a beautiful young woman destroyed by her conflicting needs for love and luxury.

The Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet, and director-choreographer Wayne McGregor bring us an interpretation of DIDO AND AENEAS, an opera composed by Henry Purcell, with a libretto by Nahum Tate; based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid. We find Dido in her court with her attendants. Dido fears that her love for Aeneas will make her a weak monarch, but her attendants assure her that heroes, too, love....

The star singers in this revival of the 2006 production were Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel; the Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House were under the baton of Antonio Pappano, the Music Director of the Royal Opera House. The pageantry of church ritual, the darkness of a brooding study with its hidden torture chamber and the false optimism of the light of a Roman dawn - all throw into relief the love of the beautiful diva Tosca, the idealism of her lover Cavaradossi and the deadly, destructive obsession of the malevolent Chief of Police, Scarpia. Drama, passion and fabulous music.

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 production is superbly complemented by the beauty of Paule Constable's lighting and Tanya McCallin's evocative sets. Antonio Pappano conducts (and accompanies the recitatives) with invigorating wit and emotional depth.

A couple of happy-go-lucky Venetian gondoliers discover that one of them is heir to the throne of a distant kingdom.

A full-length ballet created by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon for the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The ballet is based on Lewis Carroll's famous story of Alice, an ordinary girl who one summer afternoon falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself on an extraordinary adventure. The music is by Joby Talbot, with designs by the internationally acclaimed Bob Crowley. Alice is danced by the Royal Ballet's Lauren Cuthbertson, and actor Simon Russell-Beale plays the cameo role of the Duchess.

Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Caterina Antonacci bring rare erotic intensity to the drama of Don José and Carmen in this darkly passionate reading of one of the most popular operas. Kaufmann uses his burnished tenor and smouldering good looks to portray the man undone by Carmen's love. As the object of his desire, Antonacci gives a physical and compelling performance.

This staging of Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Minotaur features John Tomlinson, Johann Reuter, Christine Rice, and Andrew Watts in the main roles. Stephen Langridge directed the production for the stage, and Antonio Pappano conducted the orchestra.

David McVicar’s powerful Royal Opera House 2008 production of Strauss's opera – based on a play by Oscar Wilde – takes the controversial and disturbing film 120 Days of Sodom as its visual reference. The action is set in a debauched palace, which has suggestions of Nazi Germany. Strauss’s ravishing and voluptuous score adds to the sexual alchemy that is conjured by an international cast led by Nadja Michael in the title role.

Les naufrageurs is a French-language opera in three acts composed by Dame Ethel Smyth to a libretto by Henry Brewster, telling of the plundering of ships by Cornish villagers. Completed in 1904, it was premiered in 1906 in Leipzig in a German translation, with cuts, before being championed by Sir Thomas Beecham and given performances in 1909 in London, now in an English translation as The Wreckers

Sir Simon Rattle conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and massed choirs in Mahler’s epic Eighth Symphony, the 'Symphony of a Thousand'.

The diversity of Wayne McGregor's astonishing talent is demonstrated through Chroma, Infra and Limen, each created for The Royal Ballet, for whom he is resident choreographer. Intimate yet universal, light yet dark, frenetic yet lyrical, McGregor pursues his passion for exploring the inner workings of the human body and mind, his many-layered and beautiful dances providing visual, sensual and kinaesthetic stimulus for the viewer. Works: Chroma (Talbot; White III); Infra (Richter); Limen (Saariaho).

Tchaikovsky's much-loved opera Eugene Onegin, a story of love, rejection and tragedy based on Pushkin's verse drama of the same name.

In Giuseppe Verdi's little-known early tragedy, a despairing father is torn between love for his family and his duty to a corrupt city. Jacopo Foscari, son of a 15th-century Doge of Venice, is convicted of murder and treason on a trumped-up charge. His wife Lucrezia is sure of his innocence. But the Doge, trapped by the machinations of the city, is forced to make a terrible decision.

Live from ROH 2009, TV relay 1/12/2009.

The Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera collaborate in Wayne McGregor's production of Handel and Gay's classic opera, in which the nymph Galatea falls in love with a shepherd named Acis.