Jonas Kaufmann: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci 2015 streaming

A grotesquely disfigured composer known as "The Phantom" haunts Paris' opera house, where he's secretly grooming Christine Daae to be an opera diva. Luring her to his remote underground lair, The Phantom declares his love. But Christine loves Raoul de Chagny and plans to elope with him. When The Phantom learns this, he abducts Christine....

This is an effective staging, though the set looks medieval and the costumes are modern. It’s well paced, well played, well sung. Jonas Kaufmann is an ideal Tito. His voice is not only beautiful and flexible, it’s also ample, retaining warmth and sweetness when he sings out. The character of Tito is too good to be true, but Kaufmann makes him intense, noble, and beliveable. Vesselina Kasarova is riviting as Sesto. Her voice is gorgeous and multi-colored, her technique exquisite, her immersion in the role complete....

The third of the four music dramas in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The dwarf Mime, who has brought up Siegfried, makes a sword for him, so that he may kill the dragon Fafner and regain the ring, which Mime then plots to recapture. Siegfried learns he is the son of Sieglinde, who died when he was born. Siegfried melts the pieces of the legendary sword Nothung and repairs it. Alberich and Wotan seek to warn the dragon in return for the treasure, but fail. Siegfried is led by Mime to the cave, where he kills the dragon. A forest bird tells Siegfried to beware Mime. Understanding Mime’s murderous thoughts, Siegfried kills him. The bird also sings of the sleeping Brünnhilde. Wotan understands that Siegfried must wake Brünnhilde, who will save the world. Siegfried meets the Wanderer, Wotan, and with his sword breaks the latter's spear and power. He wakens the Brünnhilde, who gives up Valhalla and the gods for the love of the mortal hero, her love putting an end to her knowledge....

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The documentary draws a portrait of an opera director who is staging Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. He is torn between the tragicomic routine of an opera house and his own perception of Wagner and the Ring cycle. The film witnesses the director’s drama in maintaining the fragile link between a well-constructed performance and his own vision that lies within the music and the narrative, and is seen as German expressionism-like nightmares....

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Soprano Anna Netrebko appears in her highly anticipated Met role debut as Leonora, the tortured heroine who sacrifices her own life for the love of the Gypsy troubadour. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Count di Luna, Yonghoon Lee is Manrico in his Met role debut as the title character, Dolora Zajick sings her signature role of the gypsy Azucena, and Štefan Kocán is Ferrando. Marco Armiliato conducts Sir David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production....

Renée Fleming sings one of her signature roles, the title character in Dvořák’s sumptuously melodic Rusalka. The story of the opera, which is about a water spirit’s tragic romance with a human prince, is drawn from several folktale sources including Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Star conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a cast that also includes Piotr Beczala as the handsome Prince whom Rusalka yearns to love; Dolora Zajick as the cackling swamp witch Ježibaba; Emily Magee as the Foreign Princess, Rusalka’s rival; and John Relyea as Rusalka’s father, the Water Sprite....

Radiant mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and dashing Italian tenor Marcello Giordani are unlucky lovers in La Damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz’s classic take on dancing with the devil....

Valery Gergiev conducts Mariusz Trelinski’s thrilling new production of these rarely heard one-act operas. Anna Netrebko stars as the blind princess of the title in Tchaikovsky’s lyrical work, opposite Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont, the man who wins her love—and wakes her desire to be able to see. Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko are Judith and Bluebeard in Bartók’s gripping psychological thriller about a woman discovering her new husband’s murderous past....

Simultaneously filmed English language version of a period operetta, in which a Polish noblewoman is romantically linked with a revolutionary student activist....

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Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical China - is one of the most popular in the Met repertory. In this Live in HD production, Maria Guleghina takes on the title role and Marcello Giordani is Calaf, the unknown prince. Marina Poplavskaya and Samuel Ramey co-star, and Andris Nelsons conducts in his Met debut....

In this delightful mixture of romance, comedy and music, the director turns back the wheel of time about sixty years and shows the audience an Italy of primitive railroads, high bicycles and the famous "dolce far niente." Taking the visit of a traveling opera company to a small town, where it is scheduled to present "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" and where one of the most important citizens is a retired opera singer, the scenario writer weaves a web of merry complications well calculated to keep the spectators in a happy mood....

A destitute, crippled child and his mother are visited late one night by three traveling strangers who claim to be following a star so that they may bring gifts to a newborn king. The yearly live telecasts of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors were a cherished Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s. In addition, since its premiere in 1951, Amahl has been performed regularly by community groups and small opera companies throughout the US, making it the single most popular American opera. This production, staged by the composer himself and originally telecast on Christmas Day, 1955, is a testament to the work’s enduring power to move the heart and stir the soul. Starring Rosemary Kuhlmann as the Mother and Bill McIver as Amahl. Members of the Symphony of the Air are under the direction of Thomas Schippers....

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Farinelli is a 1994 biopic film about the life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time....

Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real....

Akhnaten is set in Ancient Egypt, and based on the accession to the throne of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV – thought to have been around 1351BC – on his religious convictions, and the consequences of his actions. Presented as a combination of song, dance and music, the opera has a libretto by Philip Glass, Shalom Goldmann, Robert Israël and Richard Ridell, with the text drawing on ancient hymns, prayers and inscriptions, sung in their original Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian form. Produced by the Opéra de Nice Côte d’Azur as part of the Festival MANCA....