Here is the opera event of 2005, the Salzburg Festival’s "La Traviata" featuring Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, and Thomas Hampson in a dramatic staging by Willy Decker – the thrilling production that prompted riotous ovations not seen since Karajan’s heyday.

Verdi, child of the people, king of popular opera, began life as the son of an innkeeper. He was brought up in modest circumstances. He first received lessons from the village priest, who was amazed by the young musician’s talents. Verdi’s musical education was rounded and complete: at the age of sixteen, the composer wrote fugues, masses and symphonies, which he would later destroy. As he met with reticence in Milan, he settled in Busseto where he fell victim to the pettiness of the town. However, his strong willpower enabled him to pursue his musical path without paying heed to what people said.

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau makes for an intriguingly offbeat, enjoyably seedy knight under Leonard Bernstein's baton. Bernstein has some interesting ideas about this opera, and not all of them work, but he grounds the opera with a solid, inspiring cast. Regina Resnik is clearly having a ball as Quickly, Rolando Panerai is fantastic in one of his most reliable roles. Only Juan Oncina and Graziella Sciutti, as the young lovers, disappoint. Best of all is Ilva Ligabue, caught in her prime in one of her best roles. Most of the cast would also feature in Bernstein's studio recording, but this live performance has a vitality absent from the more well-known studio effort.

The gala evening at the Paris Opera on December 19, 1958 was announced in the press as ""the greatest show in the world". Maria Callas, at the height of her glory, performed for the first time in front of a Parisian audience. The diva delivered all the facets of her art through the Italian classics that she loved, with the theatrical genius that is proper to her. Paris gave her a triumphant evening!
The original recording of this evening, broadcast in Eurovision throughout Europe, has been newly restored with the greatest care.

The knock-out concert event of 2006! Anna Netrebko, Plácido Domingo and Rolando Villazón came together for one unforgettable evening of opera arias and ensembles. This is not a cross-over concert, but a genuine collection of operatic gems, performed by three thrilling performers in front of an audience of 20,000 roaring fans. The excitement in the audience brings out the best in each performer. With selections from L'Arlesiana, Gianni Schicchi, Otello, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Giuditta, La Bohème, West Side Story and much more! Marco Armiliato leads the Deutschen Oper Berlin Orchestra.

Sir Georg Solti conducts an outstanding cast - led by Kiri Te Kanawa in one of her most celebrated stage roles - in Elijah Moshinsky's acclaimed production from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Michael Yeargan's designs beautifully evoke fourteenth-century Genoa - the setting for one of Verdi's most heartfelt operas of public and private passion.

An all-star cast, led by Luciano Pavarotti at the height of his fame in one of his most celebrated roles. Joined by Katia Ricciarelli (Amelia), Judith Blegen (Oscar), Bianca Berini (Ulrica) and Louis Quilico (Renato). Conducted by Giuseppe Patane. This was an eye-catching and thought-provkoing production. Moshinsky staged the action in pre-revolutionary 1774 Boston.

In this majestic production of Verdi's Don Carlo, Riccardo Chailly's qualities as a Verdi conductor are brilliantly displayed in the dramatic precision and transparent instrumental detail he draws from both orchestra and cast. Willy Decker directs a wonderful piece of stagecraft, letting the tragedy unwind with minimal, yet telling, interventions. The drama takes place in the mausoleum of Filippo II's Escorial, where the tombs of countless generations of Spanish royalty line the walls. Filippo's confrontation with Il grande inquisitore - which takes place over his own coffin, its resting place in the wall ready and waiting - is chillingly symbolic, as are the feet of the giant crucifix that hangs over Don Carlo as he sees his life sacrificed by his father.

The Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2021, conducted by Daniel Harding with Igor Levit as soloist, was recorded again this year by Sony Classical. The Summer Night Concert, which took place on June 18, 2021, is an outdoor concert held annually since 2008, following the "Concert for Europe" held from 2004 to 2007. The baroque park of Schönbrunn Palace provides an enchanting backdrop for the concert. Among the illustrious conductors who have conducted the Vienna Philharmonic's Summer Night Concert in recent years are Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov and Gustavo Dudamel.

This live issue from the 2008 Salzburg Festival centers around Riccardo Muti’s driving, powerful take on Verdi’s score. He gets wonderful, idiomatic playing from the Vienna Philharmonic, and the recorded balance in fact tends to favor the orchestra over the fine, largely fresh-voiced singers. (Muti uses an unusual edition of Act III’s concertato that Verdi wrote for the opera’s Paris premiere, featuring considerable variants in the soprano line and lighter orchestration.)

Jon Vickers one of the great Othellos of the 20th century brings his remarkable vocal power and dramatic intensity to the role, with Renata Scotto as Desdemona at the height of her powers and Cornell MacNeil's manacing Iago in one of the baritone's greatest roles. James Levine conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus in one of the most thrilling performances of the decade.

In the original St. Petersburg version of 1862. Giuseppe Verdi’s drama of love and destiny in times of war remains one of the best–known operas by this Italian master. In the „Milan version“ of 1867, it has become an essential part of the repertoire of great opera houses, both in Europe and further afield. This DVD video recording, however, is quite distinct from the numerous other recordings currently available: the conductor Valery Gergiev has used the rarely–heard original 1862 version, composed for St. Petersburg, and containing wonderfully dramatic scenes and arias later deleted from the „Milan version“. And furthermore, the stage–set for this 1998 live recording in the Marinisiky Theatre recreates the original designs produced by Andreas Roller for the St. Petersburg premiere over 130 years ago.

Passion, loyalty and political conspiracy are the three pillars of Un ballo in maschera (1859), the ‘most operatic of all operas’. Set in 19th-century Boston, Mario Martone's atmospheric production for the Teatro Real brings out all the innate theatricality and drama of Verdi's work. World famous Argentinean tenor Marcelo Álvarez, in the role of Riccardo, leads a fabulous cast including Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana as his lover Amelia, and Elena Zaremba as the witch Ulrica. Jesús López Cobos conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real in a performance that emphasises the lyricism and majesty of this wonderful work, in which grand opera and opera comique are woven together with classic Italian style.

Plácido Domingo’s triumphant “return” to his baritone roots (his first debut with the Mexican National Opera, in 1959, was as a baritone), is captured in this stunning 2-DVD set of the Royal Opera House’s 2010 production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Domingo is joined by Marina Poplavskaya, Joseph Calleja, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Jonathan Summers and Lukas Jakobski in this Antonio Pappano conducted performance, directed by Elijah Moshinsky.