The Metropolitan Opera: L’Amour de Loin

Robert Lepage’s dreamlike production, with its thousands of twinkling LED lights stretching across the stage to represent the sea, encapsulates the mystic feeling of L’Amour de Loin, Saariaho’s haunting opera of distant love. Eric Owens is Jaufré Rudel, a troubadour in 12th century France who has become tired of his hedonistic life and longs for an idealized love. Enter the Pilgrim (Tamara Mumford) who tells him his perfect love does, in fact, exist, far across the sea. She is Clémence, Countess of Tripoli (Susanna Phillips). The magic of the characters’ inner lives as they explore the meaning of love, longing, life, and death is heightened by Saariaho’s hypnotic and bewitching score, conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

The Metropolitan Opera: Aida

The Met’s spectacular production of Verdi’s Egyptian epic captures both the grandeur and the intimacy of this powerful tale of love and politics. Liudmyla Monastyrska is Aida, the Ethiopian princess-turned-slave in love with the Egyptian warrior Radamès, sung by Roberto Alagna. Olga Borodina is her rival, Amneris, daughter of the Pharao, and George Gagnidze sings Aida’s father, Amonasro, the King of Ethiopia. Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. This version is conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala, Milan.

The Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni

Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Juan, creating a vivid portrait of a man who is a law unto himself, and all the more dangerous for his eternally seductive allure. Adam Plachetka is his occasionally unruly servant Leporello. It’s when Giovanni tangles with Donna Anna (Hibla Gerzmava) that things start to unravel, aided by the reappearance of Donna Elvira (Malin Byström), who is determined not to let her seducer go. With Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s eternally steadfast fiancé. Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Exterminating Angel

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.

The Metropolitan Opera: Tosca

Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thrilled Met audiences when it rang in the New Year in 2018. Only weeks later, the production was seen by opera lovers worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema presentations. In this performance, Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Željko Lučić is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. On the podium, Emmanuel Villaume conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.

The Metropolitan Opera: Luisa Miller

Premiered immediately before the enduring masterpieces Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, Luisa Miller incorporates the youthful vitality that had made Verdi an international sensation while also looking forward to the dramaturgical discipline and sophistication of those later works. In this Live in HD performance, soprano Sonya Yoncheva takes on the riveting title role, capping off a season in which she starred in three cinema transmissions. As her father, Miller, the legendary Plácido Domingo adds another baritone role to his extensive repertoire. Tenor Piotr Beczała as Rodolfo, Alexander Vinogradov as Count Walter, and Dmitry Belosselskiy as Wurm round out the illustrious cast, and Bertrand de Billy conducts.

L’Italiana in Algeri

Live performance from the Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1987. At the age of 21, Italian composer Giacchino Rossini penned the masterful comic opera “L’Italiana in Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”) in less than a month. The composer’s youthful exuberance comes across in this infectious 1987 performance. Though she’s known mainly for her Wagner roles, acclaimed German mezzo-soprano Doris Soffel shines in the title role of Isabella. Ralf Weikert conducts, and Mauro Pagano oversees sets and costumes.

Les Contes D'Hoffmann

Among DVDs of "Hoffmann" currently available, this is the only one that even begins to stand comparison with the superlative Powell and Pressburger film (whose ideas it occasionally borrows). Olivier Py's baroque imagination, which sometimes leads him into self-indulgence and incoherence, is well suited to bringing out this opera's darkness and he does an excellent job

Otello

The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.

Rodelinda

Jean-Marie Villegier's modern interpretation of Handel's "Rodelinda" – filmed live at the world-renowned Glyndebourne Opera House in the United Kingdom, sets the timeless tale of jealousy and treachery in the black-and-white world of the silent-movie era. Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci sings the title role of Rodelinda, with tenor Kurt Streit and bass Umberto Chiummo performing the parts of Grimoaldo and Garibaldo, respectively.

La Belle Hélène

This is a joy from beginning to end. Although there are many tricks and ideas from Laurent Pelly, as always he seems to still retain the Offenbach magic. La Lott and Monsieur Beuron are a joy, but so is everyone else. The Patriotic Trio by the sea is both a hoot and wonderfully sung, the score seems truly complete yet never flags and the finale sequences for especially acts 1 & 2 are a joy of movement and sound fused as one glorious Offenbachian moment.

Der Rosenkavalier

The Semperoper caused a sensation in November 2007 when it visited Japan for the first time in twenty-six years. The demand for tickets and the audience's enthusiasm were unprecedented, not least because the company was staging a piece that is performed more authentically in Dresden than anywhere else in the world: Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, which received its first performance in Dresden in 1911. Leading the ensemble was the radiant-voiced and profoundly thoughtful Marschallin of Anne Schwanewilms.

Salome

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Live performance from the Opéra National de Paris, 2003.

Carmen

David McVicar's exhilarating new production, with Anne Sofie von Otter in the title role, restores the Opera Comique to Bizet's masterpiece. Philippe Jordan, in his Glyndebourne debut, conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Chorus, and a cast which includes Marcus Haddock, Laurent Naouri, and Lisa Milne.

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

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Die Walküre

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is the second of the four operas that form Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The story of the opera is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda.[1][2] In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one in a group of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which live. Die Walküre's best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries". DVD release June 2009.

