Half-fae-half-mortal shepherd Strephon wants to wed shepherdress Phyllis, but, although she reciprocates his feelings, she has a dilemma — she is so beautiful that all of the House of Lords, as well as her guardian, the Lord Chancellor, are also desirous of marriage.

An erotic soap-opera adaptation of Marschner's Der Vampyr opera, modernized and aired on BBC 2.

A television version of Berlioz's oratorio.

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive. The internationally renowned Mozart interpreter Sir Colin Davis conducts the chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House and a glittering cast in David McVicar's 2003 production of the opera Mozart wrote in the final year of his life, recorded live at Covent Garden.

Renowned opera director David Pountney delivers a superlative production in this 1995 staging of British composer Henry Purcell's "The Fairy Queen," featuring Yvonne Kenny at Titania, Simon Rice as Puck, Thomas Randle as Oberon and Richard Van Allan as Thesus. Modern dance numbers blend deftly with baroque music as maestro Barry Griffiths conducts the English National Opera's orchestra and chorus.

Jonathan Miller set his well-known production of The Mikado, staged for the English National Opera, in a British seaside resort of the 1920s. The result, complete with a chorus of gentlemen of Japan as cartoon-like British peers, emphatically underscores the Englishness of the satire. The occasional non sequiturs, like a bunch of gentry dressed for Ascot and singing in Japanese, are loonily fun, and no more absurd than the fantasyland Japan that Gilbert and Sullivan invented. The time frame, though, seems little more than an excuse for a smart black-and-white production design.

A filmed version of Tchaikovsky's opera. Onegin visits a friend, his fiancee and her sister Tatiana, who believes Onegin is her fated love. She writes a note telling him so, but he rejects her. Years later he returns, finding her married, but now he's smitten with her.

Members of a British opera troupe mount a production of "Sweeney Todd" within a maximum-security prison.

An opera by Benjamin Britten, on a libretto by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville. Billy Budd is a young sailor aboard a British man-o'-war, persecuted by his master-at-arms, Claggart. Accused of mutiny, Budd accidently strikes Claggart dead, leaving Captain Vere with no choice but to hang him.