Teatro Real de Madrid

Who loves whom in Così fan tutte, Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s cruelly comic reflection on desire, fidelity and betrayal? Or have the confusions to which the main characters subject one another ensured that in spite of the heartfelt love duets and superficially fleetfooted comedy nothing will work any longer and that a sense of emotional erosion has replaced true feelings? Così fan tutte is a timeless work full of questions that affect us all. The Academy Award-winning director Michael Haneke once said that he was merely being precise and did not want to distort reality. In only his second opera production after Don Giovanni in 2006, he presents what ARTE described as a “disillusioned vision of love in an ice-cold, realistic interpretation”.

A tragic and secretive romance ensues over many years after two men meet while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in this opera based on Annie Proulx's short story and its subsequent Oscar-winning film adaptation.

The production by Calixto Bieito extracts all the potential from this work in a most convincing and spine-chilling way. The action takes place in a closed society of the 1950s, taking this story of witchcraft, sex and religion to the realism of imitation leather sofas, crochet cardigans, medical abuse and child molestation.

The libretto of the most well known opera by Dvořak, which premiered in Prague in 1901, is inspired by the Czech version of the Central European folktale, one we also know as Undine (1811) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué or The Little Mermaid (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen.

Opera fantastique in five acts (1881), new version by Sylvain Cambreling & Christoph Marthaler. With Eric Cutler and Anne Sofie Von Otter. Teatro Real, filmed on 05/2014

First seen in Naples in 1827, this farce of a “theatre within a theatre” narrates the mishaps of a second-rate opera company as it stages the great serious drama Romolo ed Ersilia in a provincial theatre. The unbearable tensions between the two lead singers are finally resolved with the decisive intervention of one of their mothers. The co-production by Ópera de Lyon along with the Grand Theâtre de Genève and Teatro Real is brought to life by Laurent Pelly, a tireless champion of Donizetti's comedies.

Claus Guth's exciting 2017 staging of Handel’s "Rodelinda" at Madrid’s Teatro Real, featuring Lucy Crowe and Bejun Mehta as Rodelinda and Bertarido, with conductor Ivor Bolton. After the successes of "Giulio Cesare" in 1723 and "Tamerlano" in 1724, Rodelinda completes the trilogy of Handel’s great opera seria masterpieces. The work was composed in 1725 using Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto, a work inspired by Antonio Salvi’s earlier libretto which had been itself adapted from Pierre Corneille’s tragedy "Pertharite, roi des Lombards". Rodelinda thus brought one of the most glorious compositional periods in the Handel’s career to a close, about a decade after his arrival in the British capital. Mixing romantic storytelling and political intrigue, Handel produced one of his most beautiful scores, a true operatic tour de force.

Le Nozze di Figaro New Production Teatro Real in co-production with Bilbao’s ABAO and Las Palmas Teatro Pérez Galdós. From the opening notes of the overture to the final curtain, Emilio Sagi’s classic, triumphant production brings to life all the elegant wit and theatricality of Mozart’s comic masterpiece Le nozze di Figaro. Leading baritone Ludovic Tézier shines as the lustful Count Almaviva who attempts to obtain the favors of Figaro’s bride-to-be, Susanna (Isabel Rey), while Luca Pisaroni gives a feisty performance as Figaro. Conductor Jesús López Cobos masterfully captures the enchanting score. A witty yet profound tale of love, betrayal, and forgiveness.

Tsar Saltan marries the youngest of three sisters, having heard that it is her dearest wish to present him with a heroic son and heir. Her jealous sisters and the old Aunt Barbaricha cannot bear this situation to persist and by trickery see to it that the Tsaritsa and her newborn son Gvidon are thrown into the sea. In their barrel they are washed ashore on an enchanted island where the rapidly growing tsar’s son saves a swan from the clutches of a wizard. In gratitude, the swan helps Gvidon to visit his native country once again in the guise of a bumblebee. Three wishes, three miracles and three bee-stings later, father and son are finally able to get to know each other.

