Maria Guleghina

Verdi’s admiration for Shakespeare led to such masterpieces as Othello and Falstaff, and if the earlier Macbeth isn’t on their exalted level it’s still a powerfully dramatic opera that hews closely to the original’s story line. The MET’s production retains the dark aura of the opera while updating it to a vaguely post-modern context. So the witches are bag ladies in various stages of decrepitude, with children in tow. The Banquet Scene features lowered chandeliers, a plethora of chairs, and a slew of extras dressed in tuxedos and party gowns. Macbeth sports a leather coat, the soldiers are in drab brown uniforms and seem to have fingers on their triggers even when they’re supposed to be in non-threatening situations. Director Adrian Noble also has Lady Macbeth do an inordinate amount of writhing around and singing from a lying-down position, adding to the feeling that a less interventionist directorial hand might have generated more impact.

Andrea Chenier is a poet during the French Revolution. He and Maddalena are in love. Gerard, former servant in Maddalena's house, denounces them to the Tribunal, but recants it too late. The lovers go to the guillotine together.

Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical China - is one of the most popular in the Met repertory. In this Live in HD production, Maria Guleghina takes on the title role and Marcello Giordani is Calaf, the unknown prince. Marina Poplavskaya and Samuel Ramey co-star, and Andris Nelsons conducts in his Met debut.

The Arena di Verona Festival honors Italian stage director Franco Zeffirelli, and his legendary production of Turandot. Interpreted within the sumptuous surroundings of Verona Arena, this Puccini's masterpiece tells the story of a princess whose beauty was only comparable to her cruelty. She will only marry a prince capable of solving her riddles, but if he fails, he will be beheaded... For this edition, the lyrical festival invites the russian soprano Maria Guleghina who proved a brilliant Turandot. She took to the stage with Salvatore Licitra's trump card is his imposingly radiant tenor voice of wich he remains in sovereign control, and the soprano Tamar Iveri is a beautiful and sensitive Liù.

The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 (Russian: Пиковая дама, Pikovaya dama, French: Pique Dame) is an opera in 3 acts (7 scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but the plot was very changed. The premiere took place in 1890 in St. Petersburg (at the Mariinsky Theatre), Russia.

Conducted by Riccardo Muti, the master of the Scala in Milan for twenty years, the Verdian melodrama unfolds before our eyes. This Cavani's approach is ageless and excellence is pre-eminent: to start with, the role of Riccardo is played by the wonderful Salvatore Licitra. As for Maria Guleghina, she plays an exceptionally good Amelia. Riccardo Muti proves once again what a wonderful Verdian he is.

Live from La Scala December 7th 1997

Nabucco - live from Metropolitan Opera, June 2002. On its surface, Nabucco is about the epic struggle of Zaccaria and the Jews suppressed by Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar and his vengeful daughter, Abigaille. But to Italians fighting for their freedom from Austria, Verdi’s first great opera was an inspiring call to arms.

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. This version is conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala, Milan.