Richard Strauss’s Arabella is a lyric comedy that portrays hardships and obsessions in a society whose late-bourgeois values are crumbling. An addiction to gambling has driven the family of cavalry officer Waldner into financial ruin, and their only hope for salvation lies in marrying off their daughter Arabella into a wealthy family. Strauss’s orchestral opulence coupled with its period Viennese setting has seen Arabella perceived as a light-hearted comedy of errors, but Tobias Kratzer’s multi-faceted production also explores the disunity between its characters, spotlighting tensions that connect 19th-century Vienna to the present day.

Also available on Blu-ray Video (NBD0182V)

This new production of Tosca from Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is set in the late 1920s. Puccini’s ‘Roman Opera’ sees a city bathed in majesty but also stained by eroticism and sadism, where sartorial elegance and pathological violence co-exist. Taking visual clues from Bernardo Bertolucci’s cinematic masterpiece, Il conformista, the cast is led by the passionate Vanessa Goikoetxea and features the magnetic Alexey Markov in the role of Scarpia. Daniele Gatti directs a performance praised for its ‘courageous and surprising’ impact.

Also available on Blu-ray Video (DYN-58057)

On Midsummer’s Night, the real and fairy worlds collide.

Four young lovers, faced with the prospect of unhappy marriage or worse, flee the court of Athens and stumble into an enchanted forest. Nearby, a group of amateur actors rehearse a play to celebrate an upcoming royal wedding.

As these mere mortals cross paths with a warring fairy King and Queen, chaos reigns in the natural world. The lines between reality and illusion start to blur and no one but mischievous Puck knows what is true and what is magic.

Let Shakespeare’s captivating comedy transport you to the most magical of midsummer nights. Director Eleanor Rhode’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is both epic and intimate, and completely full of wonder.