Kai Rüütel

In the trenches, soldiers are locked in endless fighting: they move some kilometres forward only to return back to their former position in a deadly cycle. Elsewhere, a woman returns to a house she has once known and finds it now poised at the edge of an abyss. Wanting to leave, she encounters inexplicable obstacles. Chaya Czernowin’s harrowingly sublime work Infinite Now interweaves two seemingly unconnected storylines - Luk Perceval’s play FRONT based on Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All quiet on the Western front and Can Xue’s novella Homecoming - that both speak to the human condition of entrapment and existential nakedness, and beyond that to a will to survive.

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Reduced to poverty by slander, a blacksmith seals a pact with the devil for seven years of work and good living. When his time is up, he outwits the messengers of Hell, only to be turned away from the gates of heaven. It is a rare treat to discover an unknown opera, all the more so when opera houses are forced to remain closed. In Ersan Mondtag’s vivid, politically charged staging, Schreker’s ‘magic opera’ enchants as a colourful cocktail of musical influences ranging from reminisces of Kurt Weill to baroque counterpoint. Co-produced with Nationaltheater Mannheim.

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Antonio Pappano conducts a full performance of the second opera in Richard Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen. During a storm, Sieglinde gives shelter to a wounded stranger. They find themselves drawn to each other. He is Siegmund, the twin from whom Sieglinde was separated in childhood. Unknown to them, their father is Wotan, the most powerful of the gods. Through Siegmund, Wotan hopes to retrieve a gold ring of ultimate power that he cannot take himself.

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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!

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On a June night in 2017, opera lovers thronged to the Royal Opera House in London to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann, recently acclaimed by The Daily Telegraph as the world s greatest tenor, make his eagerly anticipated debut in the title role of Otello Verdi s greatest and most demanding role for tenor voice. As the New York Times wrote Mr. Kaufmann made his debut in the part, and he calmly, confidently sang it for the ages.

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Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.

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