Movies: Operavision

Attila, the King of the Huns, has conquered the strategically and economically significant Italian city of Aquileia during his campaign of conquest. Admiring the bravery of Odabella, a duke's daughter, Attila spares her life and presents her with his...

Few operas have enjoyed such an enviable fate as Gounod's Faust. Well received at its premiere, followed by international success, which still makes it the most performed French opera in the world today, just behind Carmen. But should we take this Fa...

Following the death of his young wife, a widower has isolated himself from the outside world. He lives solely for her memory, until one day he encounters a dancer who looks remarkably familiar. Working together with the General Music Director Ainārs ...

Exuberant, intoxicating parties, luxurious, unbridled living, sparkling champagne - and the tragic creep of terminal illness. This is the life of the Lady of the Camellias until great love unexpectedly enters her life. But can love really conquer all...

Nobleman Boris Godunov accumulates power in Russia, first as regent, then as tsar. But the ghosts of the past catch up with him and he ends up losing not only his power but his sanity. Russia sinks ever deeper into a mire of corruption, intrigue and ...

A tale of thwarted love and mistaken and assumed identities, this comedy revolves around an ordinary man becoming ‘King for a Day’. Cavaliere di Belfiore has, to distract attention from the genuine monarch, assumed the identity of King Stanislas of P...

Katerina Ismailova is wealthily married and lonely, her husband impotent and her father-in-law a tyrant. She is trapped in a world where merciless brutality, despotism and cruelty reign. The woman with a lust for life and love gives way to her raw lo...

"Music is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself." This quote from Claude Debussy describes the musical world of this programme, made up of his own works and works by Maurice ...

King Mitridate has left his empire in the care of his sons Sifare and Farnace while he is away at war. Deceived by a rumour of his father's death, Farnace declares his love to the King's betrothed, Aspasia. She seeks the protection of Sifare. Mitrida...

Time stands still whenever Giuditta starts to sing. Regarded as a bird of paradise, many a man has tried to enclose her in a golden cage and trap her in chains of diamonds disguised as necklaces. To no avail: the beautiful Giuditta is as protective o...

A magic potion becomes both a blessing and a curse for two young people. Tristan is about to bring the Irish princess Iseult to Cornwall where she is to marry his uncle. A love potion has been prepared to get the arranged marriage off to a happy star...

In Handel's oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (1707), the desire to live is at odds with the realisation of one's own mortality. In his early masterpiece, the composer was able to open up clear emotional spaces to the simultaneity of the...

Nobody wants to dance with the quirky and a little cheeky Káča (Kate) at a party. Angry, she declares that she would dance with the Devil. So when he arrives as the dashing Marbuelo, she is swept off her feet down to hell. With the help of the clever...

One of opera’s greatest depictions of impossible love, Werther is based on Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Massenet thought long and hard about adapting Goethe’s story of a melancholy poet whose love for a married woman and ge...

Here is an irreverent take on the tragic story of the lovers Orpheus and Eurydice. With his librettists Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy, Jacques Offenbach creates a wonderful array of characters from the heavens who find themselves caught up in do...

Production from Antwerp. The knight Titurel has built a fortress for two sacred objects he has miraculously obtained: thechalice from the Last Supper in which Christ's blood was later collected, and the spear thatwounded Christ on the cross. The cha...

More than anything in the world, Rusalka, a mysterious and elusive water nymph, yearns to become human to win the heart of a young prince. But this metamorphosis comes at a price: she will lose her voice and be damned forever should their love story ...

With its lively dances, ghost scenes and touching arias, Hamlet was Ambroise Thomas’s single great success of the Paris Opera, remaining in its repertoire for decades after the 1868 premiere. On the opening night, the title role was sung by a bariton...

In the early 20th century, Countess Carmen Díaz de Mendoza Aguado, inspired yet frustrated by Mozart’s Don Giovanni, sets out to write her own version but struggles with doubt, societal pressures, and a haunting inner voice, leading to her play’s fai...