A famous singer lives only for art and love. But when she finds herself caught in a web of politics, corruption, lies and lust, she is forced to make a terrible choice. To this day, Tosca is one of the most popular and ageless operas. With its cinematographic pace, abundant leitmotifs and massive orchestrations, Puccini renewed and transcended Italian melodrama and the verismo genre. Sondra Radvanovsky, Joseph Calleja and Carlos Álvarez lead this operatic thriller in the midst of a revolution, under the direction of Paco Azorín and the baton of Nicola Luisotti.

A superb adaptation of Purcell's the Indian Queen, staged and directed by Peter Sellars and performed in 2013 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Peters Sellars combines John Dryden and Robert Howard's libretto with a short-story written by the Nicaraguan writer Rosario Aguilar, La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies.

Documentary about an emblematic institution of the Spanish Arts, Madrid's Teatro Real, or Royal Theatre, released to celebrate it's 2nd centenary anniversary.

This Wagner opera is rarely performed because of the scandals that engulfed the Magdeburg Theatre when it was performed in 1836 under the title The Novice of Palermo, and became known as a cursed opera from which the composer had to distance himself. Wagner's adaptation of the story reflects the rebellious mood of a Revolutionary Germany, vindicating sensual love and attack the fanatical repression of sexuality by a puritanical and hypocritical authority. As the prose says, "Shame to him whose cruel striking/Kills for faults of his own liking!". One of the most extraordinary musicals based on a text by Shakespeare, especially worthy of a new performance as it is four hundred years since the death of the Bard.

In the last and most dramatic aria in Roberto Devereux , one of the four Tudor period operas composed by Donizetti in 1837 (along with Anna Bolena , Maria Stuarda and Il Castello di Kenilworth), the protagonist, Queen Elizabeth I of England, exclaims: "I do not reign, I do not live". This statement encapsulates great operatic themes, and it is the culmination of an opera that reveals the passions of characters who live among palace intrigues. Written in the mature period of the leader of Italian romanticism, the opera displays a great vocal virtuosity, and is an example of Donizetti prizing the voice above all in the genre. The staging, by South African director Alessandro Talevi, who has been very successful in great opera houses as well as with more experimental theatre, places the play in an undetermined period, focusing on the chiaroscuro. Bruno Campanella conducts.

At the Teatro Real in Madrid, director Laurent Pelly and conductor Giacomo Sagripanti get to grips with Gioachino Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy) – a delightful opera buffa teeming with colourful characters!

Drama - This majestic production of Handel's vivid tragedy, TAMERLANO, stars a Lear-like Placido Domingo as the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, caught between pride, love, and loyalty. Displaying the uniquely heroic quality of his voice, Domingo heads a superb cast, including Sara Mingardo, Monica Bacelli, and Ingela Bohlin, all magnificently responsive to Paul McCreesh's authentic and luminous musical interpretation of the score. The stunning theatrical staging by Graham Vick provides a splendid setting for the characters and for designer Richard Hudson's extravagant Baroque-Islamic costumes, emphasizing the brilliance of one of Handel's finest dramatic achievements. - Monica Bacelli, Plácido Domingo, Ingela Bohlin

Based on a poem published in 1810 with more ethnographic than dramatic focus, Britten constructed a sombre parable about the conflict between the masses and the individual. The maritime atmosphere, the crudity of people’s lives and passions, and the complex, impenetrable personality of the protagonist come together in a tragedy which ferments and explodes in the din of silence and hearsay. New production of the Teatro Real, in co-production with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden of London, the Opéra national of Paris and the Teatro dell’Opera of Rome

Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real.

The central character of Mozart’s opera Lucio Silla is inspired by the historical figure of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, a dictator and Roman general who ruled during the 1st century BC. In this production at Madrid’s Teatro Real, an intriguing minimalist staging is complemented by Ivor Bolton’s expert music direction, and a talented cast.