Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.
Brett Dean's multi-award-winning opera received its world premiere at Glyndebourne Festival 2017. The world premiere recording of Brett Deans new opera based on Shakespeares best-known tragedy: To be, or not to be.
This deliciously dark take on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tale, appealing to audiences of all ages, was part of the Met’s popular English-language holiday series.
Anthony Minghella’s stunning production of Puccini’s opera opened the Met’s 2006–07 season and was seen by thousands of people around the world as part of the company’s Live in HD series.
Performed at Madrid's historic Teatro Real in 2018, Ivor Bolton conducts Benjamin Britten's opera based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History.
Met Music Director James Levine leads this Live in HD presentation of Wagner’s early Romantic opera, starring Johan Botha in the title role of the minnesinger torn between earthly passion and true love.
A young woman marries a rich man and begins a new life in a little town in the Spain of the 20s. Feeling trapped and bored, she begins a relationship with her husband's stepbrother.
The 2004 Opus Arte DVD release of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni (recorded at Teatro alla Scala in 1987) is highly regarded by English-language critics as a definitive "traditional" production, notable for its legendary collaboration between conductor Riccardo Muti and director Giorgio Strehler.
To mark the conclusion of their "Third World Week" celebration, a cricket team in a small English village invites a black cricket team from South London to a charity game with comical results.
