This box set includes a special collection of classic performances from The Royal Ballet. In the feature-length documentary Essential Royal Ballet, Katie Derham introduces carefully curated excerpts from productions that span the history of ballet and goes behind the scenes to see what it takes to be a dancer in The Royal Ballet as they prepare to take to the stage.

With stunning solos, passionate pas de deux and jaw-dropping numbers for the corps de ballet, Essential Royal Ballet is a chance to see the Company’s much-loved dancers past and present up close. Including many favourites from the likes of Carlos Acosta, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova, Steven McRae, Francesca Hayward and Matthew Ball, the artists share stories of their life on the stage and thoughts on what these celebrated ballets mean to them. In Pas de Deux: the ‘steps for two’ so central to the form of ballet are celebrated further in 16 exceptional examples from The Royal Ballet’s repertory. A collection from across the Company’s heritage and contemporary classics, Pas de Deux demonstrates the choreographic diversity, technical brilliance, show-stopping spectacle and artistry for which The Royal Ballet is acclaimed around the world.

Pious restraint comes face to face with sensuous hedonism in Camille Saint-Saens’s grand-opera retelling of the Bible story of Samson and Delilah. Multi-Olivier Award winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage this spectacular fin-de-siecle masterpiece, not performed at Covent Garden since 2004. Elina Garanca stars as the Philistine Dalila, SeokJong Baek as the inspiring Jewish hero Samson and Antonio Pappano conducts the full forces of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. With superb singing in solos and duets of great intimacy and fervour, gorgeous music with thrilling orchestral interludes, and splendid choral numbers for the Royal Opera Chorus – this is a performance to remember.

Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov star as Cinderella and The Prince in Frederick Ashton’s timeless reworking of Charles Perrault’s famous rags-to-riches story, showcasing the choreographer’s deft musicality and the beauty of Prokofiev’s transcendent score. A creative team steeped in the magic of theatre, film, dance and opera brings new atmosphere to Cinderella’s ethereal world of fairy godmothers and pumpkin carriages, handsome princes and finding true love

British mezzo-soprano, Dame Janet Baker, chose to retire from the operatic stage singing the title role in Sir Peter Hall's acclaimed production of Orfeo ed Euridice. This 1982 recording from Glyndebourne, where Dame Janet appropriately began her professional career, proved a suitable crowning glory to the career of one of the great singing actresses of our age. Dame Janet's realisation of Orfeo, the grieving musician from Greek mythology, who follows his beloved wife Euridice to the depths of Hades in an attempt to bring her back from the dead, is totally convincing “… a quite staggering performance …” (MusicWeb International)

Glyndebourne’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is pure magic. Brilliantly adapted from Shakespeare’s play, the opera follows the adventures of four lovers and a group of naïve rustics who, in a wood on a moonstruck midsummer night, fall foul of Oberon and Tytania, the quarrelling king and queen of the fairies. In Peter Hall’s remarkable staging, the very wood comes alive as logs and trees move and rustle, creating ambiguous silhouettes in the dark mysterious woodland, lit only by designer John Bury’s wonderful rising sun and moon.

Recorded 1983.

From the headlong rush of the overture, Mozart’s timeless comedy is a breathless journey through one very eventful day in the life of an 1830s château. Figaro and his bride Susanna conspire to foil the unwanted advances of Count Almaviva, while the Countess has her heart stolen by a cross-dressing pageboy. Mozart’s music unfolds with beautiful solos and ensembles to amplify the deep emotions behind the seemingly farcical surface. Music Director of The Royal Opera Antonio Pappano brings his specialist perspective to Mozart’s effervescent score. A young and predominantly Italian cast, including Ricardo Fassi, Giulia Semenzato and Germán E. Alcántara, perform this revival of David McVicar’s sumptuous and hugely popular period staging.

Benjamin Britten’s comic opera, which is gently laced with moments of farce, is a jocular parody on life in East Suffolk at the turn of the 20th century. Albert Herring is a quaint, nostalgic journey to a bygone England and the journey has come full circle back to Glyndebourne where this piece was premiered in 1947. The ensuing antics are brilliantly characterised by a strong British cast in this production, which is infused with freshness and limitless charm. Expertly conducted by Bernard Haitink, this archive recording showcases some of Britain’s finest singers in this landmark production by Peter Hall.

Mussorgsky was inspired to compose his masterpiece Boris Godunov after reading Pushkin’s Shakespeare-inspired play of the same name. It features one of the most dramatically rewarding bass-baritone roles: a noble ruler who loves his children and his people, but whose thirst for power has led him to commit a terrible crime. Bryn Terfel is “a powerful new Boris” (The Observer) in Richard Jones’ new production of the original 1869 score. Antonio Pappano conducts an outstanding cast that also includes John Graham-Hall as the crafty Prince Shuisky and John Tomlinson as the vagabond monk Varlaam.

