Das Rheingold gets Richard Wagner's monumental Ring Cycle off to a rousing start, in a quickly-paced drama introducing a fanciful world of vivid characters and world-shaping passions.

Today at 4 pm on World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents Offenbach's magnum opus, The Tales of Hoffman, in a production from the Grand Liceu Theatre in Barcelona.

Today on World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone brings us Puccini's Manon Lescaut in a production from the Royal Theater of the Mint in Brussels and the Belgian National Opera.

International intrigue is the order of the day when a novice priest turns fearsome warrior, to win the hand of a king's mistress, in Donizetti's La Favorite, a drama that combines the pomp and elegance of French grand opera with the passionate intensity of Donizetti's Italian tragedies.

Today at 1 pm on Operavore, hear Dvořák's Armida from an ancient city in the composer's Czech homeland, in a production by the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava.

Today at 4 pm on Operavore: hear I Vespri Siciliani from the Vienna State Opera. The stars are soprano Angela Meade as Elena, and tenor Gregory Kunde as Arrigo.