False Confessions

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

A pessimistic drama about a family struggling to survive after the death of their father. Left behind are the simple-minded mother, the strong-willed daughter Josefine, another sister and a mentally retarded brother. Josefine takes over the reins and looks after the family. She turns her sister into a maid and forces her brother to live in the cellar.

Luc Bondy's 1996 production of Don Carlos was staged, recorded and filmed at the Chatelet in Paris. These seven performances were blessed with an all-star cast, loaded with important singers either starting their careers (Roberto Alagna) or at the height of their dramatic powers (Karita Mattila, Jose Van Dam.)

Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.

Vienna at the turn of the century: The industrialist Friedrich Hofreiter is a vain, self-important man who is used to taking what he wants and who enjoys exercising power. His tender wife Genia increasingly recognizes his deceitfulness. The Russian pianist Alexei Korsakov, a subtle artist, commits suicide because of her. Hofreiter, on the other hand, travels to the Dolomites with his friend and family doctor Dr. Mauer, who is in love with the young Erna. Hofreiter makes her his lover in front of Mauer's eyes. In turn, he provokes Genia's lover into a duel and shoots him. In the end, there is only emptiness. Faithful adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's stage play.

A new governess arrives at a country house to take care of two seemingly angelic young children. But she begins to suspect that the house is haunted, and that the ghosts mean harm to the children.

Four nameless people -- the old man, the woman, the soldier, and the gambler -- journey to a desolate wasteland beyond the limits of an unnamed city.

Two intellectuals, a writer and a director, begin to play a mysterious psychological game in a peaceful countryside manor house during the Nazi occupation.

Joël is jealous and violent. After one crisis too many, Nicole, his young wife, returns to live with her parents with their three-year-old son. Joël hangs on, begs, threatens. One day, he kidnaps the little boy.

Puccini’s musical thriller of lust, murder, and politics is one of the most dramatically riveting operas in the repertoire. Luc Bondy’s production, with sets by Richard Peduzzi and costumes by Academy Award-winning designer Milena Canonero, opened the Met’s 2009–10 season. Karita Mattila stars as the beautiful and dangerously impulsive singer Floria Tosca. Marcelo Álvarez is her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, a political enemy of the powerful chief of police, Scarpia (George Gagnidze), who wants Tosca for himself.

An aging King invites disaster when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters and rejects his one loving, but honest one.