Marc Minkowski

Experience Claudio Monteverdi's three-act opera in the environment it was meant to be seen with this release of a filmed performance captured live during a 2000 production staged at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France. Mireille Delunsch, Anne Sofie Von Otter, and Sylvie Brunet star, and conductor Marc Minkowski leads the Les Musiciens du Louvre, Grenoble. Klaus Michael Grüber directs for stage.

ARTE pays tribute to bass-baritone José van Dam, who passed away on February 17, 2026, and who will remain one of Belgium's most iconic voices. In May 2010, the “maestro” bid farewell to the stage at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, in one of his favorite roles, Jules Massenet's “Don Quichotte.” A moment out of time.

Don Giovanni was commissioned by the Prague Opera immediately after the success of The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart and Da Ponte wanted to build on their success and chose a subject that had triumphed just a few weeks earlier in Venice, a Don Giovanni composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga. Revisiting the theme of the Seville Cheat – a prevalent subject in theatre since the mid-17th century, especially through Molière’s powerful incarnation, and in a ballet by Gluck in Vienna in 1761 – Da Ponte focused the work on the libertine character of Don Juan, no doubt drawing inspiration from his friend Casanova (who in fact helped make changes to Act 2, Scene 9, and attended the Prague première).

The prologue sets the stage for the action: Thespis, Momus and Thalie announce the subject of the play. It is a comedy mocking the folly of man...and the story of a trap set by Jupiter to cure Juno of her jealousy. The trap? It consists in convincing the water nymph Platée that Jupiter is in love with her. Mercury officially declares Jupiter’s love to Platée. When the god appears before her – first as a donkey, then an owl - the nymph calls on the birds of the marshes, but they scare Jupiter away. Luckily he quickly returns and declares his love for Platée. He even wants to marry her. La Folie comes to sing for the fiancée during an absolutely chaotic scene. However, as the couple prepares for the wedding, Juno arrives. Furious, she puts an end to the farce and ascends to the heavens with Jupiter. Humiliated, Platée understands she has been duped. She swims off into the marshes, as the chorus sings an ironic song in her honour.

Production of the Salzuberger Festspiele 2024. French director Mariame Clément will explore the relationship between art and real life by linking the three “tales” with individual stages of Hoffmann's biography as an artist in her production. This has decisive consequences for the female characters, or rather for the view of the images that Hoffmann projects onto Stella: the angelic but emotionally cold Olympia, who turns out to be a doll;

Così fan tutte, or The School for Lovers, is the last joint opera buffa by Mozart and Da Ponte. The libretto and score were written in a month in December 1789, and the premiere took place at the end of January 1790, but the death of the Emperor interrupted the run after five performances. This Neapolitan-style comedy (the action is set in Naples!), but very much inspired by French comic opera, and in particular by Femmes Vengées composed by Philidor in 1775 to a libretto by Sedaine (which was performed in Vienna), where two women wanting to teach their husbands a lesson exchange their roles by cross-dressing… in order to seduce them and confuse them better! Twenty years later, Mozart and Da Ponte found exceptional inspiration for this comedy of manners in the spirit of Marivaux, where love, beauty and cruelty are subtly intertwined, until all hell breaks loose for some anthological moments!

The definitive version of this rare opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The costume and set design is truly visionary and other worldly and gives a convincing insight into what staged operas must have looked like during the Baroque and Rococo period. Singers are all excellent and well cast in their respective roles. One of the most thrilling things I have seen, just wish I could see this live.

In 2009, Frédéric Mistral’s tale of love and loss in Provence came to the Opéra de Paris with a new production of Gounod’s 1864 opera Mireille. Nicolas Joel’s naturalistic staging frames the accomplished performances of Albanian soprano Inva Mula as Mireille and American tenor Charles Castronovo as her ardent country lover Vincent.

The setting of the opera is the enchantress Alcina's island: here by her magic powers she has created a magnificent palace in a beautiful landscape, to lure her many lovers into her power. One of these is Ruggiero, a warrior, who under Alcina's spell has forsaken his duty and his betrothed, Bradamante.

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Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K488 Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K219 'Turkish' Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D944 'The Great' - 4th Movement Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 21 in E minor, K304: 2nd movement

Le Nozze di Figaro marked the beginning of Mozart’s collaboration with Da Ponte. At the premiere in 1786, the success was mixed in Vienna, but Prague was enthusiastic about this love imbroglio set in Seville, where the Countess and Suzanna play cat and mouse with the gentlemen, to avoid the Count’s designs on his maids… Figaro undertakes to set this little world to rights, to confound his Master while preserving the Countess’s affair with Cherubino. An infernal machine launched at full speed, which allows Mozart to produce arias of great beauty, an exceptionally determined Figaro, and reversals of situation which are the subject of brilliant ensemble numbers at the end of each act. Exhilarating!

This May 2010 production of Massenet's 1910 opera "Don Quichotte" marked the opera's centenary and also Jose Van Dam's operatic farewell at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels. It is beautiful in every way--vocally, scenically, sonically, and visually--and a worthy record of Van Dam's farewell. Van Dam is just shy of 70 in this production, but you would never guess it from his singing or stage movements--a consummate artist. His is a noble portrayal and deeply moving. The Act V death scene is a model of beautiful singing and acting.