The new edition of Bizet’s “Carmen” from Bärenreiter-Verlag follows the approach that scholarship shouldn’t decide which version is the right one or the real one – and instead presents an edition containing all the surviving original versions of the opéra-comique.

A highly dramatic opera which portrays one of the most exciting female figures in world literature with unusually varied colours: “Médée” develops from deceived woman to frightening witch in Marc Antoine Charpentier’s tragic opera. His only tragédie composed for the Académie royale de musique was premiered on 4 December 1693 in Paris. To contemporaries, his fundamentally renewed musical language with great harmonic richness, a developed counterpoint and a colourful use of the orchestra sounded insufficiently like Lully. Now a new benchmark edition invites rediscovery of this work. It will be used for the first time on 19 November 2023 at the Staatsoper Berlin for a staged production conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars.

As no early manuscript sources of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” have survived, modern editions are forced to draw on later copies of the work that vary in a range of respects. Bärenreiter’s new edition opens up a fresh perspective on the opera.

As often happened, a monarch here tried to assert his claim to power with an opera. But Steffani’s “Henrico Leone” is more than just propaganda in sound. A new edition now makes this remarkable work available.

On 10 February 2022 Jules Massenet’s “Thaïs”, a major work of French 19th century opera, will be performed at La Scala, the legendary Italian opera house. Directed by star director Olivier Py, the conductor is Lorenzo Viotti, chief conductor at Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, and one of the most sought-after conductors of the up-and-coming generation. The main roles are luxuriously cast with Mariana Rebeca, Ludovic Tézier and Giovanni Sala. The production benefits from research findings made by the French musicologist  Fabien Guilloux, which are documented in his critical new edition in the series “L‘Opéra français”, and can now be evaluated for practical use for the first time.

It is over seventy years since the publication of the first volume of the Complete Works of Christoph Willibald Gluck. Now the edition, which made many works accessible for the first time, is almost complete. A preliminary assessment.

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux was an outstanding success, though initially in the reworked version of 1754. The performance material for this work is now available. The volume from the Complete Edition will follow.