Brian Large

Bela Bartok's and Arnold Schoenberg's haunting excursions into the nightmare of the unconscious.

Johann Strauss Jr.: Waltzes and Polkas. "The Thunder and Lightning" Polka, with its flashing cymbals and booming bass drum, has always been a...

Johann Strauss Jr.: Waltzes and Polkas. "The Thunder and Lightning" Polka, with its flashing cymbals and booming bass drum, has always been a...

The pain of unrequited love is portrayed unforgettably by two of today’s greatest stars. Renée Fleming is musically and dramatically...

Giuseppe Verdi's opera of religion, revenge and redemption gets the star treatment in this 1993 Metropolitan Opera production conducted by James...

Violetta, a courtesan much wooed by Parisian society, organizes a grand party that is attended, amongst others, by the young Alfredo Germont. He...

This first-rate 1982 production of Verdi’s Falstaff marked the great 20th century Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini's return to opera...

The sets and costumes by Ponnelle are truly reflective of the 'grand style'. Plus the fact that the two lead characters are portrayed by top singers...

Verdi’s monumental score is fully the equal of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy—and both demand great actors. This is one performance...

The Otto Schenk production of Richard Strauss's "Elektra", filmed live at the Metropolitan Opera in January, 1994. Hildegard Behrens stars as...

Herbert Wernicke's production of Richard Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier", filmed live at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden on 31 January 2009. Renée...

This was a 1988 revival of a 1971 production that teamed Domingo (Vasco da Gama) and Verrett (Selika - both then very much in their prime) in...

Seeking to exorcise the failure of his current love affair, the poet Hoffmann tells the tales of his three past loves - the doll-like Olympia, the...

Mozart’s allegorical fairy tale has charmed audiences and inspired artists, for more than 200 years. A few weeks before this telecast, the Met...

L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli. Rossini composed...

Live performance, new production season 1984-5. BBC 2 Television relay on 30 March 1985 of performance of February 11.

Taped live in Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu on January 31, 2002, this L'Orfeo is both a visual delight and a musically satisfying representation...

An opera based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

A 1985 performance of Luchino Visconti's 1958 staging for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bernard Haitink memorably directs a superb cast that...

This modern interpretation of Georg Frederick Handel's opera focuses on Rinaldo's attempts to break free from enchantress Armida and reunite with his...

Nabucco - live from Metropolitan Opera, June 2002. On its surface, Nabucco is about the epic struggle of Zaccaria and the Jews suppressed by...

José Cura, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Verónica Villarroel and Yvonne Naef lead the star cast of Verdi's blazingly passionate opera IL...

In ancient Babylon, SEMIRAMIDE (Anderson) encourages her lover Assur (Ramey) to murder her husband, King Ninus. Her son, Ninius, disappears, believed...

Gaetano Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani kept the focus of their opera ANNA BOLENA on the personal rather than the political in this...

Part of the 'Classic Archive series, this programme features full-length, complete musical performances coupled with encore material as well as rare...

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina. Aided by the lovelorn bird...

In the awe-inspiring Teatro Olimpico,Vicenza, Cecilia Bartoli, recognised as one of the best singers of our time, gives the most outstanding recital...

Jessye Norman is a regal Ariadne, the mythological Greek heroine in this opera-within-an-opera, opposite the passionate Bacchus of the great James...

The Met production easily has the most beautiful staging, designed by Otto Schenck, who also produced the fabulous set for the Met's previous Ring...

A world-class pairing, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their charismatic new Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, mark the start of their partnership...

Glyndebourne's intimate opera house provides the perfect setting for Rossini's third French opera, a sparkling medieval comedy of lust and chastity.

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner.

The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in...

Princess Fedora, who is to marry the Count the following day, arrives and sings of her love for him, unaware that the dissolute Count has betrayed...

The ever popular New Year's Concert from Vienna returns in another sparkling performance, broadcast live to over 50 countries! Daniel Barenboim makes...

A striking interpretation of Mozart's opera that became a sensation at the 2008 Salzburg Festival. This is not only a rethinking of the place and...

