Eric Cutler

Liberation opera, revolutionary artwork, an ode to fidelity in love and utopian drama – Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera, is all of these things. The numerous characterisations and interpretations add an aura of mystery to the opera but demonstrate above all that it is a unique work of musical theatre that expresses the hope for a humane future with justice and liberty for all. The stage direction is in the hands of the Ukrainian director Andriy Zholdak. His visual imagery, replete with symbols, is reminiscent of great film directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman. Using a distinctive style, Zholdak explores the deeper layers of the universal human drama of Fidelio. These layers can sometimes be difficult to follow.

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Der Ring des Nibelungen in a production of the Zürich opera house, recorded 2024. "Dramatic music-making at its finest". In the hands of General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and Stage Director Andreas Homoki, Wagner's myth is represented as "a dysfunctional family of gods" (The Independent) in a polished yet unpretentious production that underscores the humanity of the characters, who are performed by the same exceptional cast of singers across all four operas.

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This is a performance of Wagner's three-act opera Der fliegende Holländer ("The flying Dutchman"), performed by Bayreuther Festpiele, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov. The staging was notable for two other milestones, as Oksana Lyniv became the first woman to conduct at Richard Wagner’s legendary Festspielhaus since its opening in 1876, and the sensational Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian made her house debut with a standout performance as the opera’s heroine, Senta. The exceptional cast also included John Lundgren (The Dutchman), Georg Zeppenfeld (Daland), Eric Cutler (Erik) and Marina Prudenskaya (Mary).

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The libretto of the most well known opera by Dvořak, which premiered in Prague in 1901, is inspired by the Czech version of the Central European folktale, one we also know as Undine (1811) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué or The Little Mermaid (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen.

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Don Florestan is a personal enemy of the governor Don Pizarro and also a confidant of the minister Don Fernando. As Pizarro sees Florestan as a threat, he wants to eliminate him. He cannot bring himself to commit open murder, so he has him secretly imprisoned and hopes that he will soon die of his own accord. Florestan's wife Leonore suspects that Pizarro is behind her husband's disappearance. Disguised as a man, she sets off in search of Florestan and, under the name "Fidelio", takes up service as an assistant to the jailer Rocco - she suspects Florestan is in the prison he administers and hopes to free him.

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Mozart's "Idomeneo" is a work about love, hate, jealousy, war and destruction. It shows in a disturbing way the musical genius of the Salzburg composer. Each figure is characterized individually without losing sight of the musical whole. In a way, "Idomeneo" anticipates Wagnerian techniques in composition. The direction of this production at Madrid's Teatro Real was in the proven hands of Robert Carsen, who brings the work to the stage in a contemporary, modern and very disturbing way. Under the sovereign direction of Ivor Bolton, Eric Cutler, David Portillo, Anett Fritsch and Eleonora Buratto are among the singers.

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‘In reality, this Lohengrin is an entirely new phenomenon for the modern consciousness!’ Richard Wagner himself understood the innovative character of his sixth piece of music theatre, completed in 1848, the year of revolutions. Although it is reckoned among his ‘romantic operas’, his new vision of musical drama is already clearly heralded in this work. In his hands, the mediaeval saga of the Knight of the Swan becomes a meditation on the true love that asks no questions. Alain Altinoglu, our Music Director, who has already conducted this work in Bayreuth, guarantees the quality of the music, while the director Olivier Py, known at La Monnaie for his brilliant productions of Les Huguenots and Hamlet, can be relied on not to downplay Wagner’s revolutionary political side. Wagner’s own opinion was that ‘one can only understand Lohengrin if one can liberate oneself from any modern-looking, generalising form of representation so as to see the phenomena of real life’. A challenge to us all?

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A staging of Richard Strauss' opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Katie Mitchell. Recorded at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

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A sizzling tale of lust, seduction and betrayal, featuring some of opera's most famous melodies... it can only be Bizet's Carmen! See it live at your local cinema on July 1.

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Opera fantastique in five acts (1881), new version by Sylvain Cambreling & Christoph Marthaler. With Eric Cutler and Anne Sofie Von Otter. Teatro Real, filmed on 05/2014

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Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the exploits of Aeneas. Rising tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Met debut, stars as the hero charged by the gods with the founding of the city of Rome. Susan Graham is Dido, Queen of Carthage, who becomes Aeneas’s lover, and Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan princess whose warnings about the impending destruction of Troy go unheeded. Francesca Zambello’s atmospheric production, featuring choreography by Doug Varone, is led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

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Live performance at Teatro La Fenice, Venice, September 25-28 2010. Myung-Whun Chung conducting Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice. Directed for the stage by Daniele Abbado.

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This production of Strauss’s most sumptuous work by director Nathaniel Merrill and designer Robert O’Hearn is almost as beloved as the opera itself. It perfectly captures the glittering never-land of rococco Vienna the way the Viennese—and the rest of the world—wish it had been, and it’s the ideal setting for an adult comedy of love and errors. Susan Graham is the aristocratic young Octavian, torn between two women: Renée Fleming as the Marschallin, the mature woman who understands that one day Octavian must leave her; and Christine Schäfer as Sophie, the young girl who unexpectedly captures his heart. Kristinn Sigmundsson is the lecherous Baron Ochs who sets the whirling plot in motion, and Edo de Waart conducts.

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This grand opera, complete with ensembles and ballets, large choruses and orchestral set pieces, is given an appropriately grand treatment in this production by the renowned Catalan theater group "La Fura dels Baus" recorded at Valencia's Palau de les Arts. In the first part of the work, Padrissa plays with the present-day meaning of "Trojans" as computer viruses: his Trojan horse carries within it the infection that will cause system failures and, ultimately, destruction. In the second part, Carthage is presented as the mysterious seat of a future civilization, where human life is heading towards self-destruction through environmental disasters.

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It's hard to imagine a video opera collection without this superbly sung MET production of Bellini's I Puritani. Not that it's perfect by any means, but its excellences--most especially Anna Netrebko's electrifying singing and acting of Elvira--banish carping about other aspects of this memorable night at the opera. Netrebko is fragile from the start, her facial expressions and hand movements immediately conveying the girl's vulnerability. She has a mad scene in each act; the first when she realizes her fiancé has disappeared with another woman, the third, in the final act, a brief relapse when her returned fiancé is taken by the army to be executed. But it's in the second act that the real fireworks occur, with a Mad Scene that rivals Donizetti's Lucia for bel canto primacy. Here, Elvira is first heard off-stage, after the chorus has informed us that she's deranged. She enters wearing her wedding gown and begins Qui la voce in a voice as frail as her psyche.

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James Morris leads an all-star cast including Karita Mattila, Ben Heppner, Thomas Allen and René Pape, in this production of Wagner's comic opera, recorded live at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2001. James Levine conducts.

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A modern telling of William Shakespeare's darkest drama set against the backdrop of a corporate Rome.

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