Carmen is among the most popular operas for all the obvious reasons: great characters, a gripping story, and fabulous music. But what sets it on a pinnacle is an amazing combination of three factors: a sizzling Gipsy heroine (one of the most psychologically complex and compelling characters in all theatre), great atmosphere (Spain, hot sun, the bull-ring), and the prodigality of melodic invention - one great tune after another, at least a dozen of which are the staples of Madison Avenue and the animated cartoon.

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers. Interest and poignancy are added by the fact that this is a true story - the baritone ‘heavy’ is Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo. But it is the central figure, the heroine Violetta, the archetypal ‘whore with the heart of gold’ who dominates the piece. It is her opera and we love her for it.

La sonnambula was written by Bellini as a vehicle for two of the supreme singers of his age and accordingly is a fine example of the school we call bel canto, where beauty of voice and the virtuosity of the singers is integral to conveying the emotions in the soul of the composer. The fact that Bellini was one of the great melodists, writing long, beautiful vocal lines, that he was a master orchestrator and that he could write stirringly for the chorus all conspire to make La sonnambula extremely enjoyable.

Rossini’s comic operas, like The Barber of Seville, are better known than his tragedies though he wrote in fact many more tragedies than comedies. One of them, his last, William Tell, is actually credited with launching the whole age of Grand Opéra. Tancredi is an early work - indeed his first smash hit - and it established his international fame.

Il Trovatore has been ruthlessly parodied. It is a tale of murder and mayhem, burned babies, roasted hags, would-be nuns, strolling minstrels, and bad baritones. And indeed the libretto does call for a willing suspension of disbelief. The reward is in the music, a score as prodigally melodic as only the mature Verdi could write: the "Anvil" chorus, the "Miserere" scene, two great tenor arias, a beautiful baritone aria - a richness without embarrassment.

The Barber of Seville is Rossini’s most popular opera. Its effervescent overture (written originally for another work!) presents a perfect platform for the amusing plot in which the barber, Figaro, stage-manages a romance between Count Almaviva and Rosina, and puts to flight the old suitor, Dr Bartolo. "Largo al Factotum" is one of the most popular arias in opera - nearly 200 years after its first performance it is still one of the great show-stoppers.

The Flying Dutchman is the perfect opera with which to approach the operatic mountain that is Richard Wagner. It is short, has a great story (the legend of the Dutch captain doomed to sail forever unless redeemed through love), and the striking score has many pre-echoes of Wagner's later great music dramas. It contains wonderful tunes in its arias, ensembles, and big choruses, and the orchestral writing - from the gale that blows out of the Overture to the final theme of "Redemption through Love" - will "blow you away".

Cavalleria rusticana is the short opera that has all the elements of a grand opera compressed into a single highly dramatic time span. The story of love, lust, blood-feud, and betrayal played out against the pageantry of the Easter celebrations in a Sicilian village delivers an emotional wallop because of the youthful vigor and musical wealth of its great score which includes the glorious "Easter Hymn" and the deeply moving "Intermezzo". Mascagni was never to repeat his youthful success but this brief work is enough to ensure his immortality.

Pagliacci may be the most completely compelling short opera in the repertory and owes much of its impact to a brilliant story based, it is said, on true life and told through the device of a play-within-a-play. The action is set in Calabria in the deep south of Italy where the jealousies and illicit passions of a troupe of strolling actors precisely intersect with the play they are performing - to both touching and tragic effect.

La Bohème is one of the three operas - the others are Carmen and Aida - believed to be the most popular ever written. In the case of La Bohème the reason is that it virtually defines the term "romantic". The poignant story of Mimì and Rodolfo is told in music of such tender beauty, allied, as always, to Puccini’s intuition of what works in the theatre. The result is an opera that readily appeals to our emotions and senses.

Dating from the last decade of the 19th century, Pelléas et Mélisande points the way into the 20th century. The score is hauntingly beautiful, but there is more to the work than shifting panels of elusive, impressionistic sound. Debussy retains the text of Maeterlinck’s play, and the linguistic subtleties of the French text are matched perfectly by the musical detail. Taking a little time to explore the romantic, elusive world of this opera is particularly rewarding.

Verdi’s Falstaff repays careful study with real pleasure. It is opera’s happiest irony that the great Italian master should cap a career - distinguished for its blood-and-thunder tragic masterpieces - with the greatest comic opera in the Italian repertory. The genius of Shakespeare is harnessed (in a miracle of compression) by master-librettist Boito to give the 80-year-old Verdi a superb libretto, on which he lavished more wonderful tunes than most composers manage in a lifetime.

