Brenden Gunnell

In the 18th century, in the palace of Pasha Selim, in a purely imaginary Turkey. Belmonte, a young Spanish nobleman, is searching for his fiancée, Constance, who has been captured by pirates and sold to Pasha Selim. Blonde, Constance’s English maid, and her lover Pedrillo, Belmonte’s servant, have suffered the same fate and are at the mercy of the cruel Osmin, the seraglio’s guardian. Belmonte and Pedrillo devise a plan to rescue Constance, who is determined to die rather than succumb to the advances of Pasha Selim, who is eager to win the heart of his beautiful captive. ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ (‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’ K.384) is a three-act singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on the play by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 16 July 1782, conducted by the composer. Recorded live at Glyndebourne Festival, July 19, 2015.

In the 18th century, in the palace of Pasha Selim, in a purely imaginary Turkey. Belmonte, a young Spanish nobleman, is searching for his fiancée, Constance, who has been captured by pirates and sold to Pasha Selim. Blonde, Constance’s English maid, and her lover Pedrillo, Belmonte’s servant, have suffered the same fate and are at the mercy of the cruel Osmin, the seraglio’s guardian. Belmonte and Pedrillo devise a plan to rescue Constance, who is determined to die rather than succumb to the advances of Pasha Selim, who is eager to win the heart of his beautiful captive. ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ (‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’ K.384) is a three-act singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on the play by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 16 July 1782, conducted by the composer. Recorded live at Glyndebourne Festival, July 19, 2015.

Production of the Munich Opera Festival 2017. The plot of Carl Maria von Weber's romantic fairy opera, which premiered at London's Covent Garden in 1826, is quite astonishing: after the fairy king Oberon has fallen out with his wife Titania, it is humans of all people who are supposed to make things right. Titania will only be reconciled if a human couple proves the truthfulness of their love to the death. Oberon's servant Puck already has someone in mind: the crusader Hüon of Bordeaux, who loves the caliph's daughter Rezia.

When a spirited peasant girl is promised to a stranger, she uses every last ounce of cunning and charm to thwart her parents’ plans and get the man she actually loves. From the vibrant overture to the riotous polka, Smetana places dance at the heart of his sparkling work. This festive celebration of Czech culture and identity is re-imagined into the heart of the English countryside with this new production at Garsington Opera.

Hidden in plain sight, three guardians collude to protect the gold for those in power. An outsider, Alberich stumbles upon them and an opportunity to make his life matter, but at a cost. Meanwhile, Leader Wotan desperate to hang on to the Gods’ fading glory, struggles to balance power, his own laws and the standards of public life. Birmingham Opera Company, known for staging opera in empty warehouses and disused factories, here performs RhineGold in the relatively conventional surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall. The production is from August 2021 with the pandemic still dictating so much of our lives. This is an urban RhineGold; Rhinemaidens are selfie-taking party girls, Alberich is cycle courier, and Wotan is first seen giving a press conference for FNN: Fake News Network. This RhineGold, complete with the new English translation by Jeremy Sams, can be seen as a step closer to Wagner’s vision of a total work of art acting as a lever of change in society.

A bored, unhappily married woman dreams of love and of starting anew elsewhere. When she starts an affair with a rakish farmhand, her passion pushes her to crime... Birmingham Opera Company's 50th production relocates Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk to a disused, iconic nightclub where, amidst the 150 volunteer actors and chorus, audience members encountered bloody brides, oversized rats and poisoned wedding guests. Accompanied on stage by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and a band from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and with a radical set design by the Banksy collaborators Block 9, ‘the production is perhaps its most brilliant so far’ (The Observer)