Slave Girls of Sheba Aka Le Verdi Bandiere di Allah (1963) Giacomo Gentilomo, Guido Zurli, José Suárez, Linda Cristal, Cristina Gaioni

One of the lesser known works by Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra is regarded by most opera lovers as one of his finest. The action takes place in the 14th century and deals with the political and personal rivalry between the corsair Simon Boccanegra, who has been elected Doge of Genoa with the help of the plebeian vote, and the local nobleman, Jacopo Fiesco. Arthaus presents a visually alert, musically sensitive and disturbingly coherent (Der Standard) production of the piece on DVD. The staging was directed by one of the giants of the European theatre, Peter Stein. His fondness for atmospherically dense spaces in which the characters can fully develop is particularly well brought out in his Vienna production, not least because he had at his disposal two remarkable singing actors for the principal male roles, Thomas Hampson and Ferruccio Furlanetto.

Commozione umana e bel canto barocco nel più fortunato dei drammi sacri di Perti, composto nel 1685, poi rimaneggiato e rieseguito più volte fino al 1718.

Perti's music reveals a young and perceptive musical imagination, especially in the constellation of ever-changing solo-voice combinations and the rousing double fugue with which he brings the Mass to such a glorious conclusion. Lovers of Baroque polychorality will enjoy this.

Teatro Regio’s 2013 revival of their highly successful 2006 production of Verdi’s Don Carlo celebrates the 40th anniversary of the theatre’s reopening in 1973. With traditional staging and lavish costume design, the production garnered high acclaim in the national and international press, with GB Opera commending the ‘sumptuous’ setting and French online music magazine ResMusica praising director Hugo de Ana’s decision to revive the show ‘in all its splendour’. Shown here in the four-act version, Don Carlo is the fascinating tale of father-son power struggles, adultery and love that borders on incest. The cast – under the powerful baton of Gianandrea Noseda – is headed by renowned Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, and also features Ludovic Tézier, who has been hailed as ‘one of the best Verdian singers of our time’ (ResMusica).

With this opera, Verdi composed a true music drama. For this great early opera, he demanded from his librettist Francesco Maria Piave a text that would have “extravagance, originality brevity and sublimity.” Thomas Hampson made a triumphant début in the title role of Verdi’s Macbeth in this Zurich Opera production, with Paoletta Marrocu as his beautiful, power-hungry wife. In David Pountney’s hard-edged, post-modern production duality of man and woman is constantly brought into question. His Macbeth is not just a story about the usurpation of a crown with supernatural intervention, it resonates with symbolic references to the battle of the sexes and throws into sharp relief the link between power and gender. A strong supporting cast draws a top quality performance from the Zurich Opera Orchestra.

Perhaps no opera is closely and affectionately associated with a single house as Le nozze di Figaro is with Glyndebourne. Effortlessly witty yet shot through with pain and sadness, this deeply ambivalent life in the day of masters and servants as they scheme and outwit one another was Glyndebourne's opening production in 1934. Michael Grandage's staging is the seventh, set in a louche Sixties ambience. Marshalled by the 'ideal pacing of Robin Ticciati, a youthful cast of principals has 'no weak link' and 'looks gorgeous' (The Sunday Times) in a production that continues Glyndebourne's rewarding history of engagement with Mozart's and da Ponte's 'day of madness'.