Norma: Live from the Royal Opera House 2016

The priestess Norma loves Pollione, leader of the occupying force suppressing her people, and has borne two children by him. But Pollione’s love has withered, and he now loves Norma’s fellow priestess Adalgisa. Meanwhile, the people urgently look to Norma to lead their rebellion.

Bellini: Norma 2016

The priestess Norma loves Pollione, leader of the occupying force suppressing her people, and has borne two children by him. But Pollione’s love has withered, and he now loves Norma’s fellow priestess Adalgisa. Meanwhile, the people urgently look to Norma to lead their rebellion. Norma discovers the love between Pollione and Adalgisa. Furiously she gives the signal for war. Pollione is captured, attempting to steal away with Adalgisa. Norma, called upon to announce a sacrificial victim to consecrate the uprising, declares it shall be a guilty priestess: herself.

The Flying Dutchman: Teatro Real Madrid 2018

Spectacular! Opera in three acts. Filmed at a series of outstanding performances at the Teatro Real de Madrid in December 2016, this recording will especially delight lovers of Wagnerian music drama with its faithful reflection of the grandiose staging of Alex Olle, a member of La Fura dels Baus, whose earlier productions have attracted widespread attention. A conductor equally at home in Monteverdi, Boulez, Praetorius and Schumann, Pablo Heras-Casado can rely on a cast totally committed to this breathtaking musical hurricane!

Berlioz La Damnation de Faust 1999

Musically, this is a superlative performance: Paul Groves is a sympathetic Faust, Willard White is an appropriately menacing Mephistopheles, and Vesselina Kasarova is an exquisite Marguerite. Sylvain Cambreling sensitively conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin, and two excellent choirs' vocal contributions should not go unnoticed. (However, condolences to those choir members stuck in that ludicrous cylinder.) Both visual presentation and sound are, as usual for Arthaus Musik discs, first-rate; only the staging itself comes off as less than worthwhile.

Frankenstein - Grey 2019 ( 10)

Scientists discover a creature frozen into the ice fields of the North Pole. As it is gradually brought back to life in a bold experiment, the creature experiences flashbacks of its painful past with its creator. Two hundred years after its publication, American composer Mark Grey takes Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking science fiction novel as the basis for his first full-length opera. Directed by Àlex Ollé of the theatrical group La Fura dels Baus, this modern interpretation warns of the growing gulf between our capacity to invent and our inability to comprehend.

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny 2011

A hard-hitting new production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus at the Teatro Real de Madrid. Composed in the 1930s by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, this is a mordant satire on capitalism and the inexorable industrialisation of a society in which the ultimate crime is not having money. In twenty scenes the authors tell the story of a city lost in the middle of a desert and run by three thugs; in Mahagonny food, sex, gambling and violence rule supreme.

Le Grand Macabre 2011

Premiered in Stockholm in 1978, the work is based on a play by Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) and unfolds in an imaginary land inspired by the famous Dutch painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Nekrotzar, the Grand Macabre, announces the end of the world; but in a land ruled by eros, alcohol and corruption, his plan to unleash the Apocalypse bursts like a soap bubble. LIVE RECORDING FROM THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU, BARCELONA, 2011

Fausto 5.0 2001 ( 5.8)

On his way to a medical convention, Dr Fausto runs into a man who claims the Doctor removed his stomach eight years ago in a surgical operation. Against all odds, he is still alive. The man turns up repeatedly and promises Fausto to make all his wishes come true. Reality starts dissolving and Fausto begins to lose control

CHOSTAKOVITCH, Le Nez – Bruxelles (La Monnaie) 2023