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A tragic and secretive romance ensues over many years after two men meet while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in this opera based on Annie Proulx's short story and its subsequent Oscar-winning film adaptation.

Who was Moliere? He is known everywhere as one of the world's greatest playwrights. But who was he? Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, the son of a prosperous tapestry maker. His mother died when he was a boy. Growing up in the teeming streets of 17th century Paris, Jean Baptiste received a good Jesuit education and was fascinated by the street fairs and traveling carnivals that flourished in spite of the religious repression and hypocrisy of those cruel times. As a young man he joined the theatrical Bejart family to establish the Illustre-Theatre, which soon went bankrupt. The troupe reformed, found patronage, and went on the road for thirteen years, performing all over France. Poquelin developed his stagecraft adapting Commedia dell Arte plots to please brutalized peasants and cynical townspeople. He also married Madeline Bejart, the widowed daughter of the troupe's founder. Later he entered into a love affair with Mme Bejart's daughter, to the dismay of all. The troupe eventually returned to Paris and, on October 24, 1658, greatly impressed the 20-year old King Louis XIV, later to be called the Sun King. Moliere's life became bound up with the magnificent court at Versailles, and with its intrigues. He wrote, staged and acted in the plays now famous all over the world. He fought with his enemies and his friends, enjoyed success followed by failure, organized court festivities and defended himself against increasingly fanatic religious authorities. Above all, his theater was taken from life as his life was theatrical.

This film follows Polish countertenor Jakub Josef Orlinski and three facets of his singing, evoked through three countries. In New York, it will be opera for his debut at the MET, in Warsaw it will be Lied accompanied by piano and finally in Barcelona, it will be Baroque arias with the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. Each of these three cities will also be the occasion to evoke an aspect of his personality. The whole, will be embellished by breakdance that he has been practicing for a long time as well as by extracts filmed by Orlinski himself with his phone and integrated into the material of the film itself, as a dialogue between the media and formats supposed to draw at the end an intimate and digital portrait with multiple points of view.

Mozart's famous Singspiel (an operatic genre with much recitative; the title is German for the Abduction from the Seragalio), after Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's work "Belmonte und Constanze", comes to life in the sumptuous setting of Topkapi, the Ottoman sultans' own Istanbul seraglio (palace harem). Belmonte finds his fiancée Constanze and her English maid Blondchen ('Blondie'), who were captured and sold by pirates, in the Meditarranean seraglio of the Ottoman pasha (military lord) Selim. Belmonte's servant Pedrillo gets him engaged as builder. After Selim tried to enforce himself upon Konstanze, Pedrillo and Blondchen, his own sweetheart, prepare their flight, managing to get Osmin, the pashas overseer, drunk. Yet Osmin and Selim's guard still capture them, already in the garden; however the touching display of true love melts the pashas heart, so he lets them go.

A choreographer must face an unresolved romantic encounter from her past as she creates a new dance work.

In the prologue Fortune, Virtue and Cupid argue about their respective powers. Love sets out to demonstrate his supremacy, in what follows. In the street outside Poppaea's house, Otho complains at her infidelity. He was her lover, but now she is sleeping within with Nero, the Emperor, while his two soldiers guard the house. The couple emerge, as dawn breaks, and sing of their love. With her nurse Arnalta Poppaea reveals her ambition to become Empress, while elsewhere Octavia, Empress, wife of Nero, and of the imperial family of Augustus, laments her husband's desertion. Seneca tries to comfort her, mocked by her page, and is warned by Pallas Athene of his coming death. Nevertheless he dares to advise his old pupil, Nero, that he should not cast aside Octavia. Nero insists that he will go his own way. Otho overhears Nero and Poppaea, he promising to make her Empress and she urging the discarding of Seneca, whose death Nero now orders. Otho is definitively rejected by Poppaea

As the first collaboration ever between conductor William Christie and director Luc Bondy, this production of Hercules was the major event of the 2004 opera season. Originally Created in Aix-en-Provence in July 2004, the show then moved on to the Palais Garnier in Paris where it was recorded in December of the same year. The Hercules received the student prize at the Golden Prague 2005.