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozart’s most sublime music. On one level, the opera is purely a social anecdote about young people falling in and out of love; but Mozart was a supreme sensualist and a great humanist, and invested the tale with all his understanding of humanity and young love. In this title, David Timson refutes the charge that Mozart squandered his genius on a work full of trivial nonsense and proves this "miraculous yet problematic" opera to be a great work of theatre. To listen to this thought-provoking examination of the characters and the music is both thoroughly enriching and great fun.

Rigoletto is simply wonderful entertainment with superb music. It is also much more - a daring (for its time) attack on aristocratic privilege, a tender love story, and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the disadvantaged, all set to music of such wealth and beauty that, with its sister operas La traviata and Il trovatore, it has defined Italian opera for 150 years. Overcoming initial trouble with the censors, Verdi's Rigoletto was a smash hit at its premiere and has not been out of the repertoire since. It’s not hard to see why.

Many opera-lovers would name The Marriage of Figaro as their favorite opera. It appeals to the most intellectual listener, but also to music-lovers seeking great melodies and ensembles (while it remains accessible through its fascinating plot and memorable characters) and to those seeking only entertainment. One of three operas by Mozart to libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte, it represents one of the pinnacles not just of operatic but of human achievement.

The resurgence of viral clips from the long-running hit reality television show America’s Next Top Model left fans and foes alike wondering–how did a show so outrageous and at times offensive ever get on the air? For years, Americans dutifully watched as contestants faced uncomfortable situations regarding their race and gender, body-shaming, stereotyping, and problematic photoshoots. The show, which first premiered in 2003 and ran for 24 cycles, was helmed by supermodel Tyra Banks–the first Black female host of a smash network reality show.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

The True Story of The Coward Brothers follows two musical brothers – one English, one American, both the illegitimate sons of dubious parentage who may, as they claim to be, "one and half-brothers" – perhaps a reference to the disparity in their height and relative talents.

Fresh off the success of her groundbreaking first play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window tells the tragicomic story of a young bohemian couple in New York's Greenwich Village, struggling to do what's right in a world that rewards everything that's wrong. Sidney is a dreamer who wants his own Walden Pond; Iris is a budding actress whose own backstory is a performance. They're caught in a moment where, "the world is about to crack right down the middle," as the play tackles racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, liberal complacency, and more.

In the spring of 2020, as the world grappled with the deepening coronavirus pandemic, acclaimed British screenwriter and playwright David Hare was struck down by the virus himself. With brutal honesty, sharp humor, and his trademark insight, the renowned writer of modern classics like Skylight and Plenty brings us into his own experience battling the bizarre and terrifying symptoms of Covid-19.

Farewell Yellow Brick Road is a celebration of Elton John's record-breaking, globe-spanning farewell tour—from Allentown to Auckland, from Sydney to San Francisco. Featured concerts include Elton’s dazzling performances at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in November 2022, the finale of which streamed live on Disney+. Fans will be treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into every aspect of these spectacular shows, including Elton’s legendary touring wardrobe by Gucci, the set design, official photography, and more.

From a breakout role in the smash-hit Glee to breaking barriers as the first nonbinary-identifying Tony Award winner for their featured performance in Shucked, Alex Newell is no stranger to the spotlight. Now, listen to the talented trailblazer as you’ve never seen them before in their intimate new show, Alex Newell and the Gospel of a Diva. Alex shares untold stories from their remarkable life and career alongside a selection of their favorite tunes.

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day.

With exclusive insights from the legendary cast, including Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, and Talia Shire, and commentary from a diverse array of film experts and ardent aficionados, we dissect the film’s magnetic allure and its pervasive influence across our culture. Journey alongside Rebecca Keegan, acclaimed senior film editor at The Hollywood Reporter, as she explores the heart of this cinematic masterpiece through a new lens.

After a betrayal at work costs Song Kuan her job, she retreats to her friend Lucy’s idyllic family cabin on a lake in Minnesota to lick her wounds. She devotes herself to recording Ice Cold Cases, a true-crime podcast that she and Lucy cohost with the gleeful energy of obsessed fans—until an anonymous tip about a missing-person case disrupts their equilibrium. Then Lucy disappears, leaving Song alone in an unfriendly and unfamiliar town where locals don’t take kindly to strangers asking questions.