TheatreHD Opera Club in GUM Cinema. Il Trovatore. Special screening with Aleksandra Dvornitskaya

Director Philipp Stölzl, best known for his Wagner productions, chose to move away from historical authenticity for his take on "Il Trovatore" at the Berlin State Opera. He transplanted the action from 15th-century Spain into a whimsical, grotesque, and deliberately unreal space. The centrepiece of the set is an open cube, tilted toward the audience. Its walls, built from two-metre wooden panels, double as fortress ramparts and as a canvas for video projections. Ursula Kudrna's vivid, eccentric costumes transform the chorus and soloists into a troupe of travelling circus performers, medieval jesters, and commedia dell'arte characters — heightening the carnivalesque, theatrical energy of the production. 

The cast is nothing short of sensational: Anna Netrebko makes her role debut as Leonora; the magnificent Plácido Domingo takes on a new baritone register as Count di Luna; and Marina Prudenskaya delivers a powerful Azucena. At the podium, maestro Daniel Barenboim.