Read expert-written show guides with context, plot, characters and video examples.
Nabucco
In Verdi's retelling of the Old Testament stories of King Nebuchadnezzar II's religious conversion,...
Akhnaten
Akhnaten was a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt, and reigned from 1353-1336 BC. He took the thro...
Alcina
The famous knight Ruggiero has been abducted by a sorceress. His fiancee, Bradamante, is determined...
Billy Budd
Billy Budd is proud to be a new sailor aboard the H.M.S. Indomitable. Nevertheless, Billy's strengt...
Cendrillon (Massenet)
Cendrillon is Massenet’s beautiful operatic retelling of the fairy tale of Cinderella. We meet all o...
Dido and Aeneas
Based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido and Aeneas is Purcell’s only true opera, and his first com...
Giulio Cesare
Handel’s Giulio Cesare tells the story of how Julius Caesar tries to bring peace to the turbulent r...
I puritani
Set against the context of the English Civil War, Bellini’s I puritani is a story of romance and hea...
L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea)
The beautiful Poppea has caught the eye of the emperor Nerone , and he has fallen devotedly in love...
La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina
Following the myths of the knight Ruggiero from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, this opera is set on and...
Orfeo ed Euridice
According to the legend, Orpheus was famous with the Gods for his incredible singing ability and hi...
Pyramus and Thisbe
Originally taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and transplanted by a group of rustic ‘Mechanicals’ into...
