Among Seville’s cigar makers, Carmen is the most attractive woman around. Arrested for the assault of a friend, she enthralls the brigadier Don José who lets her escape. For her, José abandons his childhood sweetheart, he gives up his rank, deserts the army… and to what ends will passion...
Hamlet, an opera by Verdi contemporaries Franco Faccio and Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's tragedy, had a "triumphal rebirth" (Deutschlandfunk Kultur) at the Bregenz Festival, where the opera was also recorded for the first time ever. Faccio, who conducted the first performance of Verdi's Aida...