ListSimilar.

1. Rodelinda (Rodelinda)

Claus Guth's exciting 2017 staging of Handel’s "Rodelinda" at Madrid’s Teatro Real, featuring Lucy Crowe and Bejun Mehta as Rodelinda and Bertarido, with conductor Ivor Bolton. After the successes of "Giulio Cesare" in 1723 and "Tamerlano" in 1724, Rodelinda completes the trilogy of Handel’s great opera seria masterpieces. The work was composed in 1725 using Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto, a work inspired by Antonio Salvi’s earlier libretto which had been itself adapted from Pierre Corneille’s tragedy "Pertharite, roi des Lombards". Rodelinda thus brought one of the most glorious compositional periods in the Handel’s career to a close, about a decade after his arrival in the British capital. Mixing romantic storytelling and political intrigue, Handel produced one of his most beautiful scores, a true operatic tour de force.

2. Les Brigands (Les Brigands)

“Everyone steals according to one’s position in society.” A social critique, a credo to live by, and a recipe for the hilarious satire of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Brigands! The Opéra Comique’s rollicking 2011 production took full advantage of the talents of stage directors Macha Makeïeff and Jérôme Deschamps and the accomplished music director François-Xavier Roth.

3. Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann)

Giancarlo Del Monaco's passionate and intelligent production of Jacques Offenbach's magnum opus creates a climactic kaleidoscope of deep and convincing emotions. A highly credible incarnation of the pitiable Kleinzach he sings about, Aquiles Machado is the poet who loses his romantic idealism, his reflection and finally his soul to a 'trio of charming enchantresses'.

4. Massenet: Thaïs (Massenet: Thaïs)

When the most voluptuous, sought-after courtesan in the world meets an ascetic monk whose life is devoted to God, you know erotic sparks are going to fly. And when the clash takes place in a glorious, but rarely performed, opera by Massenet, it’s a delight to the ear just as much as to the eye. Renée Fleming is every inch the glamorous Thaïs, swathed in elegant gowns designed by Christian Lacroix. Thomas Hampson is Athanaël, the tortured man of God. This production by John Cox, which premiered in December 2008, brilliantly sets the stage for a confrontation as old as civilization itself.

5. Le Nozze di Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro)

The Met assembled a vocal dream team for Jonathan Miller’s stylish production of the eternal Mozart masterpiece: Renée Fleming as the Countess, Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna, and Bryn Terfel as Figaro. With James Levine—one of the world’s great conductors of Mozart—in the pit, Bartoli interpolating two rarely heard alternate arias, and Dwayne Croft as the Count and Susanne Mentzer as Cherubino, this is a performance for the record books.

6. Carmen aux Chorégies d'Orange 2015 (Carmen aux Chorégies d'Orange 2015)

Live performance from Chorégies d'Orange, 11 July 2015.

7. Carmen (Carmen)

Live performance from Taormina Opera Festival, July 15, 2015.

8. Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann)

Live performance from the Opéra National de Lyon.

9. Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann)

Live from the Metropolitan Opera 19 December 2009.

10. Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann)

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 Neil Shicoff’s vivid portrayal of the tortured poet Hoffmann, as he recounts the loves of his life and the way he has been foiled by his nemesis—a marvelous James Morris in a tour-de-force performance of the opera’s four villains. Gwendolyn Bradley is the doll Olympia, Tatiana Troyanos sings the courtesan Giulietta, and Roberta Alexander portrays the innocent Antonia.

11. Benvenuto Cellini (Benvenuto Cellini)

Live performance from Salzburg Festival Opera, August 2007.</p><p> The story tells of Cellini's love for Teresa, daughter of the Papal Treasurer Balducci. His rival, the Papal Sculptor Fieramosca, overhears Cellini plotting to run away with Teresa during the carnival.

It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.

12. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail)

The prestigious Gran Teatre del Liceu from Barcelona presents Mozart's beloved opera in an elegant, dramatic twist with a sparkling cast of world-class stars, led by coloratura soprano Diana Damrau as Constance and rising star Olga Peretyatko as Blonda. Director Christophe Loy has created a thought-provoking and surprisingly original script in which both Constance and Blonda feel respect, admiration and even deep love for their captors. As a result of this tantalizing, torturous approach, traditional norms and concepts of good and evil were turned upside down.

13. Die Zauberflöte (Die Zauberflöte)

Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, 6 August 2012.

14. Un Ballo in Maschera (Un Ballo in Maschera)

Live performance from Oper Leipzig, 26 November 2005.

15. Eugene Onegin (Eugene Onegin)

Live performance by the Bolshoi Theatre at the Palais Garnier, Opéra National de Paris, 2008.

16. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (Komische Oper Berlin) (Eugene Onegin)

Live performance from the Komische Oper Berlin, February 15 2016.

17. Eugene Onegin (Eugene Onegin)

Live performance for Garsington Opera, June-July, 2016.

18. Gounod: Faust (Gounod: Faust)

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann is riveting as the title character of Gounod’s popular opera, seen in this Live in HD presentation of Des McAnuff’s thrilling 2011 production that places the mythical and timeless story in an early 20th-century setting. René Pape as Méphistophélès is menacing and elegant in equal measure, and Marina Poplavskaya delivers a searingly intense portrayal of the innocent Marguerite. Russell Braun as her brother, Valentin, shines in his Act II aria. On the podium, Yannick Nézet-Séguin brings out all the lyricism and drama of Gounod’s score.

19. Francesca Da Rimini (Francesca Da Rimini)

LIve performance of Rachmaninoff's opera from the Opéra National de Lorraine, Nancy, 15 February 2015.

20. Adriana Lecouvreur (Adriana Lecouvreur)

In the present stylised production by Lorenzo Mariani the 'violet-perfumed murderess' is taken by mezzo-soprano Marianne Cornetti, one of the most in-demand representatives of her vocal category. Opposite her, in the role of Adriana, is a soprano who as a Verdi and verismo specialist also appears regularly at all the major international opera houses, Micaela Carosi. The 'cock-of-the-walk' role is sung by the world-class tenor Marcelo Álvarez. His timbre, velvety smooth yet robustly virile, is ideally suited to a vocal characterisation of the idolised Maurizio. Conductor Renato Palumbo is very much at home with Cilea's operatic masterpiece, since the Italian Romantic and verismo periods are at the core of his extensive repertoire.