Inspired by one of the twentieth century's greatest novels, composer Lorin Maazel evokes Orwell's totalitarian nightmare, where "Big Brother" is...

Wiener Philharmoniker, director Riccardo Muti

The Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert for 2003.

A production of Mozart's opera recorded live at Zurich Opera House in 2000. Cecilia Bartoli leads an all-star cast including Roberto Saccà,...

A recording of Horowitz's historic 1986 recital in Moscow, the program also includes highlights of his return to his native Soviet Union--his first...

The Three Tenors is a name given to the Spanish singers Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and the Italian singer Luciano Pavarotti who...

From the gorgeous scene deep in the river Rhine that opens the opera, up to the magic Rainbow Bridge that appears at the end, leading to a glistening...

Elijah Moshinsky's production of Saint-Saëns's "Samson et Dalila", recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera 28 September 1998. Plácido...

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.

The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this second opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle....

AIDA, an Ethiopian princess, is captured and brought into slavery in Egypt. A military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his...

This all-star cast is framed by Peter Hall’s gritty, realistic production and conducted by James Levine, who brings out all the surging emotion...

Performances from Pamela Coburn, Brigitte Fassbaender, Janet Perry, Eberhard Wachter, the Choir und Ballet der Bayerischen Staatsoper, and the...

Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting and directed for...

1982 revival of 1974 John Copley production.

European Concert 1994 From the Staatstheater Meiningen.

With their “comedy for music” in the spirit of Mozart, Richard Strauss and his inspired librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created the most...

"Manon", wrote Puccini to his publisher Giulio Ricordi in 1889, "is a heroine I believe in and therefore she cannot fail to win the heart of the...

This was one of the most emotional evenings in Met history—the night Leontyne Price bid farewell to opera. Aida is the role that inspired...

A timeless tale told in a florid bel canto style, Rossini’s take on the Cinderella story offers an ideal propellant for a virtuosic...

Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur concerns a doomed love based on a real story about an actress involved in a famous love triangle. Mirella Freni...

An Egyptian military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his love for the enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida, and his loyalty to the...

Verdi's most famous opera is performed at the Arena of Verona in Italy. Egypt and Ethiopia are at war. Radames is appointed commander of the Egyptian...

tt0253843. Il Trovatore (1985) Verona. Verdi / Italian. Reynald Giovaninetti conducts the Orchestra of the Arena di Verona in a performance of...

Live from La Scala Saturday 06 July 1985

Live performance at the Metropolitan Opera, 1984. James Levine conducting Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Stage direction by Piero Faggioni.

Live performance of Puccini's opera at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Piotr Beczala stars as Rodolfo with Anna Netrebko as Mimi, Massimo...

Live from Munich 2004

Live from Munich 2009

Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts this acclaimed staging of Paul Hindemith's ambitious opera of the goldsmith Cardillac, whom fortune seems to favor and...

Live from Munich, 2005. London, 1601: love, lust and a death sentence at the English royal court - that's just the mix for great Italian opera....

Inspired by Wagner’s own tortured affair with the wife of his patron, this searing masterwork is based on Arthurian legend and tells of an...

From the world famous Arena of Verona, an international cast perform one of Puccini's best loved operas. The cruel Princess Turandot, ruler of China,...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni is performed live at the Theater an der Wien in this 1999 production starring Carlos Alvarez in the title role...

In June 2015, superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann walked onto the stage of La Scala in Milan to perform a concert of Puccini arias. The concert made...

George Balanchine's abstract ballet danced to existing pieces of music by composers Faure, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky. Each section represents a...

"Spirituals in Concert" featuring Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle.

This elegant romance is the least-known work of the mature Giacomo Puccini . The story concerns a kept woman who defies convention to chase a dream...

A Carnegie Hall Christmas Concert is an 89-minute television film starring the opera singers Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade, the jazz...

Macbeth" was Giuseppe Verdi's first attempt at music drama and also the first manifestation of his profound love for Shakespeare's work. Verdi took...

The Wiener Philharmoniker mounts, and Andrea Breth stages, this 2007 production of Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, starring Peter...