Graham Vick’s acclaimed production of Eugene Onegin sets Pushkin’s tale of doomed love, tragedy and rejection against an acutely observed backdrop of Russian society, with spectacular choruses and dances. Tchaikovsky’s powerful music vividly conveys the passion and despair of the young Tatyana as she declares her love for Onegin. This special, archive recording took place in the first season at Glyndebourne’s new opera house in 1994.

A modern Mexican classic provides the basis for a theatrical tale of love, jealousy, repression, and revolution. The Royal Ballet’s 2022 production reunited Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon with the stellar creative team who transformed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale into dance, composer Joby Talbot and designer Bob Crowley. Inspired by Laura Esquivel’s novel, the central character’s emotions spill out through cooking to influence everyone around her in startling and dramatic ways. The full Company, led by Francesca Hayward as Tita and Marcelino Sambé as Pedro, reshape this captivating family saga into a richly layered and engrossing new ballet where passion, mystery and magic combine.

Julia Bullock, Joyce DiDonato and Jakub Józef Orlinski star in Katie Mitchell’s thrilling new production of Handel’s Theodora in an alternative modern-day reality, Theodora, a religious fundamentalist, plots for the resistance against the Roman occupation. But when her secret plan to destroy the Roman embassy is discovered, she learns the true brutality of her oppressors. Not heard in Covent Garden since the 18th Century and sung in the original English libretto by Thomas Morell, Theodora is a tour de force for soloists and chorus alike, with ensembles, duets and arias of profound depth and beauty. This new interpretation, conducted by Baroque specialist Harry Bicket, shines a new, feminist light on the story.

Experience the thrill of rebellion, the brutality of battle, and ambition without boundaries in Shakespeare’s epic trilogy about one of the most turbulent periods in English history. This box set trilogy, available together for the first time on DVD, includes: Henry VI: Part One Filmed as a rehearsal run through performance during the Covid 19 pandemic, Henry VI: Part One introduces us to a young and reclusive Henry, who is proclaimed King of England after the death of his father, Henry V. Directed by Gregory Doran and Owen Horsley. Henry VI: Rebellion: As fighting and division in the corridors of power continues, and Henry’s hold on the English throne wavers, ordinary men and women start to speak out. But as the people rise in protest, who is behind their rebellion? Directed by Owen Horsley. Henry VI: Wars of the Roses: In this thrilling climax, the tussle for the English crown escalates to the battlefield as the families of Lancaster and York drench their brutal conflict in sweat and blood. Directed by Owen Horsley.

‘Conscience is but a word that cowards use’ – Young Richard of Gloucester uses the chaos of the Wars of the Roses to begin his unscrupulous climb to power. Despite being manifestly unfit to govern, he seizes the crown as King Richard III. But how does he do it? How do we let tyrants get away with it? How do they find their way to power? Why do we buy into it? And how can it be stopped? Richard III is a savagely comic analysis of the exercise of power. It reminds us both of the dangers of tyranny and of our duty not to let it go unchecked. Directed by Gregory Doran and featuring Arthur Hughes as Richard, this is the thrilling climax to Shakespeare’s first great history cycle.

2017 marked the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi – one of the founders of opera and hailed in his day as ‘the creator of modern music’. Monteverdi transformed vocal music beyond Renaissance polyphony into an entirely new genre that expressed powerful feelings and emotions within a gripping narrative. This set brings together Monteverdi’s three surviving operas: the splendorous L’Orfeo and, from later in his life, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea with their visceral passions and dramatic dilemmas, all elements that have animated the history of opera for centuries. John Eliot Gardiner’s acclaimed Monteverdi 450 series of semi-staged performances produced in Venice’s historical Teatro La Fenice is a living confirmation that Monteverdi ‘will be sighed for in later ages, for his compositions will surely outlive the ravages of time.’

Two classic court operas are brought together to tell the stories of love, be it between gods or royalty in the historic Confidencen Theatre, Sweden. Venus & Adonis, composed in 1683 by John Blow, is considered the earliest example of English opera. It tells the enchanting story of two mythical lovers and their cruel fate in scenes reaching from light-hearted comedy to heartfelt despair. Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas from 1689 has become one of the most famous and beloved operas from the Baroque era, with its sumptuous music, dramatic plot and its themes of love, friendship, jealousy, and cruelty. The opera is perhaps best known for Dido’s painfully beautiful lament When I am Laid in Earth.