Boris Godunov is a work that, with its long, continuous scenes and monumental structure, does not lend itself easily to a highlights disc, especially if the intention is to give a fair cross-section of the opera. The producers of this compilation, drawn from a complete recording originally issued by Erato, wisely concentrate the choice on a few substantial chunks, covering most of Boris’s part. To this they add a couple of snippets that can stand on their own, out of context.

This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

Carmen, a tempestuous opera written by Georges Bizet, is set in the city of Seville, Spain. Carmen is sexy and capricious, and freely taunts the soldiers around her saying she will love or discard whom she chooses just as she pleases. But, after attacking another woman at the cigarette factory with a knife Carmen has to use her seductive skills on her guard, Don Jose, to escape going to prison. Passion between Don Jose and Carmen, and Escamillo, a celebrated toreador who is infatuated with her, leads to jealousy, violence and death. Rinat Shaham with her sublime singing dominates the bull-fighting arena as the provocative and alluring Carmen, while Dmytro Popov portrays Don Jose with a perfect mix of naivety and mad desire, his rich tenor rolling out across the bay.

It is an oft-repeated saw, about life in the heavenly spheres, that the angels revere Bach but listen to Mozart. If they have DVD players, you can bet they're now watching this stunning production of Le Nozze di Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro"), which comes about as close to Mozartian perfection as one could possibly hope to get. The faultlessly cast youthful performers bubble with infectious energy. Alison Hagley is a sprightly Susanna with a voice as clear as a bell, and brilliantly matched by a 28-year-old Bryn Terfel both acting and sounding in fine form. Hillevi Martinpelto demonstrates why she is one of the world's favourite Mozart singers with her melting tones, richly coloured voice and generous stage presence, and Rodney Gilfry gives a muscular, wonderfully controlled performance as the Count.

Cinque Profeti is a little known Christmas cantata by Alessandro Scarlatti. It has a power and subtlety redolent of Handel coupled with touches of early Monteverdi. Sung here to great effect by the five soloists with sensitive instrumentalists, they play together to bring the gentle and subtle melodies - surely written to confer a sense of the special nature of the Christmas season - to life. It’s a recording which is sure to please. Opera was not performed in Rome for much of Alessandro Scarlatti's lifetime; that's why his vocal church music mostly comprised oratorios and cantatas, of which he wrote three for the Palazzo Apostolico. Only one survives: to a libretto by Silvio Stampiglia. Cinque Profeti takes the inventive form of a conversation between the five old testament prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Abraham (the cinque profeti) about the birth of Christ – which was about to be celebrated on the occasion of the cantata’s first performance, in 1705 at the Papal Palace in Rome.

Champagne pour le centième opus de la collection, avec la plus viennoise des Chauve-Souris, et un plateau de friandises invitant Wunderlich, Kunz, Streich, Gedda, Köth, Jurinac ou Schwarzkopf à la fête.

International superstars Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón give inspired performances in Massenet's passionate opera, Manon. Netrebko gives full range to her abilities as a singer and actress in portraying innocence, lust, greed and, above all, beauty. It is Netrebko's mesmerizing performance which makes Villazón's youthful passion and ultimate despair even more authentic and heart-breaking. The setting in this production has been updated to the 1950s and the entire opera takes place as if Manon were the star of her own film. Indeed, Netrebko transforms her character from the innocence of Audrey Hepburn through the voluptuousness of Marilyn Monroe into the tragedy of Ingrid Bergman. The work of director Vincent Paterson, known for his work on Broadway and in music videos, is especially effective in creating an energetic and ultimately tragic performance with stunning visual splendor. Netrebko and Villazón, the true dream-team for this opera, are joined by the conductor Daniel Barenboim who leads the Staatskapelle Berlin in a spontaneous and passionate performance.