This production of Hans Werner Henze's opera Upupa & Der Triumph der Sohnesliebe features Laura Aiken, John Mark Ainsley, and Alfred Muff in lead...

Christian Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden in this performance of Wagner's opera recorded live in 2013. The performance was held for the...

Christian Thielemann conducts this Staatskapelle Dresden production of Richard Strauss' chamber opera. The opera follows events at the home of the...

This release contains the celebrated 2006 production of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro that was directed for the stage by Claus Guth at that year's...

The 1791 La Clemenza di Tito (or 'The Clemency of Titus') marked Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's final opera seria. With a libretto by Metastasio (edited...

The last and arguably finest opera of Modest Mussorgsky is captured in one of its most powerful interpretations in this 1989 recording from the...

1987 recording of Wozzeck by the Vienna State Opera with Claudio Abbado conducting. Based upon Georg Büchner's 1837 play, Alban Berg's Wozzeck...

Puccini's Il Tabarro & Leoncavallo's Pagliacci; Pavarotti and Domingo star in MET 1994-1995 season opener.

Giacomo Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive...

James Morris leads an all-star cast including Karita Mattila, Ben Heppner, Thomas Allen and René Pape, in this production of Wagner's comic...

This 2004 production of Richard Strauss's three-act comic opera Der Rosenkavalier (1911) emerged from the efforts of the Grosses Festspielhaus...

Götterdämmerung, the fourth of Richard Wagner's four Ring operas. The cast features Manfred Jung as Siegfried and Gwyneth Jones as...

The third opera in Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle, Siegfried follows the adventures of the son of demigods Siegmund and Sieglinde as he conquers...

The second part of Patrice Chérau's epoch-making Bayreuth Ring is a radical re-imagining of Die Walküre, unprecedented in its...

This is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance of the first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle. As soon as the clouds...

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of...

Viva Vivaldi! is a concert by the Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli interspersing arias from the 20 surviving operas of Vivaldi with two...

In Concert at the Met (DVD) - Highlights Five of the Met's greatest stars - Price, Horne, Troyanos, Domingo, and Milnes - joined James Levine for a...

Ghiaurov, Freni, and Bumbry were great voices in their time, and they are still effective here -- good enough musicians to put over the quite heavy...

The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor....

Depicts the consumerism of the mythical city of Mahagonny, conveying all its ripe decadence. A Hollywood Babylon full of pyramidal towers, carved...

This tribute to James Levine, first shown on PBS, was only part of that glorious evening. Here we have the whole performance, up to three hours. I...

Live from the Metropolitan Opera: Simon Boccanegra

Flemings voice might have been made for Ariadne and she achieved a great personal triumph in this production: The chief glory of the evening was...

Otto Schenk’s brilliant production captures both the dark romanticism of the story as well as its fairy-tale magic. It is a superb setting for...

Verdi's opera performed by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by James Levine.

Live from the Metropolitan Opera, 14 February 1980. This version takes place in Boston rather than Sweden.

Stephen Wadsworth’s production of Mussorgsky’s epic masterpiece brilliantly captures the suffering and ambition of the Russian people at...

Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 27 February, 1996.

The stupendous climax to Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle is brilliantly realized by the Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production...

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's dazzling opera by-line in seven tableaux. The epic journey of Sadko a sea-faring minstrel from Novgorod, his wife Libava...

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...

Verdi - Un ballo in maschera / Domingo · Barstow · Quivar · Jo · Nucci · Rydl · Chaignaud · Wiener...

The incomparable Plácido Domingo began a new chapter in his legendary Met career when he created the role of Emperor Qin in the world premiere...

Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy or opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last...

A filmed concert of two famed sopranos.

The American Ballet Theatre, performing at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, June 1983, led by Mikhail Baryshnikov, present Cervantes'...

Performed in the actual Roman settings described in the libretto. Moreover, the scenes take place at the appropriate times of day. Rome, June 1800....

Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The text, by Antonio Somma, was based on Eugène...

Teatro Alla Scala 1983 production of three one-act operas from Puccini.

