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This audio-biography sets out to explain the timeless popularity of the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan: a colorful partnership of the most successful writers in the history of light music. It highlights Gilbert’s mastery of language - his wit, his turn of phrase, his brilliant lyrics (alternately very funny and deeply moving) - and the special melodic gift which enabled Arthur Sullivan to write music of such beauty and style. While each was a master of his craft, it was the combination that created magic sparks.

The Barber of Seville is Rossini’s most popular opera. Its effervescent overture (written originally for another work!) presents a perfect platform for the amusing plot in which the barber, Figaro, stage-manages a romance between Count Almaviva and Rosina, and puts to flight the old suitor, Dr Bartolo. "Largo al Factotum" is one of the most popular arias in opera - nearly 200 years after its first performance it is still one of the great show-stoppers.

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozart’s most sublime music. On one level, the opera is purely a social anecdote about young people falling in and out of love; but Mozart was a supreme sensualist and a great humanist, and invested the tale with all his understanding of humanity and young love. In this title, David Timson refutes the charge that Mozart squandered his genius on a work full of trivial nonsense and proves this "miraculous yet problematic" opera to be a great work of theatre. To listen to this thought-provoking examination of the characters and the music is both thoroughly enriching and great fun.

Based on the simple yet deeply moving legendary tale of Orpheus, who loses his beloved wife to death but is able to restore her through the power of his music, Orfeo ed Euridice is among the earliest operas to hold a secure place in the repertory. Gluck lavishes a wealth of beautiful melody on this tale, whose appeal to composers is obvious; yet the abiding strength lies in the power and majesty of his inspiration, whether in the solos, the choruses, or the ballet music.

La Bohème is one of the three operas - the others are Carmen and Aida - believed to be the most popular ever written. In the case of La Bohème the reason is that it virtually defines the term "romantic". The poignant story of Mimì and Rodolfo is told in music of such tender beauty, allied, as always, to Puccini’s intuition of what works in the theatre. The result is an opera that readily appeals to our emotions and senses.

Fidelio is a work like no other. Beethoven’s only opera is about the joy of married love - by a man who never knew that pleasure. It is about heroism by a man who was often mean and petty in his human relations; it is about freedom by a man who was a prisoner of his own deafness; and ultimately it is about joy by a man who experienced precious little of it.

Rigoletto is simply wonderful entertainment with superb music. It is also much more - a daring (for its time) attack on aristocratic privilege, a tender love story, and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the disadvantaged, all set to music of such wealth and beauty that, with its sister operas La traviata and Il trovatore, it has defined Italian opera for 150 years. Overcoming initial trouble with the censors, Verdi's Rigoletto was a smash hit at its premiere and has not been out of the repertoire since. It’s not hard to see why.

L’elisir d’amore, or The Elixir of Love, has remained popular for almost two centuries because of a touching tale and a galaxy of comic characters adapted from the traditional commedia dell’ arte. Above all Donizetti poured into the score all the warmth and tenderness of the Italian temperament.

Madama Butterfly runs the gamut of operatic emotions. The title heroine has a fragility wonderfully expressed in her entry music, deep sexual instincts as shown in the love duet, and immense tragic stature in her last hours. The fate of Madama Butterfly - married to an American sailor and then abandoned - engages our emotions to a degree equaled by few other opera heroines. The oriental setting and the exquisite orchestral and choral writings are treasured bonuses.

Massenet’s Werther combines a deeply tender story with music of beauty and eloquence. One act alone contains two of the greatest arias in the repertoire: the mezzo-soprano aria "Va! Laisse couler mes larmes" and the tenor’s "Pourquoi me rèveiller". In their sentimental power and melodic richness these arias encapsulate the qualities that account for the universal popularity of this great work.

Rossini’s comic operas, like The Barber of Seville, are better known than his tragedies though he wrote in fact many more tragedies than comedies. One of them, his last, William Tell, is actually credited with launching the whole age of Grand Opéra. Tancredi is an early work - indeed his first smash hit - and it established his international fame.

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers. Interest and poignancy are added by the fact that this is a true story - the baritone ‘heavy’ is Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo. But it is the central figure, the heroine Violetta, the archetypal ‘whore with the heart of gold’ who dominates the piece. It is her opera and we love her for it.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera. Notable for its precise orchestration and powerful drama it was a groundbreaking work. It concerns the legend of Orpheus, the demigod whose music had the power to conquer the forces of Hell and to bring his wife back, briefly, to life. The extracts used in this introduction are from Naxos’ full recording; it uses authentic period instruments, which serve to evoke the early Baroque period of the opera’s composition.

Dating from the last decade of the 19th century, Pelléas et Mélisande points the way into the 20th century. The score is hauntingly beautiful, but there is more to the work than shifting panels of elusive, impressionistic sound. Debussy retains the text of Maeterlinck’s play, and the linguistic subtleties of the French text are matched perfectly by the musical detail. Taking a little time to explore the romantic, elusive world of this opera is particularly rewarding.

La sonnambula was written by Bellini as a vehicle for two of the supreme singers of his age and accordingly is a fine example of the school we call bel canto, where beauty of voice and the virtuosity of the singers is integral to conveying the emotions in the soul of the composer. The fact that Bellini was one of the great melodists, writing long, beautiful vocal lines, that he was a master orchestrator and that he could write stirringly for the chorus all conspire to make La sonnambula extremely enjoyable.

Il Trovatore has been ruthlessly parodied. It is a tale of murder and mayhem, burned babies, roasted hags, would-be nuns, strolling minstrels, and bad baritones. And indeed the libretto does call for a willing suspension of disbelief. The reward is in the music, a score as prodigally melodic as only the mature Verdi could write: the "Anvil" chorus, the "Miserere" scene, two great tenor arias, a beautiful baritone aria - a richness without embarrassment.

Pagliacci may be the most completely compelling short opera in the repertory and owes much of its impact to a brilliant story based, it is said, on true life and told through the device of a play-within-a-play. The action is set in Calabria in the deep south of Italy where the jealousies and illicit passions of a troupe of strolling actors precisely intersect with the play they are performing - to both touching and tragic effect.

Cavalleria rusticana is the short opera that has all the elements of a grand opera compressed into a single highly dramatic time span. The story of love, lust, blood-feud, and betrayal played out against the pageantry of the Easter celebrations in a Sicilian village delivers an emotional wallop because of the youthful vigor and musical wealth of its great score which includes the glorious "Easter Hymn" and the deeply moving "Intermezzo". Mascagni was never to repeat his youthful success but this brief work is enough to ensure his immortality.

Verdi’s Falstaff repays careful study with real pleasure. It is opera’s happiest irony that the great Italian master should cap a career - distinguished for its blood-and-thunder tragic masterpieces - with the greatest comic opera in the Italian repertory. The genius of Shakespeare is harnessed (in a miracle of compression) by master-librettist Boito to give the 80-year-old Verdi a superb libretto, on which he lavished more wonderful tunes than most composers manage in a lifetime.

The Flying Dutchman is the perfect opera with which to approach the operatic mountain that is Richard Wagner. It is short, has a great story (the legend of the Dutch captain doomed to sail forever unless redeemed through love), and the striking score has many pre-echoes of Wagner's later great music dramas. It contains wonderful tunes in its arias, ensembles, and big choruses, and the orchestral writing - from the gale that blows out of the Overture to the final theme of "Redemption through Love" - will "blow you away".