Opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), Recorded at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse

Stage Director : Stefano Vizioli
Conductor : Claus Peter Flor
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Chœur et Maîtrise du Capitole, chef de chœur : Alfonso Caiani

The historic genre of the great French Opera, with its great topics, its sumptuous sets, its extravagant outlay of effects and costumes, was born in the end of the...

Opera in four acts; recorded at the Opera de Rennes
Stage Director Nicola Berloffa accepts the challenge of a piece that is dramatic and yet full of light and colors. To suppport this opera, you have to assume its parts of carefreeness and darkness, like the famous part of the card trio, and above all leave the music and songs spread at every moment.


Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne
Choir of the Opéra de Rennes, Direction : Gildas Pungier
Julie...

Opera in 5 acts composed by Claudio Monteverdi
Recorded at the Théâtre de Caen

Paul Agnew – here both conductor and stage director – presents his intimate and ‘sacred’ version of Monteverdi’s first opera. In a fine collective spirit, the singers and instrumentalists of Les Arts Florissants participate in the drama on equal terms, mingling in a single set that gives increased prominence to the (masterly) lighting and to the protagonists (overwhelmingly moving in their...

In 2015, Limoges Opera initiated a participatory project aimed at taking a new look at the mythical character of Cinderella. Over a 2-year period, performing arts professionals intervened in classes to introduce children to writing, voice and movement.
A unique adventure for the hundreds of children who took part in this musical theatre creation on the theme of Cinderella.
The social and psychological problems of the story (the place of young women in society, stepfamilies, the...

Operatic Dramma Giocoso in 2 Acts by Gioachino Rossini;
Recorded at the Opéra de Lille

Stage Director : Jean Bellorini
Conductor : Antonello Allemandi
Orchestre de Picardie
Chœur de l’Opéra de Lille, chef de chœur : Yves Parmentier

"La Cenerentola", inspired by the fairy tale "Cinderella" and offers a cheerful music. Jean Bellorini sprinkles this opera by the sense of Italian Cinema of 1950-1960 for a marvellous show. "La Cenerentola"...

L’Orfeo, a musical fable written by Claudio Monteverdi in 1607, often considered the first real opera in history, is a musically intense work with a libretto directly inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The richness of the orchestration, the virtuosity of the choral pages and the precise characterisation of the various roles, make it a unique masterpiece.
While shepherds and nymphs sing of Orpheus and Eurydice’s love, Orpheus prays to the sun to bless his marriage. Blissfully happy, he...

Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa
Created at The Scala de Milan on February 1904

Hearing again and again Madame Butterfly, means to accept to play the game of emotion - In this case Puccini, fires straight and hits strongly -, means to take pleasure to be gut-wrenching with delight for this terrible love story, of expectation and treason between Butterfly, a young geisha and Pinkerton, an american officer.

Two works that have rarely seen the light of day. Setting them alongside Rameau’s tragédies lyriques one might be tempted to dismiss them as flimsy entertainments but they reveal a world full of charm, humanity, sensuality, and grace. These are not pieces written for the opera houses of Paris but for the private court at Fontainebleau. Away from the Paris critics, Rameau was able to experiment with more European styles and a great sense of freedom emanates from these scores – Rameau making his...

Opéra in three acts
Music & libretto by Richard Wagner - Paris version (1842)

Paris in summer 1841 : during a few weeks, richard Wagner influenced by Romantic Opera, composes Der fliegende Holländer, which he will consider as the first opera worthy of his quill. The version written in the French capital city - Wagner’s first version - was ordered by Paris Opera House, and finally refused by the director in those days. It was rarely played since. This almost original...

Opérette in 3 acts by Louis Varney
Libretto by Jules Prével & Paul Ferrier adapted by Jérôme Deschamps
based on a vaudeville by St-Hilaire and Dupont entitled "L'habit ne fait pas le moine"
Created in Paris, at the Bouffes-Parisiens, on March 1880

"Musketeers! In a convent!", Residents not that holy, quite wide-eyed nuns, a madcap abbot and a Governor off the wall, this is the setting of this operetta with a rock staging. Under the dynamic direction of...

Comédie lyrique in three acts, Libretto from Federico Romero & Guillermo Fernandez-Shaw Based on Lope de Vega's play La Discreta enamorada , Music by Amadeo Vives
Created on October 1923 au Théâtre Apolo de Madrid

At the beginning of 1920, Doña Francisquita gave life back to the Zarzuela genre in Spain.
The libretto is about a young beautiful girl who tries to seduce the frivolous Fernando in love with an actress…

Amadeo Vives, a cultured musician,...

Combining different artistic disciplines for the first time, La Pellegrina marks the birth of the opera from the sixteenth century, twenty-eight years before Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Jacopo Peri’s Eurydice.
In the spring of 1589, to welcome Christine of Lorraine, who was coming to join her new husband the Grand Duke Ferdinand de Medici, the Tuscan city was adorned with a thousand splendours. The highpoint of the festivities was a performance in the great hall of the Uffizi Palace of the...

The opera is inspired by the play "Turandot" by Count Carlo Gozzi. "Turandot, the Emperor’s daughter, challenges her suitors to solve three riddles. She will marry the one who succeeds, but those who fail will be executed. Kalaf, an exiled prince in disguise, takes up the challenge”. Busoni composed the music in 1907 and wrote the opera during the First World War. Rejecting psychology and naturalism, in 1917 Busoni, an unclassifiable composer straddling Italy and Germany, created what he called...