A Night at the Opera

Dorothy Gale, a shy kindergarten teacher, is swept away to the magic land of Oz where she embarks on a quest to return home.

Although Domingo was younger and Banackova looked more like the sweet and innocent young Madalena than the one played by Tomowa-Sintow in the ROH production, this production was not as good. It was not as tight and neat. The tempo set was far too slow for the time-period of the story. The stage setting was distracting. The lighting was too dark. Except Domingo, a natural actor who was always into his role and sings and acts with passion, none of the other performers came up with a convincing portrayal of the role he/she played.

Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year-old certainty, she believes she was meant to be a little girl - and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where she expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation and guilt - as the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble. As suburban prejudices close around them, family loves and loyalties are tested in the ever-escalating dramatic turns of Alain Berliner's critically acclaimed first feature. Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and a favorite at festivals around the world, this unique film experience delivers magic of the rarest sort through a story of difference, rejection, and childlike faith in miracles.

Based on a revolutionary play supposedly written by the Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic, Kim Il-sung, and rumored to have been co-directed by Kim Jong-il. This revolutionary work is also popular among the Chinese, especially those who lived through the Cultural Revolution, and have fond memories of revolutionary antics.

Viva Vivaldi! is a concert by the Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli interspersing arias from the 20 surviving operas of Vivaldi with two concertos. Given with the early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico before a very appreciative audience in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the performance is part of Bartoli's exploration of the Venetian composer's opera music which also includes The Vivaldi Album. There is a startling dynamic energy, which contrasts powerfully with the more restrained interpretations by singers such as Emma Kirkby. Bartoli's natural Italian and the live atmosphere of Maria Grazia d'Alessio's oboe gives her interpretation of the quietly haunting and melodically rich "Non ti Lusinghi la Crudeltade" from Tito Manlio a particular piquancy. The Flautino Concerto is a most attractive interlude, while the more famous Lute/Violin Concerto beguiles with its exquisite lyricism.

The celebrated mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli joins Bryn Terfel for a recital of arias and duets recorded at Glyndebourne Opera House in 1999. The programme features favourite pieces from Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Myung-Whun Chung.

John Eliot Gardiner conducts Gluck’s 1776 French version of “Alceste” at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Soprano Anne Sofie von Otter takes the title role of Alceste, Queen of Thessaly, who offers to die at the hands of the gods in place of her husband, Admète (Paul Groves), so that the people will not lose their king. Alceste is then saved from the underworld by Hercule (Dietrich Henschel).

Shakespeare's comedy of gender confusion, in which a girl disguises herself as a man to be near the count she adores, only to be pursued by the woman he loves.

When a young RAF pilot miraculously survives bailing out of his aeroplane without a parachute, he falls in love with an American radio operator. But the officials in the other world realise their mistake and dispatch an angel to collect him.

A series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. Like the more famous version made by Federico Fellini, an adaptation of Petronius' Satyricon.

Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit. Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which sets the action in 1940s occupied France, was one of the highlights of the Met’s 2015–16 season. Massimo Cavalletti as Manon’s brother and Brindley Sherratt as her aging admirer co-star, and Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.