1. Turandot (Turandot)
2013 revival of Andrei Serban's 1984 production. Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, September 2013. Andrei Serban's spectacular and thrilling 1984 production of Puccini's final and grandest opera has long been a classic at the Royal Opera House. First filmed for BBC TV in the 80s, this new recording – of its fifteenth revival – is in stunning HD and makes this famous production available for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray. The release will rightfully take its place alongside the outstanding Royal Opera Puccini DVDs of La Bohème, Tosca and Trittico. American Lise Lindstrom is one of the very few contemporary Turandots who can genuinely sing this ‘killer’ role, and is supported by a touching Liù from Japanese soprano Eri Nakamura and an unashamedly Italianite Calaf from Marco Berti. The young Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási directs the large orchestra and all-important chorus.
2. Carmen (Carmen)
High Definition recording June 2014, Arena di Verona. This opulent production was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and sung by an international cast of excellent singers: Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk, soprano Irina Lungu, tenor Carlo Ventre and Carlos Alvarez. The famous opera is staged as a colourful feast for the eyes, true to its source and convincingly acted by soloists, chorus and ballet alike. Conducted by Henrik Nánási it is a gloriously sung musical experience.
3. Strauss: Salome (Strauss: Salome)
It is no wonder that Met audiences have gone wild over Karita Mattila’s sizzling Salome. Indisputably one of the greatest Salomes of our time, Mattila utterly incarnates Oscar Wilde’s petulant, willful, and lust-driven heroine. With Strauss’s groundbreaking music magnifying the degenerate atmosphere and building the erotic tension, this is one opera that is as shocking today as it was at its premiere in 1905.
4. The Metropolitan Opera: Hansel and Gretel
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. Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer star as the famous siblings lost in the woods, who battle the ravenous Witch—a zany portrayal by tenor Philip Langridge—while the Met orchestra, under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, glories in the rich, folk-inspired score.
5. The Metropolitan Opera: Lulu (The Metropolitan Opera: Lulu)
William Kentridge’s multi-layered production of Berg’s masterpiece stars charismatic soprano Marlis Petersen in the title role—the enigmatic and alluring woman who is equal parts femme fatale, innocent girl, and abused victim. The men around her, whose lives she forever alters, are Johan Reuter as newspaper publisher Dr. Schön; Daniel Brenna as his composer son, Alwa; Paul Groves as the Painter; and Franz Grundheber as Schigolch. Susan Graham sings Countess Geschwitz, and Lothar Koenigs conducts Berg’s landmark score.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
6. 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.
7. Notre Dame de Paris - Live Arena di Verona (Notre Dame de Paris - Live Arena di Verona)
Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.
It has an average vote of 9.5 on TMDB.
8. Ermione (Ermione)
Recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1995, this acclaimed presentation of composer Gioachino Rossini's epic opus ERMIONE is based on Jean Racine's play "Andromache." Set in Troy after the city fell to the Greeks, the production recounts the rancorous battle between widow Andromache and Helen of Troy's green-eyed daughter, Ermione for the love of Pyrrhus
9. 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'.
10. 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.
11. Francesca Da Rimini (Francesca Da Rimini)
LIve performance of Rachmaninoff's opera from the Opéra National de Lorraine, Nancy, 15 February 2015.
12. 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.
13. Carmen (Carmen)
Live performance from Teatro alla Scala, 7 December 2009 .
14. Carmen (Carmen)
Live performance from the Vienna State Opera, 6 May 2010.
15. Bizet: Carmen (Bizet: Carmen)
This 2003 performance of Georges Bizet's 19th century opera Carmen was produced and directed by filmmaker and stage director Franco Zeffirelli, best known to many for the Academy Award-winning big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shot at the Arena di Verona, the production features Marina Domashenko in the title role and music by the Orchestra of the Arena di Verona under conductor Alain Lombard.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
16. Prince Igor (Prince Igor)
Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, March 1, 2014. Absent from the Met stage since 1917, Borodin’s masterwork about an introspective prince’s military campaign against the invading Polovtsians returned in 2014 with a first-rate cast and an astonishing production by Dmitri Tcherniakov. Well worth the wait, the sets feature visually striking projections interlaced with lush flowering fields, and the first act delivers one of opera’s most exciting dance medleys, a portion of which went mainstream in the 1950s when Tony Bennett recorded “Stranger in Paradise.”
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
17. The Metropolitan Opera: Così Fan Tutte
Met Music director James Levine conducts a cast of youthful stars in Mozart’s sophisticated comedy about testing the ties of love. Susanna Phillips and Isabel Leonard are the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, who are led to believe their fiancés have gone off to war. Matthew Polenzani and Rodion Pogossov are Ferrando and Guglielmo, the lovers who return in disguise to test their girls' fidelity. Danielle de Niese sings the scheming maid Despina and Maurizio Muraro is Don Alfonso, the philosopher and mastermind pulling the strings.
18. Così fan tutte (Così fan tutte)
Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 27 February, 1996.
19. Die Fledermaus (Die Fledermaus)
Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 31 December 1986.
20. Don Pasquale (Don Pasquale)
This John Dexter production, designed by Desmond Heeley, was a parting gift to the great American soprano Beverly Sills, who bid farewell to the Met as Norina, the smart young widow at the center of Donizetti’s comedy. The sensational Alfredo Kraus sings her beloved Ernesto. Håkan Hagegård, in his Met debut role and season, is Dr. Malatesta, the man who helps the young couple trick the crusty old bachelor of the title into a fake marriage. This being a Donizetti comedy, it all turns out perfectly well at the end—and getting there is pure operatic fun.
