An Introduction to... Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. Dating from the last decade of the nineteenth century, it points the way into the twentieth century. The score is hauntingly beautiful, but there is more to the work than shifting panels of elusive, impressionistic sound.

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.

Puccini's swansong has a claim to being the last great popular opera. Its melodies have enchanted audiences since its posthumous premiere in 1926, two years after Puccini's death. It involves a chilling story of love and cruelty, an intriguing cast of characters against the exotic backdrop of Imperial China.

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.

Don Giovanni has long been regarded as Mozart's supreme theatrical achievement. The subject seems unpromising - the last day in the life of the notorious womaniser Don Juan - but the genius of Mozart created a work which is not only highly entertaining but reflects an incredible understanding of the human condition.