This 1969 BBC production is about as close as we can get to a definitive version of Benjamin Britten's PETER GRIMES, one of the greatest 20th Century...

Washington National Choir and Orchestra

As renowned for its harmonious overture as for its romantic storybook characters, this three-act masterwork features some of the composer’s...

Performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder by SBR, conducted by Mariss Jansons

Set during the Crusades, the story of Lombardi opens with the rivalry of two brothers -- Arvino and Pagano -- who vie with one another for the love...

After over a century out of the Met’s repertoire, audiences were thrilled to discover just what a sensational evening in the theater...

Music - Witness three wonderful ballets performed live on stage at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. "Sylphides" stars legend Mikhail...

The Maid of Orleans is an opera in 4 acts, 6 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was composed during 1878–1879 to a Russian libretto by the...

The New Year's Concert from in Vienna delights countless spectators every year. The list of star conductors who have conducted this traditional...

This evocative production by Giancarlo Del Monaco sumptuously captures the look and feel of 14th century Genoa and is a perfect compliment to...

Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.

Vladimir Horowitz's piano recital in 1987 at the Musikvereinssaal in Vienna.

Berlioz’s colossal masterpiece requires stupendous forces—dozens of soloists, enormous chorus, orchestra and ballet, a superb conductor...

Luciano Pavarotti brings his spectacular voice and artistry to one of the most famous of all tenor roles—Manrico, the ardent troubadour,...

Giancarlo Del Monaco’s atmospheric production brings to colorful life a 19th-century mining camp during the California Gold Rush. At the center...

Set during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), King of Babylon, the opera tells the tale of Nabucco's fictitious daughters, Abigaille and Fenena,...

The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 (Russian: Пиковая дама, Pikovaya dama, French: Pique Dame) is an opera in 3 acts (7 scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich...

Film recording of Robert Wilson’s stage production of the opera by Gluck. John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz’s 1859 revision of...

Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”

The celebrated mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli joins Bryn Terfel for a recital of arias and duets recorded at Glyndebourne Opera House in 1999. The...

Live performance from La Scala in Milan. Nabucco was the first production of the theatre's 1986-87 season.

This new production of Bellinis Norma by Jürgen Rose (sets, costumes, stage direction, and lighting) to honor Edita Gruberovas first staged...

Kiri Te Kanawa, Alexandru Agache, Michael Sylvesyer, and Roberto Scandiuzzi star in this Covent Garden production of the Verdi opera conducted by Sir...

These recordings, filmed in March and April 1974 for the BBC, occurred at the tail end of the old performance era and the very start of the new....

Richard Strauss' last stage work is an opera about opera as an art form, depicting the creation of a music drama in a wise and witty way. Which came...

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer,...

Wagner’s Romantic opera demands singing actors who can truly inhabit their parts, and that’s just what we have here. Is it possible for a...

What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One possible sequel is told in John...

John Copley’s colorful production, with designs by Beni Montresor, was created around the beloved superstar Luciano Pavarotti. As the simple,...

Luciano Pavarotti brings his spectacular voice and artistry to one of the most famous of all tenor roles—Manrico, the ardent troubadour,...

Valery Gergiev directs the Kirov Opera and Ballet in this dramatic staging of Tchaikovsky's rarely performed historical opera, based on Pushkin's...

James Levine leads a remarkable cast in one of Verdi’s most enduringly popular operas and brings fresh insights to this beloved score. Ileana...

One of today’s most compelling singing actresses, Karita Mattila takes on the irresistible role of Manon Lescaut, the headstrong young woman...

It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great...

A family conflict ensues after Owen, the youngest of the proud military family Wingrave, expected to continue the family tradition and become a...

John Dexter’s brilliant production, James Levine’s masterful conducting of the eclectic score, and a sensational cast come together to...

Wiener Philharmoniker, conductor Franz Welser-Most

Pharaoh's daughter Amneris loves general Radames, but he loves slave Aida. Aida's father leads the Ethiopian army to invade Egypt. When he's...

Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin staged in 1987 by Werner Herzog in Bayreuth.

Valery Gergiev leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in this production of Puccini's opera, recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele in 2002....