Jules Massenet’s Werther, with libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann, was written between 1885 and 1887, although it did not premiere until 1892. Set in Wetzlar in Germany in the 1780s, and loosely based on Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, it concerns a melancholic poet who is besotted with Charlotte. Their feelings for each other begin to develop when her betrothed Albert is away, but he returns unexpectedly and Charlotte...

The three plays in Pierre Beaumarchais’ Figaro trilogy are The Barber of Seville (1775), The Marriage of Figaro (1784) and The Guilty Mother (1792). In 1786 Mozart based his opera on the second of these, and thirty years later Rossini utilised the first, which involves the same characters of Figaro, Count Almaviva, Rosina, Doctor Bartolo and Don Basilio, for his own comic masterpiece. Like Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier that...

Over 80 years of existence, a wonderful setting in the hills of South England and high quality performances have made Glyndebourne a high reputable festival. Everybody who has ever been there will never forget the remote familiar atmosphere with sheep on the fields nearby the picnic on the impeccable lawns, and this relaxed relation of nature and art. A perfect location and attitude for experiencing an opera, especially the monumental piece of Meistersinger by Richard Wagner. It...