Thomas Elwin is the tenor soloist in Tippett's The Heart’s Assurance – the most remarkable and fearless setting of poetry by young men who fought and died in WW2. These poems, thrusting sensual desire into a landscape of death, finds response in movement by Bernadette Iglich. Katie Stevenson is the soloist in Britten’s bizarre A Charm of Lullabies, composed on poems by William Blake, Robert Burns, Robert Greene, Thomas Randolph and John Phillip – maybe not the kind of thing to sing you to sleep.

Thomas Elwin is the tenor soloist in Tippett's The Heart’s Assurance and Katie Stevenson is the soloist in Britten’s bizarre A Charm of Lullabies.

The Heart’s Assurance (Tippett) & A Charm of Lullabies (Britten)

Christian Spuck brought one of Verdi’s key works to the stage with Messa da Requiem. In a mega co-production by the Opera and Ballet Zürich, the German choreographer and director portrays a profound interpretation of Verdi’s funeral mass in his scenic-choreographic production. 

Christian Spuck delivers a profound interpretation of Verdi’s funeral mass in his massive scenic-choreographic production.

Messa da Requiem

This production of “The Rake’s Progress” marks Barbara Hannigan’s debut as an opera conductor and is a “labor of love” for her. Hannigan, who has sung the role of Anne Truelove many times, hand-picked the cast of soloists from over 350 applications from 39 countries, and subsequent auditions throughout Europe, as part of her mentoring initiative “Equilibrium.” In this unique and refined semistaged production, director Linus Fellbom invites the audience to partake on a journey through space and time, from a distant future to the present, and back to 18th century London.

This production of “The Rake’s Progress” marks Barbara Hannigan’s debut as an opera conductor and is a “labor of love” for her.

The Rakes Progress

Puccini’s Japanese tragedy Madama Butterfly is given a ravishing production by The Royal Opera. 
Its alluring imagery of Japan from the 19th-century European Imagination heightens the intense clash of East and West. When the American naval officer Pinkerton seduces the young ‘Butterfly’ Cio-Cio-San, he seems to promise every happiness – but his cruel abandonment leads to her tragic self-sacrifice.
Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera and renowned for his interpretations of Puccini, conducts an exceptionally fine cast with the Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

Powerful performances show why Madama Butterfly remains one of the all-time operatic favorites.

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the best-known operas worldwide. The ROH stages this alluring Japanese tragedy, reminding us why it’s a favorite.

Madama Butterfly

Thomas Elwin (tenor) is the soloist in the ecstatic Boyhood’s End (1943), to which Paul Chantry and Rae Piper make response in dance.

Boyhood’s End (Tippett) & Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Shostakovich)

Mozart’s masterpiece conducted by Giovanni Antonini on stage at La Scala with Michael Hampe’s staging.

Così Fan Tutte

The stout Sir John Falstaff has financial problems, which he attempts to solve by having affairs with Alice Ford and Meg Page, two very wealthy, very married women. Having received identical love letters, the two women decide to have some fun at Falstaff’s expense.

The stout Sir John Falstaff has financial problems, which he attempts to solve by having affairs with two very wealthy, very married women.

Falstaff

The legendary Zubin Mehta conducts Aida, Verdi’s most spectacular and over-the-top opera, in Ferzan Ozpetek’s new production from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Starring Roberto Tagliavini, Luciana D’Intino and Hui He in the title role.

The legendary Zubin Mehta conducts Aida, Verdi’s most spectacular and over-the-top opera.

Aida

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales – a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perrault’s original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenet’s sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism to bring its story to colourful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales.

Cendrillon

This production from Teatro alla Scala stars opera greats Jonas Kaufmann and Erwin Schrott, with newcomer Anita Rachvelishvili making her wildly successful debut.

This production from La Scala stars opera greats Jonas Kaufmann and Erwin Schrott, with newcomer Anita Rachvelishvili making her successful debut.

Carmen

A modern opera adaptation by Charles Wuorinen based on Annie Proulx’s short story previously adapted by Ang Lee for the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain. This marks Wuorinen’s return to the opera stage with one of the major works of his career, equally ambitious in its beauty and momentous tragedy. Brokeback is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist, two young men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Wuorinen says “It’s a story of doomed love, in this case a complex homosexual relationship taking place in a very homophobic society."

A modern opera adaptation by Charles Wuorinen based on Annie Proulx’s short story.

Brokeback Mountain

Through the eye of French director Laurent Pelly this expression of Berlioz's undying admiration for the Bard - his adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing as an opera comique - becomes 'an elegant treatise on love and music designed in shades of grey with 50's-era costumes' (Sunday Express). Housed by designer Barbara de Limburg in a series of oversized boxes, it's 'terribly chic, terribly pretty' (The Spectator). Soaring over the 'warmly graceful playing of the London Philharmonic', Paul Appleby sings 'attractively' as Benedict and Stephanie d'Oustrac 'makes a marvellously wiry and fiery Beatrice, singing with charm and acting with gusto' (The Telegraph).

Laurent Pelly's expression of Berlioz's adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing as an opera comique becomes ''an elegant treatise on love and music".

Beatrice and Benedict

A deeply moving production of the traditional double-bill Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana is shown here at Milan's Teatro alla Scala.

Cavalleria Rusticana

Forbidden love, wrongdoings and anguish: the Opernhaus Zürich ventures into late 19th-century French romanticism with “Werther“ by French composer Jules Massenet. A loose adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epistolary novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, the opera is conducted by Germany’s Cornelius Meister. It tells the story of the impossible union of poet Werther to Charlotte, a woman of duty already promised to a wealthy businessman.Goethe’s drama is echoed in Massenet’s score by emotionally wide-ranging vocal parts written on a grand scale.

A loose adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epistolary novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, composed by Jules Massenet. 

The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (Britten)

Cast & Crew

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