Francesconi: Trompe-la-Mort

The documentary draws a portrait of an opera director who is staging Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. He is torn between the tragicomic...

Spain 1820. It's meal time at the cigar factory. Carmen spends her break in the square. Close by is Don José cleaning his weapons.

Puccini’s melodrama about a volatile diva, a sadistic police chief, and an idealistic artist has offended and thrilled audiences for more than...

Serge Prokofiev's enigmatic work, this is a tale of the supernatural, religious hysteria and demonic possession which is set in Germany at the time...

Margaret Williams directs this 2001 production of adaptation of Benjamin Britten's television opera based on a short story by Henry James. Performers...

Based on Oscar Wilde's lurid play, it is an intense exploration of the Salome story. Its sumptuous vocal and orchestral writing seethes and pulsates...

Xerxes is one of Handel’s latest and most frequently performed operas, famous for its marvelous opening aria ‘Ombra mai fu’. At the...

Richard Eyre’s stunning new production of Bizet’s opera was the talk of the town when it was unveiled on New Year’s Eve 2009....

Radiant mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and dashing Italian tenor Marcello Giordani are unlucky lovers in La Damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz’s...

This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethe’s Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero...

One of opera's most vivid and compelling characters, a vengeful court jester, desperately tries to protect his daughter from disaster in this...

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here...

An introspective dentist's suspicions about his wife's infidelity stresses his mental well being and family life to the breaking point.

Olga Neuwirth, for a long time one of the great composers of the present, succeeds with this opera in creating a captivating arc across many musical...

The painter Lili Elbe was the first person to have gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. The homonymous opera is a glimpse into the life of Lili...

Based on the tragic 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, the opera focuses on three climbers as they attempt the ill-fated summit. A new genre, the animated...

This telecast offers a rare opportunity to see the legendary Joan Sutherland in the role that first catapulted her to international stardom. She...

All the throbbing eroticism—and ultimate heartbreak—of Puccini’s youthful score is unleashed by James Levine and his top-flight...

A meditation on the female body as a source of both power and pain that focuses on the tragic figure of renowned American-Greek opera singer Maria...