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.

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.

Tosca is Puccini at the peak of his theatrical power. The story of the jealous, impassioned opera singer Floria Tosca and her doomed love for the painter Mario Cavaradossi is played out against backgrounds both historically and geographically overwhelming. It is set in three great and historical locations of Rome during the Napoleonic era. Spectacle, sensuality, and cruelty battle for our attention in one of the most truly "action-packed" works of theatre. Enticing us with just a couple of the "great tunes" from this deeply affecting opera, David Timson then begins setting the biographical and operatic scene.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera. Notable for its precise orchestration and powerful drama it was a groundbreaking work. It concerns the legend of Orpheus, the demigod whose music had the power to conquer the forces of Hell and to bring his wife back, briefly, to life. The extracts used in this introduction are from Naxos’ full recording; it uses authentic period instruments, which serve to evoke the early Baroque period of the opera’s composition.

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 Magic Flute almost defines a masterpiece, because it can be enjoyed on every level. It is a superb fairy story, complete with dragons, demons, a handsome prince, and a lovely maiden seriously in need of rescue; it is a political satire, social commentary, and psychological drama; it is full of tunes from the playful to the heart-stopping, jolly songs, and deeply spiritual outpourings. It is, in short, "Mozart" - and there is no greater compliment than that.

Die Fledermaus is one of the few operatic works to which the phrase "never a dull moment" can be truthfully applied. From the explosive opening of the famous overture - reminiscent of a volley of champagne corks - through the surging energy of the "Fledermaus Waltz" and the many comic numbers, of which the accelerando trio is the finest, up to such huge concerted numbers as the "Duidu" finale to Act II, this is an operetta which almost incarnates nostalgia. Thomson Smillie and David Timson infuse their exploration of Die Fledermaus with as much life as the operetta itself.

Fidelio is a work like no other. Beethoven’s only opera is about the joy of married love - by a man who never knew that pleasure. It is about heroism by a man who was often mean and petty in his human relations; it is about freedom by a man who was a prisoner of his own deafness; and ultimately it is about joy by a man who experienced precious little of it.

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.

Madama Butterfly runs the gamut of operatic emotions. The title heroine has a fragility wonderfully expressed in her entry music, deep sexual instincts as shown in the love duet, and immense tragic stature in her last hours. The fate of Madama Butterfly - married to an American sailor and then abandoned - engages our emotions to a degree equaled by few other opera heroines. The oriental setting and the exquisite orchestral and choral writings are treasured bonuses.

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".

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.

Puccini’s swansong has a claim to being the last great popular opera. Its melodies have enchanted audiences since its posthumous premiere in 1926, two years after Puccini’s death. It involves a chilling story of love and cruelty, an intriguing cast of characters against the exotic backdrop of Imperial China, magnificent choruses and ensembles, and dazzling orchestration in an exotic score that comprises a string of remarkable arias - among which the great tenor aria "Nessun dorma" is the jewel. It is more than Puccini’s last opera: It is the last word, in every sense, on Italian opera.

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.

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.

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.

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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 Emmy, Grammy, and six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald as Blanche DuBois alongside Carla Gugino as Stella, O’Hara takes a fresh and visceral look at the emotionally charged relationship between these two iconic sisters. Haunted by her past, Blanche seeks refuge with Stella and Stanley (Ariel Shafir) in New Orleans, where she wrestles with the nature of her sister’s husband, her sister’s denial, and her own unraveling mind.

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In this brave and moving memoir, Corey Feldman is revealing the truth about what his life was like behind the scenes: His is a past that included physical, drug, and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional family from which he was emancipated at age fifteen, three high-profile arrests for drug possession, a nine-month stint in rehab, and a long, slow crawl back to the top of the box office.

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