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Set against the frantic backdrop of the French Revolution, Respighi's Marie Victoire was slated for a 1915 premiere, but it never happened. Like his popular Pines of Rome, Respighi uses the orchestra like a jumbo box of crayons to create an explosion of color.

Verdi's opera showcases the city of Venice's complex and lethal political history in a dramatic version of the life of 15th-century doge Francesco Foscari.

Sex, smuggling, cigarettes and murder. Now we're talking opera. Georges Bizet's popular Carmen is an opera-goer's guilty pleasure, with plenty of great tunes. Mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, still early in her career, stars in a production from La Scala, in Milan.

From frustrated newlyweds who don't know what to do with each other, to an arranged marriage of inconvenience, this double bill from Ireland's Wexford Festival features the little-heard short operas The Marriage contract by Rossini and An Insufficient Education by Chabrier.

Sequels in opera are rare. But in the 1770s, Christoph Willibald Gluck composed a pair of successful dramas that highlighted the hair-raising adventures of the young Iphigenia. She barely escapes death in one opera and nearly commits murder in another.

After Dvorak, Smetana and Janacek, Bohuslav Martinu continued the long and distinguished line of Czech opera composers. Characters both sacred and profane struggle for supremacy in Martinu's unique stage drama, inspired by the medieval tradition of mystery and miracle Plays.

Verdi's Il Trovatore remains one of the most popular operas of all time, but it walks a fine line between tragedy and farce. Find out who threw which baby into the fire in this production from the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy.

Puccini's talent lay in creating realistic characters who deal with universal problems such as love, envy, and loss. Hear selections from the Vienna State Opera's opening night performance of his popular romantic tragedy.

Handel's operas are only just emerging from obscurity -- like the exiled king in Rodelinda, who fakes his own death and then makes an daring comeback in a maze of intrigue and blackmail.

As he struggles with jealousy and poverty in this powerful tragedy, the psychologically disturbed title character endures ridicule from his superiors and undergoes bizarre medical experiments.