Die Zauberflöte, Bregenzer Festspiele

What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lovers’ arias, showstopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales. W. A. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most often performed operas in the world. The production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than twenty meters in height. “David Pountney finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’.” (Tagesspiegel) “The ‘play on the lake’ in Bregenz takes the audience into a fantasy world.” (Salzburger Nachrichten)

Andrea Chénier

Live from ROH 1985. Giordano's Andrea Chenier is one of the greatest of verismo operas, full of heart-stopping big tunes and powerful emotional situations. If it is not as well-known as it should be, it is because in summary it sounds a little too like Puccini's Tosca: there is a tussle between political opponents over a woman, an attempt to save a condemned man, a tenor aria about writing poetry on the eve of execution. The difference is that Gerard (Giorgio Zancanaro) is not a villain like Scarpia, he is an idealist whom the French Revolution has betrayed as much as it has his rival the poet Chenier (Placido Domingo). His temptation to abuse his power to seduce the virtuous Maddalena (Anna Tomowa-Sintow) is a momentary one, though its consequences are terrible. There is a streak of post-Wagnerian decadence in much of this--Maddalena is at least as much in love with death as she is with Chenier, and the final love duet has a deeply sinister aspect. -- From Amazon.co.uk

The Good Witch's Destiny

As Cassie's birthday approaches, Lori discovers disturbing parallels between Cassie and her great aunt, who disappeared years before on her birthday. When signs of a curse appear, Cassie conjures up a little magic to make things right again.

Honey 3: Dare to Dance

While attending college in Cape Town, Melea Martin feels constrained by the school's strict policies, and decides to set out on her own. Searching for a way to use her talents as a dancer and inspire the community around her, Melea rents a failing theater in order to put on a Hip-Hop Romeo and Juliet performance. But much like the Capulets and Montagues, conflicts between cast members threaten to bring the whole performance to a halt...

The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms

Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives. Mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves.

Pippi on the Run

Fed up with their strict parents, Tommy and Annika run away from home, with their friend Pippi Longstocking to look after them in their long trek.

Freezer

New York city mechanic Robert Saunders is knocked unconscious at his birthday dinner by Russian thugs and wakes up to find himself locked inside the restaurant's industrial freezer. This ruthless gang demand he return the $8 million he has stolen from them. The only problem Robert has no idea what they are talking about. But as the temperature drops and the terror grows, the shocking truth begins to emerge as Robert struggles to survive.

Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King

Comic Hasan Minhaj of "The Daily Show" shares personal stories about racism, immigrant parents, prom night horrors and more in this stand-up special.

HGTV: My House Goes Disney

TV Special converting a Disney fan's house into their dream home.

Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!

Teddy Duncan's middle-class family embarks on a road trip from their home in Denver to visit Mrs. Duncans Parents, the Blankenhoopers, in Palm Springs. When they find themselves stranded between Denver and Utah, they try to hitch a ride to Las Vegas with a seemingly normal older couple in a station wagon from Roswell, New Mexico. It turns out that the couple believes they are the victims of alien abduction. The Duncan's must resort to purchasing a clunker Yugo to get to Utah, have their luggage stolen in Las Vegas, and survive a zany Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Blankenhooper.

White Bird in a Blizzard

In 1988, a teenage girl's life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears.

A Girl Like Her

Sophomore year has been a nightmare for Jessica Burns. Relentlessly harassed by her former friend Avery Keller, Jessica doesn't know what she did to deserve the abuse from one of South Brookdale High's most popular and beautiful students. But when a shocking event changes both of their lives, a documentary film crew, a hidden digital camera, and the attention of a reeling community begin to reveal the powerful truth about A Girl Like Her.

A New Girl in Paris!

Tamara has been separated from Diego for two years. She finally leaves home to live the student adventure in Paris with his girlfriend Sam. In a galley apartment, they accept a cohabit with Wagner. Problem: Diego is part of the lot, and he is no more single.

See You In Valhalla

After the bizarre death of her brother, Johana Burwood must return home after four years, to face her strange siblings, her out of touch father and her very touchy past.

One Kiss

Lorenzo, Blue and Antonio have a lot in common: they are sixteen, attending the same class in the same school in a small town in the northeast, each have a family that loves them. And all three, though for different reasons, have come to be isolated from other peers. Their new friendship helps them to resist, until the mechanical attraction and fear the judgment of others do not grasp them unprepared.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

The continuation of Joe's sexually dictated life delves into the darker aspects of her adult life and what led to her being in Seligman's care.

Belle and Sebastian: The Adventure Continues

September, 1945. Sebastian impatiently waits for the return of his friend Angelina, whom he has not seen for two years. When the plane carrying the young woman to her small village in the Alps is reported to have crashed in the mountains, Sebastian is convinced that Angelina is still alive. Along with his faithful dog Belle, Sebastian embarks on the most dangerous adventure of his life.

Drink Slay Love

A 16-year old vampire discovers she has the ability to withstand sunlight. Sensing an opportunity to round up new victims, her family enrolls her in high school, where her who-cares attitude quickly makes her the coolest girl around.

Beyond the Gates

Two estranged brothers reunite at their missing father's video store to liquidate the property and sell off his assets. As they dig through the store, they find a VCR board game titled 'Beyond the Gates' that holds a connection to their father's disappearance and deadly consequences for anyone who plays it.

A Wish for Christmas

Sara Shaw is the type of woman who prefers to sit on the sidelines at work, but when her big idea for a Christmas initiative is stolen, she makes a wish to Santa that she'll finally have the courage to stand up for herself. Santa grants her wish, but only gives her 48 hours. As the clock ticks, Sara will discover how to channel the Christmas magic and speak her mind all on her own.