In his ‘new life’ as a baritone Plácido Domingo has triumphed in the role of Francesco Foscari in Los Angeles, London and Vienna. Now he takes to the role in La Scala, Milan, the theatre that is the symbol of Italian opera. I due Foscari, premiered in 1844, famously one of Verdi’s darkest operas, is staged by Alvis Hermanis, who made such an impact at the Salzburg Festival with Die Soldaten and Il trovatore. Domingo is joined by two of Italy’s most exciting singers, the soprano Anna Pirozzi and the tenor Francesco Meli, and the acclaimed Italian conductor Michele Mariotti. The Financial Times was deeply moved by Domingo’s performance, calling his interpretation of the role ‘sublime’.

This latest version of Gluck’s masterpiece is something of a double hybrid: its starting point is the Berlioz version, which combines what Berlioz regarded as the best of the Italian original and the French revision (and using a contralto Orpheus), and then it is modified further, with a number of reorderings and some music restored, as well as revised orchestration. It isn’t very ‘authentic’, in terms of Gluck No. 1, Gluck No. 2 or Berlioz, but that of course doesn’t much matter as long as it works.

This performance of Strauss' opera Salome, recorded in London, but based on an earlier performance at the Salzburg Festival, could be the perfect Salome on DVD for several years to come. In the first place the casting is superb. Malfitano and Terfel as Salome and Jokanaan are not to be surpassed in the next years. Malfitano does the Dance of the Seven Veils herself, which gives the performance an extra thrill. Herod is good too and as a bonus we see Anja Silja as Herodias, a well-known Salome herself in her younger days.

…Gardiner's account of the Vienna Orfeo ed Euridice is peerless. One soon loses all sense of its being a period-instrument performance at all, so profound, at times overwhelming is its impact - so utterly right. In detail after detail - hauntingly poetic offstage instrumental complement, perfectly positioned in the drama (and perfectly captured by the excellent Philips recording); superbly stirring brass playing, which makes every entry a dramatic event; choral singing extraordinarily light in weight yet rich in emotional substance; exquisitely refined dance movements - and in sustainment of a delicately tenebrous, uniquely Gluckian atmosphere throughout, Gardiner's command of an opera championed since his first London concert performance, 21 years ago, is revealed as simply larger and fuller than almost anyone else's.

Munich’s new Ballo in maschera has received much critical acclaim: ‘This production shows what a utopia opera can be’ (Abendzeitung). Ten years after stepping down as music director of the Bavarian State Opera, Zubin Mehta returned to Munich in March 2016 to celebrate his 80th birthday conducting Verdi’s masterpiece for the first time in a staged production. His cast features some of today’s finest Verdi singers: soprano Anja Harteros, singing Amelia for the first time and ‘filling every note with Verdian intensity’, tenor Piotr Beczala as a ‘visually and vocally dashing Riccardo’ and George Petean as an ‘exemplary’ Renato (Neue Musikzeitung).

Although Joseph Haydn is still regarded principally as a master of instrumental music, he was also one of the forward-looking opera composers of his day, devoting a significant portion of his working life to the genre. As the opera director for Prince Esterházy, he oversaw more than a thousand opera productions at the Esterházy court, which included popular stage works of the time, as well as his own. These two operas are unusual and ahead of their time in that it is women who take centre stage. These female protagonists are people of real flesh and blood, strong, pragmatic, and clearly representative of the spirit of the Enlightenment.

Contrary heroes: Symphonic poem Mazeppa and the opera fragment Sardanapalo performed by Karabits and the Weimar Staatskapelle. Sardanapalo who prefers wine and concubines to politics and warfare, and Mazeppa, who dies with glory, having endured pain and humiliation: dramatic literary models, impressively set to music by Franz Liszt. Written at the same time, these works represent Liszt’s ideas striving to unite literature and music, on the one hand modernising Italian opera and on the other advancing towards the symphonic poem in his orchestral writing.

