Most opera houses ring in the New Year with Johann Strauss Jr.'s most popular operetta--the festiveness of which is appropriate for the occasion--and this December 31, 1983, Covent Garden performance follows suit. An exceptional cast--led by Hermann Prey and Kiri Te Kanawa as the couple whose marriage survives the comic indiscretions of three long acts--obviously has as much fun as the audience. P...

Drama lyrique in five acts, after the play by Maruice Maeterlink

Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts this acclaimed staging of Paul Hindemith's ambitious opera of the goldsmith Cardillac, whom fortune seems to favor and then abandon, featuring Donald McIntyre and Maria de Francesca-Cavazza in the starring roles. Filmed in 1985 at the Bavarian State Opera and directed by the legendary Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, the production captures every nuance of Hindemith's powerful ta...

The La Scala Rheingold in May 2010 inaugurated Guy Cassiers Ring-Cycle and introduces a completely new paradigm to this work. While before him Patrice Chéreau had laid his focus on a historical analysis from 1870 to 1930 Germany, Guy Cassiers’ Ring unfolds “from our own present-day moment; it [takes] place in ‘the now’, the Jetztzeit (Walter Benjamin), placing our present and our future into the c...

Acclaimed German conductor Kurt Masur leads the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chorus in this performance of Beethoven's marvelously sprawling Symphony no. 9 in D Minor, op. 125, filmed live in Leipzig's Gewandhaus concert hall in 1991. Joining the magnificent assembly are soloists Venceslava Hruba-Freiberger, Doris Soffel, James Wagner and Gwynne Howell, providing an unforgettable setting for Beethoven...