In February 1972, the American president Richard Nixon went to China to meet Mao Zedong. In the context of the war in Vietnam and the cold war, this encounter marked a turning point in Chinese‑American relations. John Adams, a major musical figure of the last forty years, made this event of contemporary history the subject of his first opera. Nixon in China tackles the political thaw instigated by ping-pong diplomacy, begun by the invitation of the American table tennis players by their Chinese counterparts, one year before the presidential visit. A mesmerising work in which the pulsations and repetitions typical of minimalism are combined with melodic lines of great lyricism. For its entry into the Paris Opera repertoire, this work has been entrusted to the director Valentina Carrasco, who underlines the importance and the mediating power of Chinese national sport in history.

Don Quichotte (Don Quixote) is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

This performance of Mozart's two-act opera Zauberflote, recorded at the Opera National de Paris in 2001, was directed especially for TV and video. Some of the vocalists featured in the leading roles include Piotr Beczala, Wolfgang Schone, Dorothea Roschmann, Detlef Roth, and others.

To mark his forty-year career, choreographer Angelin Preljocaj has revived ‘Le Parc’, one of his most iconic works, at the Paris Opera. Set to music by Mozart, this romantic ballet depicts the games of love and chance, starring Alice Renavand and Mathieu Ganio.

Beneath the gilded ceilings of the Palais Garnier, Gustavo Dudamel takes us on a colorful journey between Spain and South America, performed by the Orchestra and singers of the Paris Opera Academy. The program includes works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, Enrique Granados, Kurt Weill, and others.