Movies: Decca

Ute Lemper sings a collection of art songs by Michael Nyman based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud. It was filmed at the Musikhalle, Hamburg, 4 February 1992....

La traviata (Italian: [la traˈviaːta], "The Fallen Woman"[1][2]) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre D...

This superb 2006 production of the Los Angeles Opera's La Traviata stars Renée Fleming, who joins the ranks of the elite handful of sopranos whose vocal and acting talents make their portrayals memorable. Her Violetta Valéry is a vulnerable figure to...

The classic Mariinsky (Kirov) production of the greatest of all ballets. Filmed in the imperial splendor of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Starring Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev and the breathtaking Mariinsky corps de ballet. Conducted b...

The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely co...

Wagner's Lohengrin is the mythical tale of the mysterious Knight of the Grail, who appears to defend the princess Elsa - wrongly accused of the murder of her brother. Highlights of Wagner's most lyrical score include the famous Wedding March, which a...

Part of an epoch-making release of Mozart's complete operas on DVD, here is the 18-year old composer's first mature opera buffa. Hilarity mingles with passionate emotions when belfiore believes he has killed his lover in a fit of jealousy, but then e...

Renée Fleming lights up the Met stage as Hanna Glawari, the fabulously wealthy widow of the title in Lehár’s beloved operetta, set in Paris and seen in a glittering production directed and choreographed by Broadway’s Susan Stroman. Nathan Gunn is Dan...

This is an excellent version of one of the greatest of all comic operas, featuring superb singing and orchestral playing. And it's not just the two headliners; listen, for example, to the entrance of the stepsisters at the beginning of Act One. Never...

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 Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same...

Christmas is now more beautiful and cosy than ever! Experience Christmas in London, together with André Rieu. Decorated Christmas trees everywhere you look, beautifully lit streets, tempting Christmas window displays... Combine the unique London Chri...

La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. The op...

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 hearing Renee Fleming, the Straussian soprano par excellence, making her role debut as Ariadne… As the po...

Live recording from Oper Zurich, 2008, DVD release 2014. Jonas Kaufmann, 'the Prince of Tenors', appears with international star Vesselina Kasarova in Zürich Opera's starkly palpable staging of Bizet's ever-popular Carmen. The production sees Don Jo...

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a comic opera (melodramma giocoso) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Written...

This TV production is from 1970 and the color picture is accordingly rich and beautiful. The sound however is below average for the era, but still ... twiddle the knobs, turn the bass up a little, and get acclimated. This is a fully traditional produ...

Werther loves Charlotte, but she promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. After the marriage Charlotte suggests that Werther should travel - but not forget her. In addition to the singing and orchestral accompaniment, the enti...

A conceptual digital masterpiece of The Gods We Can Touch, the new album from AURORA...

Christian Thielemann conducts this Staatskapelle Dresden production of Richard Strauss' chamber opera. The opera follows events at the home of the wealthiest man in Vienna, who has booked both a comedy burlesque act and a serious opera group for ente...

"Giovanna d'Arco; ossia, la pulzella d'Orléans" is an operatic dramma lirico with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The opera partly reflects the story of Joan of Arc and is based on a play by F...