The Human Voice

Wagner: Siegfried

2011

Robert Lepage’s remarkable Met Opera production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the 2013 Grammy Award Winner for Best Opera Recording, is now available as individual DVDs. Siegfried features Bryn Terfel, Jay Hunter Morris, and Deborah Voigt, with Fabio Luisi conducting.

Wagner: Götterdämmerung

2012

Ring Cycle, pt 4. Siegfried is drugged and tricked into kidnapping his wife, since she has the Ring now. More double-crossings, Siegfried ends up dead. Brunnhilde has had enough of this, tosses the Ring into the river and torches the place.

Donizetti - La Favorite

2015

Donizetti's French masterpiece was in the hands of Italian conductor Antonello Allemandi. This maestro, a bel canto specialist, captured the fire and intensity of the passions from the get-go, making the overture a superbly eloquent transition to a musical world based on beautiful lines and colors that elaborate distress and make it compellingly elegant. Allemandi demonstrated a full authority over the stage for the musically complex scenes, and in the arias and duets he demonstrated his confidence in the artistry of distraught singers by establishing ample tempos to support their soaring vocal lines while he concentrated on pulling every possible nuance from the pit players.

Carmen

1984

A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful factory worker (Carmen), but she does not reciprocate his feelings.

Falstaff

1993

It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great comedy fighting to get out that we owe this absolute miracle of an opera. Produced in 1893 as Verdi turned 80 there is much in this masterpiece that can be identified as a modernist neoclassical work. The use of short motifs instead of long arioso melodic lines, the spry and reduced orchestral textures and the lack of a single 'stand and deliver' dramatic declamatory aria all serve to make this more of a 20th century work than an example of 19th century late-Romanticism.

Madame Butterfly

1995

Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese geisha, seeks to fulfill her dreams through marriage to an American naval officer. Her faith in their future is shattered by his empty vows and the loss she endures touches something deep within us all.

Royal Opera House 2023/24: Madama Butterfly

2024

Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of American naval officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return.

Anna Netrebko und Rolando Villazón singen "La Traviata"

2020

Louis Riel

1969

Opera by Harry Somers portraying Metis leader Louis Riel and his Northwest Rebellion. 1969 CBC-TV production based on the original 1967 opera.

The Beggar's Opera

1953

Adaptation of John Gay's 18th century opera, featuring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath and Hugh Griffith as the Beggar.

Eugene Onegin

1988

A filmed version of Tchaikovsky's opera. Onegin visits a friend, his fiancee and her sister Tatiana, who believes Onegin is her fated love. She writes a note telling him so, but he rejects her. Years later he returns, finding her married, but now he's smitten with her.

Show Boat

2015

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”.

Massenet: Thaïs

2008

When the most voluptuous, sought-after courtesan in the world meets an ascetic monk whose life is devoted to God, you know erotic sparks are going to fly. And when the clash takes place in a glorious, but rarely performed, opera by Massenet, it’s a delight to the ear just as much as to the eye. Renée Fleming is every inch the glamorous Thaïs, swathed in elegant gowns designed by Christian Lacroix. Thomas Hampson is Athanaël, the tortured man of God. This production by John Cox, which premiered in December 2008, brilliantly sets the stage for a confrontation as old as civilization itself.

Spaces and Reservations

2014

Spaces and Reservations is an intimate and unsparingly realistic relationship drama that tells the story of a young couple being torn apart by malaise and infidelity, and the way the trauma of their breakup brings them back together. Jamie and Kacie have been dating for four years, and are separately beginning to feel the affects of malaise and disconnect. As they drift apart from one another and struggle to bridge the gaps growing between them, Jamie begins to develop feelings for another woman. After precariously flirting with infidelity, Jamie abandons this new pursuit and attempts to salvage his relationship with Kacie, only to discover that she too has fallen for someone else.

Saul

2016

Glyndebourne's Saul stole the summer and had critics raving. The Guardian (****) applauded virtuoso stagecraft from director Barrie Kosky in his debut production there, calling the show a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing. For The Independent, which ranked it amongst five top classical and opera performances of 2015, there was no praise too high for the cast. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivor Bolton sparkles from the pit with period panache, and designer Katrin Lea Tag's exuberant costumes (The Times ****) set the Old Testament story in Handel's time, with a witty twinge of the contemporary.