1. Amadeus
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.
It has an average vote of 8.038 on TMDB.
2. Saul
Glyndebourne's Saul stole the summer and had critics raving. The Guardian applauded virtuoso stagecraft from director Barrie Kosky in his debut production there, calling the show a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing. For The Independent, which ranked it amongst five top classical and opera performances of 2015, there was no praise too high for the cast. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivor Bolton sparkles from the pit with period panache, and designer Katrin Lea Tag's exuberant costumes set the Old Testament story in Handel's time, with a witty twinge of the contemporary.
3. Hippolyte and Aricie (Paris National Opera)
Topi Lehtipuu and Anne-Catherine Gillet star in the 2012 Opera National de Paris production of Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera Hippolyte et Aricie. Also starring Sarah Connolly and Stephane Degout.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
4. The Cunning Little Vixen
Nicholas Hytner's enchanting production, sung in the original Czech, is conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, a master of the best Janacek style. Through myriad shifts of scene, the episodic story is presented in brightly-colored sets and costumes of blissful innocence and simplicity, designed by Bob Crowley. Jean-Claude Gallotta's choreography for the insects and animals, and Jean Kalman's lighting add to the nostalgically poetic effect of the whole. With Thomas Allen as the Forester, the cast includes Eva Jenis, Hanna Minutillo, Richard Novak and Ivan Kusnjer. This live recording comes from the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.
5. Bastien a Bastienna (Bastien a Bastienna)
(Bastien a Bastienna)
6. Prodaná nevěsta (Prodaná nevěsta)
(Prodaná nevěsta)
7. Únos ze Serailu (Únos ze Serailu)
(Únos ze Serailu)
8. Libuše (Libuše)
(Libuše)
9. Falstaff (Falstaff)
It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great comedy fighting to get out that we owe this absolute miracle of an opera. Produced in 1893 as Verdi turned 80 there is much in this masterpiece that can be identified as a modernist neoclassical work. The use of short motifs instead of long arioso melodic lines, the spry and reduced orchestral textures and the lack of a single 'stand and deliver' dramatic declamatory aria all serve to make this more of a 20th century work than an example of 19th century late-Romanticism.
It has an average vote of 8.2 on TMDB.
10. The Passion of Scrooge
Is this a film about Scrooge? About a composer’s life? An opera within an opera? The Passion of Scrooge blurs these lines between performance, documentary, and fiction, into a cinematic concert experience that’s seasoned with magical reality. Composer Jon Deak has adapted Charles Dickens’ timeless tale into a contemporary opera that melts the heart, but doesn’t avoid the darkness in Scrooge that’s still resonant with the material concerns of our time. Using neither period costumes, nor set pieces to reconstruct old England, the film invites you to experience A Christmas Carol with the imaginative possibilities of a radio play. And then, to meet those visions in your head, filmmaker H. Paul Moon‘s floating camera intimately captures musicians performing the score as characters themselves, in this ageless haunted redemption story about “us, every one.”
11. The Metropolitan Opera - Puccini: Madama Butterfly (The Metropolitan Opera - Puccini: Madama Butterfly)
Anthony Minghella’s beautiful, atmospheric production enhances Puccini’s drama of unfortunate, doomed love. Soprano Kristine Opolais brings all of her passionate commitment to her portrayal of Cio-Cio-San, the teenage geisha who gives up everything for Lt. Pinkerton. Roberto Alagna is the American naval officer who does not understand the depth of Cio-Cio-San’s love, and whose subsequent marriage to an American woman precipitates Butterfly’s suicide. Maria Zifchak is Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San’s faithful servant, and Dwayne Croft plays the American consul Sharpless, who tries to avert the tragedy. Karel Mark Chichon conducts.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
12. Der Rosenkavalier (Der Rosenkavalier)
(Der Rosenkavalier)
13. Rossini: L'italiana in Algeri (Rossini: L'italiana in Algeri)
(Rossini: L'italiana in Algeri)
14. Donizetti - La Favorite
Donizetti's French masterpiece was in the hands of Italian conductor Antonello Allemandi. This maestro, a bel canto specialist, captured the fire and intensity of the passions from the get-go, making the overture a superbly eloquent transition to a musical world based on beautiful lines and colors that elaborate distress and make it compellingly elegant. Allemandi demonstrated a full authority over the stage for the musically complex scenes, and in the arias and duets he demonstrated his confidence in the artistry of distraught singers by establishing ample tempos to support their soaring vocal lines while he concentrated on pulling every possible nuance from the pit players.
15. Siegfried (Longborough Opera Festival 2022)
The hero Siegfried reforges his father’s shattered sword, embarking on a quest for the greatest prize of all – the love of the valkyrie Brünnhilde, who lies trapped in a ring of fire. Siegfried is the third opera in Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Wagner broke off composition at the end of Act II of Siegfried to write Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, returning to Siegfried seven years later. Longborough Festival Opera, known as the British Bayreuth, calls on renowned Wagnerian Anthony Negus to conduct and Amy Lane to stage this new production of Siegfried in the bucolic English Cotswolds.
16. Händel / Mozart: Der Messias (Händel / Mozart: Der Messias)
Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a magnificent production of Mozart’s adaption of Handel’s Messias. Mozart was commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten to modernise the score fifty years after Handel’s popular composition , mainly by arranging the wind parts and partially re-composing them. With Marc Minkowski a conductor has been engaged who understands perfectly how to combine baroque style with the tonal possibilities of an orchestra of the classical period like the Musiciens du Louvre. The excellent soloist quartet with Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza merges perfectly into Wilson’s enormous flood of images.
17. Et avec la Lumière et la Mort sans cesse (Et avec la Lumière et la Mort sans cesse)
(Et avec la Lumière et la Mort sans cesse)
18. Trouble in Tahiti
Matthew Eberhardt brings 1950s suburbia to life in Leonard Bernstein’s colourful criticism of American consumerism. This performance stars Wallis Giunta, winner of the Young Singer Award at the 2018 International Opera Awards, in the role of Dinah.
19. Eugene Onegin (Eugene Onegin)
Tchaikovsky's much-loved opera Eugene Onegin, a story of love, rejection and tragedy based on Pushkin's verse drama of the same name.
20. The Cunning Little Vixen
An adaptation of Leos Janacek's opera Prihody Lisky Bystrousky , based on the novel Liska Bystrouska by Rudolf Tesnohlidek. It follows the life of Sharp-Ears, a fox who is captured by a forester as a cub and raised in his home prior to escaping back into the forest.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