Wexford has long been the home of lost operatic causes that speedily become winners. Giovanni Pacini’s Saffo is a good example. Widely acclaimed in its time (establishing itself as a favourite in North as well as South America), the opera gradually disappeared from view, as did the composer himself. Yet he wrote over 80 operas, and Saffo is generally considered his masterpiece: the first fully ripened fruit of a period, nearly five years long, of retirement from composition, during which he studied, thought and prepared. It appeared in 1840, the year of Donizetti’s La fille du regiment and La favorite, both of them written for the opera in Paris. With Bellini dead and Rossini retired, Pacini may well have felt that the way was open before him; a young fellow called Verdi, whose first opera had enjoyed a modest success in Milan the previous year, would scarcely have caused him sleepless nights.

Outside Germany, the name Weimar tends to evoke mixed feelings and pictures of German history of the last hundred years. Within Germany, Weimar means a town in the state of Thuringia arguably saturated with the “Deutsche Kultur” of the “Weimarer Klassik”, the legendary Bauhaus, and finally the life and work of Franz Liszt and his son in law Richard Wagner. In Weimar Richard Wagner began composing the first part of his RING-cycle, “Das Rheingold”. In 2008 the Nationaltheater Weimar started a new production of this unique tetralogy. The conductor is Carl St.Clair, a former student of Leonard Bernstein. With Michael Schulz’ fine and highly intelligent staging this new “Ring” production becomes an outstanding document of contemporary opera theatre.

Three serenatas by Vivaldi survive (he is known to have composed at least eight)‚ of which La Senna festeggiante is by far the most enjoyable…One of the work’s most interesting features is Vivaldi’s deliberate use in places of elements of French style‚ for instance in the solemn ‘ouvertur’ which opens Part 2 and the courtly minuet of The Golden Age’s second aria‚ thereby adding to the richness of a work which for the most part is vintage Vivaldi at his most buoyant and irresistible.

Among modern recordings of the opera, this one is a safe bet, assuming you want a safe version of this opera. Unlike Herbert von Karajan's oppressively string-heavy reading with the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, this is a balanced, idiomatic account of the score, given a special luster by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's coloristic instincts and the warm recording acoustic at St. Eustache Church. Conductor Charles Dutoit has a fine instinctive feel for Debussy in general and this score in particular. The singers in the title roles–Didier Henry and Colette Alloit-Lugaz–have both come to terms with the opera's enigmatic dramaturgy. However, it's very much a symphonic rather than operatic performance, clearly a product of the recording studio rather than of the stage.

This famous production of Manon Lescaut from The Royal Opera, recorded in 1983, features two of the biggest stars in opera, Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, in their vocal prime. Placido Domingo’s performance of Des Grieux is considered to be unsurpassed. Conductor Guiseppe Sinopoli made his British operatic debut with this production. Puccini’s first masterpiece was rapturously received on its first night. It has his hallmark sensuality and also a youthful freshness, its untamed outpouring of melody just as passionate as his more famous operas, La Boheme, Tosca and Madame Butterfly. The role of Des Grieux is one of the most taxing in the tenor repertoire and Domingo’s passionate portrayal is one of his greatest achievements.

Outside Germany, the name Weimar tends to evoke mixed feelings and pictures of German history of the last hundred years. Within Germany, Weimar means a town in the state of Thuringia arguably saturated with the “Deutsche Kultur” of the “Weimarer Klassik”, the legendary Bauhaus, and finally the life and work of Franz Liszt and his son in law Richard Wagner. In Weimar Richard Wagner began composing the first part of his RING-cycle, “Das Rheingold”. In 2008 the Nationaltheater Weimar started a new production of this unique tetralogy. The conductor is Carl St.Clair, a former student of Leonard Bernstein. With Michael Schulz’ fine and highly intelligent staging this new “Ring” production becomes an outstanding document of contemporary opera theatre.

The fourth of d'Albert's twenty operas, "Die Abreise" ("The Departure") was premiered in 1898 at Frankfurt. In a single 40 minute act, its story is very slender indeed. A man (Gilfen) suspects his wife (Luise) of being unfaithful to him with a friend (Trott) so pretends to go away on a journey. Returning "unexpectedly" he finds Luise rejecting the advances of Trott who is summarily ejected. A reconciliation between Gilfen and Luise ensues.