Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia

La vida breve, an Andalusian opera in two acts written by Manuel de Falla on a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw, staged by Giancarlo del Monaco at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, in Valencia.

A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. Live from Valencia's iconic Palau de les Arts, the audience favourite Madama Butterfly returns with soprano Marina Rebeka and tenor Piero Pretti in the leading roles. Director Emilio López’s staging culminates in the bleak landscape of Nagasaki destroyed by the atomic bomb to evoke Puccini's early outcry against the soul-crushing spirit of colonialism.

Internationally acclaimed Chinese film-maker Chen Kaige delivers an opulent staging of the fairy-tale story of Chinese Princess Turandot, who will only marry a prince capable of solving her riddles. With sumptuous costumes and palace sets designed in China, Kaige's production adds a compellingly authentic accent to Puccini's exotic orchestral palette. Zubin Metha and his brilliant Orquestra de la Comunitet Valenciana offer "genuine foreworks of sound" (Wiener Zeitung), Maria Guleghina triumphs as Turandot. Recorded in 2008 at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia. Zubin Mehta (conductor).

This grand opera, complete with ensembles and ballets, large choruses and orchestral set pieces, is given an appropriately grand treatment in this production by the renowned Catalan theater group "La Fura dels Baus" recorded at Valencia's Palau de les Arts. In the first part of the work, Padrissa plays with the present-day meaning of "Trojans" as computer viruses: his Trojan horse carries within it the infection that will cause system failures and, ultimately, destruction. In the second part, Carthage is presented as the mysterious seat of a future civilization, where human life is heading towards self-destruction through environmental disasters.