American soprano Renée Fleming performs a selection of songs by Richard Strauss live at the Salzburg Festival in 2011. As well as featuring scenes from one of her finest roles, Arabella, Fleming is accompanied throughout by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Christian Thielemann.

Italian operatic bass Carlo Colombara performs a selection of his most famous roles including Escamillo from Bizet's 'Carmen', Philippe II from Verdi's 'Don Carlos' and Don Basilio from Rossini's 'Barber of Seville'.

Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, based on the Mongol army's entry into Kitezha and its subsequent unexpected survival, is here performed live at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari under the guidance of Russian conductor Alexander Vedernikov.

Glyndebourne's Musical Director Vladimir Jurowski leads the London Philharmonic and the Glyndebourne Chorus in this production of Stravinsky's opera recorded live in December 2010. Performers featured include Miah Persson, Topi Lehtipuu, Clive Bayley and Matthew Rose.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic take on the lurid life of former Playboy model and octogenarian billionaire's wife, Anna Nicole Smith. Eva-Maria Westbroeck takes the lead role in this production filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in February 2011, with Antonio Pappano conducting.

English soprano Amanda Roocroft takes the lead role in this production of Janacek's opera, recorded live at the Teatro Real in October, 2009. Ivor Bolton conducts, and other leading performances come from Miroslav Dvorsky, Deborah Polaski, Mette Ejsing and Nikolai Schukoff.

Antonio Pappano is the conductor for Richard Eyre's production of Verdi's opera staged at the Royal Opera House in 2009. American soprano Renee Fleming heads an all-star cast including Johan Botha, Joseph Calleja, Thomas Hampson and Eddie Wade.

Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, along with an ensemble of actors, singers and musicians, bring to life the tragic love between the composer Robert Schumann and his pianist wife Clara Wieck. Reflecting the separation that came to be such a central theme of their lives, the performers are divided into male and female groups. Sting reads the letters of Robert Schumann, with his songs sung by Iain Burnside, while Trudie Styler reads Clara's letters, with her songs being sung by Rebecca Evans.

Mascagni's two act opera recieves a rare outing, with Anna Malavasi, Pierre Luigi Dilengite, and the Orchestre Internazionale D'Italia conducted by Manlio Benzi.

The third part of Wagner's epic cycle, 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' filmed at the Het Muziektheater Amsterdam. Siegfried pursues his path to manhood as parental love dissipates and is replaced by romantic love and desire.

Ballet set to music by John Cage and choreographed by Lin Hwai-min, inspired by the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy.

Calixto Bieito's famously controversial 2002 production of Mozart's great opera sets the action in the late 20th Century and brings to life an ancient story. Bertrand de Billy conducts an energetic cast led by Wojtek Drabowicz in the title role, with the Liceu's Orchestra Academy.

Roman Polanski's telling of famed Polish composer-pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's survival in the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto can't help but be infused with the director's deepest passions: he himself escaped the Krakw ghetto as a boy of 7. The musician's status as a musical hero to the oppressed Polish Jews of World War II was surpassed only by that of Chopin, the composer who was at the core of Szpilman's repertoire. Thus this score revolves tightly around Chopin's music, with modern Polish pianist Janusz Olejniczak paying passionate homage to both his musical and national forebears, the haunting strains of the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor setting the film's historical and dramatic tone. The underscore of previous Polanski collaborator Wojciech Kilar (The Ninth Gate, Death and the Maiden) is represented here by the soulful "Moving to the Ghetto," a cue that helps anchor the soundtrack's troubling time and place with understated grace. The collection concludes with a rare, remastered performance of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 17, No.4 by Szpilman himself, recorded in Warsaw in 1948. --Jerry McCulley

Svetla Vassileva and Fabio Sartori take the lead roles in Puccini's opera, recorded live at the Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago, in 2007. The conductor is Alberto Veronesi.

Emmanuelle Haïm conducts Le Concert d'Astrée in this production of Rameau's opera, recorded at the Paris Opera Palais Garnier. The title roles are performed by Topi Lehtipuu and Anne-Catherine Gillet with the rest of the cast including Stéphane Degout, Sarah Connolly, Jaël Azzaretti, Salomé Haller and Marc Mauillon.