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Richard Wagner called Die Walküre the “first evening” of the Ring of the Nibelung; he called Das Rheingold the prologue or Vorabend. Musically and dramatically, we are introduced to a radically new an...


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A 1985 performance of Luchino Visconti's 1958 staging for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bernard Haitink memorably directs a superb cast that includes Ileana Cotrubas at the height of her power...


Götterdämmerung, the final instalment of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, is a story of human passions. Two essentially benevolent creatures, involved with and possibly doomed by their traffic with the ...


In Siegfried, the “Second Day” or third evening of the Ring Cycle, we meet the pivotal hero of the epic tale. The energetic drive from Die Walküre is pursued here while Siegfried finally recaptures th...


The most popular Czech comic opera, with a libretto by Karel Sabina, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, in the current production of the National Theater in Prague. For mor...


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Passion, jealousy and betrayal take center stage at Londons Royal Opera House in a spectacular production of the worlds most popular opera. Bizets Carmen is packed with some of the best-loved and memo...


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Sergey Prokofiev's operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel was never performed in the composers lifetime the musics brittle energy, drama and eloquent lyrical tenderness would re-emerge in his Third Symphony...


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Johann Strauss, Jr., a would-be composer of waltzes in mid-19th Century Vienna, attempts to thwart his father's efforts to prevent his success when the older man becomes jealous of his melodic skill....


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Witness the Zurich Opera's stunning production of Richard Wagner's masterpiece "Tannhauser," conducted by Franz Welser-Most and featuring Peter Sieffert (Tannhauser), Solveig Kringelborn (Elisabeth) a...


Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed....


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Frantisek Filip film version of the Smetana opera....