Carmen - Bizet

In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, loves the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

The plot adheres closely to the original novel, revolves around wealthy Maxim DeWinter, his naïve new wife, and Mrs. Danvers, the manipulative housekeeper of DeWinter's Cornish estate Manderley. Mrs. Danvers resents the new wife's intrusion and persuades the new wife that she is an unworthy replacement for the first Mrs. DeWinter, the glamorous and mysterious Rebecca, who perished in a drowning accident. The new Mrs. DeWinter struggles to find her identity and take control of her life among the shadows left by Rebecca.

DON GIOVANNI is one of the timeless classics of all opera. Mozart’s music, and the words of his great collaborator Da Ponte, are brought to life in Francesca Zambello’s engrossing production with its rich and colourful designs by Maria Bjornson. The music is memorable, dramatic and enjoyable: from the seductive solo voices of the famous ‘La ci darem la mano’ to the fabulous ensemble as Don Giovanni’s infatuated conquests, vengeful victims and their outraged relatives join forces for justice. And retribution does finally come to Don Giovanni, a serial womanizer and a murderer, with the searing flames of Hell ready to engulf him. Simon Keenlyside heads the outstanding cast at the Covent Garden Royal Opera House, conducted by renowned Mozart expert Charles Mackerras.

Giacomo Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive flower-maker, is a beautifully balanced series of tableaux depicting the infectious joie de vivre of youth and the tragic waste of disease and separation. The legendary and incomparable partnership of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti as the two lovers has been captured in this special live recording from stage of the San Francisco Opera. Brian Large has adapted Francesca Zambello's production for video, further illuminating the fascinating interaction of Puccini's characters. Gino Quilico sings Marcello, the colorful and moody painter, whose tempestuous relationship with the flirtatious Musetta (sung by Sandra Pacetti), comically mirrors the more profound love of Rodolfo and Mimi. Nicolai Ghiaurov sings Colline.

In an opera version of the famous literature classic, during World War I, an airplane pilot crashes his plane in the Sahara Desert, where he has a very unusual near-death experience.

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.

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

Hammerstein and Kern’s Show Boat is a true classic of American musical theater - a tale of life on the Mississippi from the 1880s to the 1920s is both a poignant love story and a powerful reminder of the bitter legacy of racism. The exuberant production from the San Francisco Opera features songbook classics such as “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”.

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

Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the exploits of Aeneas. Rising tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Met debut, stars as the hero charged by the gods with the founding of the city of Rome. Susan Graham is Dido, Queen of Carthage, who becomes Aeneas’s lover, and Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan princess whose warnings about the impending destruction of Troy go unheeded. Francesca Zambello’s atmospheric production, featuring choreography by Doug Varone, is led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

As the end nears for the gods, and human ambition rules the world, Alberich’s son Hagen hatches a plot to take control of the ring, threatening the union of Siegfried and Brünnhilde. Fueled by greed, Hagen’s actions lead to chaos and destruction, until Brünnhilde steps forward to return the world to its natural order.

Get ready for Das Rheingold, the first chapter in Richard Wagner’s four-part epic, The Ring of the Nibelung. Travel to a world where gods, giants, and dwarves vie for control over the realms of myths and mortals.

The young soldier Don José intends to marry Micaëla, a girl from his home village. But when he meets the sensual and high-spirited Carmen, he sacrifices everything to be with her. Carmen grows tired of Don José and falls in love with the toreador Escamillo. Unable to bear her leaving him, Don José tracks Carmen down to a bullring where Escamillo is fighting and murders her.

She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know his background. But what Luisa Miller did know was that her heart belonged to the stranger Carlo as soon as she clapped eyes on him. But the secret behind Carlo’s identity is the least of her problems in Giuseppe Verdi’s star-crossed romance Luisa Miller, a tale of class, deception and betrayal set in the Alps.

Street Scene is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill (music), Langston Hughes (lyrics), and Elmer Rice (book). It was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Rice. For his work on Street Scene, Weill received the first Tony Award for Best Original Score. In Germany, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Weill had already begun to use American jazz and popular song elements in his operas. After fleeing from Germany in 1933, he worked in Paris, then England, and then, beginning in 1935, in New York. Weill made a study of American popular and stage music and worked to further adapt his music to new American styles in his writing for Broadway, film and radio. He strove to find a new way of creating an American opera that would be both commercially and artistically successful.