Puccini: Madama Butterfly

As a young child, Frederic had been apprenticed to a pirate by mistake when he should have been apprenticed to a pilot. Now, having reached his 21st year, Frederic's indentures are at last over and he happily leaves the service of the pirates. When Frederic meets the beautiful Mabel, one of the many daughters (or wards in Chancery) of Major-General Stanley, they fall in love and decide to marry. However, complications arise when the pirates decide to marry the rest of the Major-General's daughters, themselves - and Frederic's birthdate turns out to be not all it seems.

Maazel conducts this production from Vienna, starring Jose Carreras and Eva Marton.

Captain's daughter Josephine and common sailor Ralph Rackstraw are in love. However, their relationship is complicated by her arranged marriage to the high-ranking Sir Joseph Porter. A secret about the characters' true identities revealed by Little Buttercup, which leads to a farcical resolution.

Made for TV movie version of the famous opera.

In a small Japanese town, Ko-Ko is appointed to the unenviable position of executioner. Knowing he must successfully perform before the appearance of the Mikado in a month's time, Ko-Ko finds a suitable victim in Nanki-Poo, who is distraught over his unrequited love for the maiden Yum-Yum. Nanki-Poo agrees to sacrifice his life if he is allowed to spend his remaining days with Yum-Yum, who is betrothed to Ko-Ko.

Hélène Grimaud's eagerly awaited debut at the BBC Proms was scheduled for 11 September 2001. Until the last moment, the organisers hesitated to go ahead with the performance, such was the shock following the collapse of the World Trade Centre. But London's Royal Albert Hall did go ahead with the concert, in which the soloist gave a masterful performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Programme: Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58, by Ludwig van BeethovenSymphonie fantastique, by Hector Berlioz Concert filmed on 11 September 2001 at the Royal Albert Hall (London) during the BBC Proms.

This live recording was made at the Royal Albert Hall during one of Londons famous Promenade Concert seasons. Sir Georg Solti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a magnificent performance of Berliozs concert cantata. This feast of Berlioz launched Soltis farewell tour with the orchestra he had directed for twenty years and was described by The Times as the unsurpassable culmination of two decades of music-making...one that summarised all that has been most admirable about Soltis long reign in Chicago. Like reading the book by flashes of lightning was how one writer described the relationship of Berlioz to Goethe in this Dramatic Legend, his way of shaping twenty scenes selected from the story into a narrative in four parts. Though it has sometimes been staged, the works drama is to be found within the music itself, which illuminates the incidents with what the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once called a bunch of the loveliest tunes in existence.

Series of informal masterclasses held at the Wiltshire home of the renowned guitarist Julian Bream.