1941 nahm sich Sergej Prokofjew während des 2. Weltkriegs Tolstois "Krieg und Frieden" zur Vorlage für ein monumentales Opernprojekt. Die komplexe Geschichte handelt von Liebe und Leid zur Zeit von Napoleons Feldzug in Russland. Erstmals führt die Bayerische Staatsoper mit einem internationalen Team um Dmitri Tcherniakov und Vladimir Jurowski die Vertonung des Klassikers der Weltliteratur in München auf. Erstmals in München wird Sergej Prokofjews Monumentaloper "Krieg und Frieden", zum 70. Todestag des Komponisten aufgeführt. Das gewaltige Werk basiert auf Leo Tolstois Klassiker der Weltliteratur gleichen Namens. Allein die rund 40 Solistinnen und Solisten verdeutlichen die beachtlichen Ausmaße dieser Oper. Verantwortlich für die Inszenierung zeichnet Dmitri Tcherniakov mit Vladimir Jurowski am Dirigentenpult. Leo Tolstoi schuf mit seinem Roman "Krieg und Frieden" einen Weltklassiker des russischen Realismus. Tolstoi verwebt für seine Erzählung die Einzelschicksale verschiedener Familien der russischen Gesellschaft zur Zeit der napoleonischen Kriege in Russland und schafft damit ein detailreiches und dokumentarisches Sittenbild einer ganzen Epoche. Prokofjews Adaption fokussiert sich im ersten Teil auf die amourösen Verstrickungen rund um die Hauptfigur Natascha. Fürst Andrei Bolkonski verliebt sich während einer Ballnacht in sie, doch ihre Verlobung steht unter keinem glücklichen Stern. Die verheiratete Helene Besuchow macht Natascha mit ihrem Bruder Anatol Kuragin bekannt, der Natascha seine Liebe gesteht. Während er ihre Flucht plant, stürzt Natascha in eine Krise. Doch der Plan scheitert. Durch Helenes Mann Pierre Besuchow erfährt Natascha, dass Anatol bereits verheiratet ist und gesteht ihr seinerseits, dass er in sie verliebt ist. Als Pierre Anatol zur Rede stellt und ihn auffordert, Moskau zu verlassen, werden sie jäh von den aufmarschierenden französischen Truppen unterbrochen. Der zweite Teil verfolgt die Geschehnisse um die Schlacht bei Borodino, aus der Napoleon als Sieger hervorgeht. Um Napoleon zum Rückzug zu zwingen, beschließen die Bürger Moskaus im dritten Teil, ihre Stadt anzuzünden. Pierre wird als Brandstifter gefasst und entgeht knapp seiner Hinrichtung. Seine Frau Helene und Nataschas Verlobter Andrei kommen in den Wirren ums Leben, doch erfährt Pierre, dass Natascha am Leben sei. Ein General verkündet schließlich den Sieg Russlands. 1941 machte sich Sergej Prokofjew den Roman nach dem deutschen Überfall auf die damalige Sowjetunion zur Vorlage eines gewaltigen nationalen Opernprojektes. Das Werk galt wegen seiner Vielschichtigkeit lange Zeit als ungeeignet für eine Opernadaption. Prokofjew widmete sich dem ehrgeizigen Versuch, die verflochtenen Handlungsstränge in eine musikalische Essenz zu überführen. Die Parallelen zwischen der Handlung zur Zeit der napoleonischen Kriege und dem 2. Weltkrieg führten zur Entstehungszeit der Oper zu einem öffentlichen Diskurs. Nachdem Prokofjew seine erste Version der Komposition 1943 beendet hatte, musste das Werk durch politische Beschlüsse immer wieder umgearbeitet, Szenen gestrichen oder ergänzt und Texte umgeschrieben werden. Noch bis zu seinem Tod 1953 arbeitete Prokofjew an der Oper, eine vollständige Uraufführung zu Lebzeiten blieb aus. Ein Jahr nach dem russischen Angriff auf die Ukraine hat das Werk, das als russisches Nationalwerk gilt, an Brisanz nicht verloren; eine Herausforderung, mit der sich das Team um Regisseur Dmitri Tcherniakov und den Musikalischen Leiter Vladimir Jurowski intensiv beschäftigt hat.

Author-designer Mikhail Shemiakin's sinister re-imagining of Tchaikovsky's beloved Christmas ballet.

The rare biblical opera 'David and Jonathas' is like 'Médée', one of the major works of the French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The opera has been in the repertoire of Les Arts Florissants since 1988 and was first presented in a stage production by William Christie at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 2012. This DVD release is a special event for all Baroque music lovers. Written a year after the death of Lully, this lyric tragedy allows Charpentier to develop beyond the religious dimension, a story of male friendship and forbidden love between David and Jonathas. An excellent cast gathered around William Christie and Les Arts Florissants brings young singers to the title roles: Pascal Charbonneau, a tenor and a former student of the European Academy of Music, sings David. The role of Jonathas is given to a woman: soprano Ana Quintans. The staging by Andreas Homoki (Director of the Zurich Opera since summer 2012) focuses on the psychological aspect of this forbidden love story, giving a moving reading of the drama.

Philippe Boesmans sign his fourth opera with Julie. Harking back to the model of the chamber opera, the composer focused on the chemistry of human relationships that lead heroine of the drama of Strindberg to end his life. Three voices, a chamber orchestra, a unique place, a night time make us witness the fate of this young woman touching. Composer in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie for nearly 20 years, the Belgian Philippe Boesmans, born in 1936, is undoubtedly a major figure in the musical landscape of our time. Julie is an intimate work, a chamber opera in one act, based on the drama of the Swedish August Strindberg's Miss Julie, written in 1888. Boesmans music is very personal: his writing is dense and precise, rich and colorful, delicate and colorful and his writing for the voice proves that with opera, the composer was in his natural element.