Doris Soffel 

Robert Gambill

Günter von Kannen

Enric Serra

Nuccia Focile

Live performance from the Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1987. At the age of 21, Italian composer Giacchino Rossini penned the masterful comic opera “L’Italiana in Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”) in less than a month. The composer’s youthful exuberance comes across in this infectious 1987 performance. Though she’s known mainly for her Wagner roles, acclaimed German mezzo-soprano Doris Soffel shines in the title role of Isabella. Ralf Weikert conducts, and Mauro Pagano oversees sets and costumes.

While a roaring ball stirs up spirits inside, a boy and a girl meet on the sidelines – and fall in love at first sight. But because they belong to warring families, Romeo and Juliet's love may be immortal, but it is above all forbidden.  The chamber opera by the German-Baltic composer Boris Blacher, written in 1943, condenses Shakespeare’s famous tragedy to its essence: the fate of Romeo and Juliet. Scenic miniatures conjure a foggy world hostile to love. Characters occasionally materialise like ghostly apparitions, while a Brechtian chansonnier comments with humour and with harshness on the failure of the greatest love story of all.

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

Two noble women, bored of their lives, disguise themselves as country wenches and go to the market at Richmond Fair, where two young farmers fall in love with them.

German silent film operetta (Filmoperette)

a film opera; music by: Gaetano Donizetti (Philharmonic Orchestra of Rome) Directed by Giuseppe Zedda.

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Live performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 2000.

Live performance from the Opéra National de Paris, 2003.