There is a good sense here of the fitness of things, and of their grandeur too. Guleghina is the Abigaille of out time: powerful, intense, wide of range, agile in passagework, and when need arises capable of softness. As Nabucco, the veteran Nucci comes through with impressive authority and stamina… Chorus and orchestra do the arena and its 2007 season credit. (Gramophone Classical Music Guide)

Following on logically from his complete cycle of Monteverdi madrigals, Paul Agnew – here both conductor and stage director – presents his intimate and ‘sacred’ version of the composer’s first opera (and the first great opera in musical history). In a fine collective spirit, the singers and instrumentalists of Les Arts Florissants participate in the drama on equal terms, mingling in a single set that gives increased prominence to the (masterly) lighting and to the protagonists (overwhelmingly moving in their restrained movements and expressions): we are transported to the very heart of Monteverdi’s masterpiece, as if we had fallen into a painting by Nicolas Poussin, caught up in the mystical adventure of two lovers more mythical than ever.

With her sensational role debut at the Vienna State Opera, superstar diva Anna Netrebko displays a performance of rare vocal and dramatic power. The Russian soprano sings the role of the unjustly accused second wife of British King Henry VIII, ‘veering between indignant fury and tender righteousness’ and demonstrating a new level of confidence in her technique with excellent ‘passagework, particularly in trills, and seamless runs even to the lowest notes’ (Opera News).

In spite of the French title, and the conductor known for his interest in period performance, this is not the French Orphee et Eurydice of 1774; it is a different 'period version', the period in question being not Gluck's but that of Berlioz (or, as we shall see, nearly so). In 1859, Berlioz, always a passionate admirer of Gluck, prepared a version of the opera for the contralto Pauline Viardot. The alto version of the opera was of course the original Italian one, of 1762, for a castrato, but Berlioz wanted to incorporate some of the changes Gluck had made in 1774 and to use a French text. His compromise version has served as the basis for most revivals of the opera, in whatever language, from then until relatively recent times, though its four-act structure has rarely been followed.

Luigi Rossi (ca. 1597 – 20 February 1653) was an Italian Baroque composer. Rossi was born in Torremaggiore, a small town near Foggia, in the ancient kingdom of Naples and at an early age he went to Naples. There he studied music with the Franco-Flemish composer Jean de Macque who was organist of the Santa Casa dell’Annunziata and maestro di cappella to the Spanish viceroy. Rossi later entered the service of the Caetani, dukes of Traetta. Luigi Rossi composed just two operas: Il palazzo incantato, which was given at Rome in 1642; and Orfeo, written after he was invited by Cardinal Mazarin in 1646 to go to Paris for that purpose, and given its premiere there in 1647. Rossi returned to France in 1648 hoping to write another opera, but no production was possible because the court had sought refuge outside Paris. Rossi returned to Rome by 1650 and never attempted anything more for the stage.

Renée Fleming and Andreas Scholl lead a superb cast in Stephen Wadsworth’s celebrated production of Handel’s Rodelinda from the Metropolitan Opera – based on the "Live in HD" transmission to cinemas worldwide. The title role is unique in featuring no less than eight magnificent arias. Renée Fleming’s triumph in the first run of the production was hailed by The New York Times, "Ms Fleming draws on every resource of her artistry in this portrayal: luminous sound, exquisite ornamentation, floating high notes, emotional volatility."

This low-budget Philip Glass opera, Les enfants Terribles, is based on a novel and play by Jean Cocteau, forming the third ring in Glass' trilogy of works devoted to the elaborate personal mythology of the great French visionary. Foregoing the controversial and dualistic 1949 film of Les enfants Terribles made by Jean-Pierre Melville, Glass decided to realize the visual element through a collaboration with choreographer Susan Marshall, re-creating Cocteau's story as a "dance opera." Les enfants Terribles is the most compelling Glass score beheld in many years.

After the wars with the Ottoman Empire, the Turks – their dress, manners, and music-fascinated 18th century Europe, and poking fun at them became standard fare in Parisian vaudevilles. Gluck picked up the theme in 1761 after he became conductor of the French Opera in Vienna, using a translated French libretto by P.R. Monnier that had already been set to music by Monsigny. La Cadi Dupée ("The Duped Cadi") was believed lost until it was rediscovered in the archives of the Hamburg State Opera by the producer of this recording. The central character is a Cadi (a Muslim judge) who wants to marry the reluctant Zelmire, to the dismay of his wife Fatime. Zelmire, in love with Nuradin, pretends to be Omega, the unattractive daughter of the dyer Omar; after the marriage contract is signed and Omega appears, the Cadi has to buy his way out of the imbroglio and return contritely to Fatime while Zelmire and Nuradin go off happily.