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- A vengeful beauty foils the plans of the bloodthirsty Hun warrior to conquer Rome.
- Sebastian, Chief Archer in the Roman Army, converts to Christianity. A favorite of Emperor Augustus, Sebastian's devotion to Christ eventually drives him to reject the Emperor's love, causing the Emperor to angrily order Sebastian to be shot with arrows by his fellow archers. The film retells this mystery play with a definite 'art-house' approach: an almost poetical use of language, singing, dancing, some homoerotic themes, and some special effects.
- A very visual and profound dramatization of the various sections of Carmina Burana, a symphonic piece composed by Carl Orff about medieval poetry by an anonymous author.
- Set in 1820, the story of Ahab, captain of the ill-fated whaleship Pequod, and the crew he commands. Having lost one of his legs to the white whale called Moby Dick, Captain Ahab is obsessed with finding and destroying him at any cost. Only the ship's first mate, Starbuck, sees the deadly implications of Ahab's obsession.
- This drama documentary for cinema explores the pacifism that was such a powerful influence on composer Benjamin Britten's life and work. The story begins in 1929 at Gresham's School in Norfolk, England. Our young actors take us into a world where social and political issues are actively addressed and young Ben Britten's hatred of all things militaristic is formed. As we explore the music that illustrated that hatred throughout his life, illustrated by new performances and unique observations from experts and friends, we frequently return to dramatic interludes at Gresham's, which cement the narrative - spoken by legendary actor John Hurt. The transcendent music of the War Requiem accompanies the climax of the film, before we return to Gresham's School 2012.
- For the first time ever the hidden archives of bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla are opened by his son. A cinematic portrait of the worldwide legendary composer who changed tango.
- Arrigo Boito's Il Mefestefele, his best-known work, was first performed in 1868. Ken Russell's modern interpretation presented by the Genoese Opera has Faust as an ageing hippie, smoking marijuana and being tormented by his lost youth. Mephisto makes a bet with God that he can turn anyone to pagan life, even someone as innocent as Faust. Thus ensues a battle of good against evil in a flamboyant, surreal display of primary colours, PVC costumes, nurses with swastikas, rocket trips, love, and even characters dressed as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Ken Russell explained the contemporary setting by claiming that the devil is always with us.
- At death's door, George Frederic Handel reflects, rages, and narrates his life. From his womanizing youthful days, to his rise in fame as a composer, God Rot Tunbridge Wells! pulls no punches in this wild romp of a biopic.
- Performance of ballet recorded live at Teatro alla Scala, January 2000.
- In 1881 La Scala in Milan staged a magnificent ballet spectacle. The aim was to present by means of a ballet all the great discoveries and achievements which had illuminated the late 19th century. This production from 2002 at the Teatro al la Scala brings a slightly updated version of Manzotti's work. With 100 dancers on stage at a time, references to the golden MGM film era and Busby Berkeley-style dancing.
- When Korean composer Unsuk Chin's opera was first performed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, it caused a sensation among music critics worldwide. Based on Lewis Carroll's famous and fascinatingly enigmatic novel Alice in Wonderland, it is a seductive, enchanting, sensuous opera set to a modern, ear-pleasing score - a triumph of creative fantasy. Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul in 1961, studied with György Ligeti in Hamburg and now lives in Berlin. She has an acute ear for instrumentation, orchestral colours and rhythmic imagery. Her compositions are modern in language but lyrical in their communicative power. Kent Nagano, a long-time supporter of Chin's music, expertly conducted the Bavarian State Opera and a team of wonderful singer-actors including international stars like Dietrich Henschel and Gwyneth Jones. The opera about Alice's search for her identity - "her reality in the appearance of the world" - as director Achim Freyer put it, switches from delicacy to cuteness to grotesquery and back again. The rather conventional Alice starts following her dreams, meeting a white rabbit that guides her through a wonderland. Alice views it all with amazement and learns - finally returning to the real world, richer for the experience. The phenomenal fairy-tale settings and production were in the hands of Achim Freyer, who created a firework of colour and form. The marvellous costumes and puppets were created by Nina Weitzner, who was named "Costume Designer of the Year" by the German music magazine Opernwelt for her imaginative designs. And in a survey of the magazine's opera critics, Unsuk Chin's opera, which closed Kent Nagano's first season at the Bavarian State Opera, was hailed as the "World Première of the Year". This live recording of the premiere in the Nationaltheater in Munich in June 2007 provides a feast of audiovisual entertainment.
- La Voix Humaine is a concerto for soprano and orchestra, centering on the break-up of a relationship by telephone.
- The utterly amazing Mozart opera, set in modern Harlem. Utilized twin brothers to sing Leporello and Giovanni.
- "Tannhauser" is an opera by Richard Wagner divided in three acts and based on the fight between pure and carnal love. This modern version changes the original medieval story to the present days.
- While best known today for having composed the ending to Puccini's unfinished Turandot, Franco Alfano wrote some dozen operas, including Cyrano de Bergerac (1936) with a libretto by Henri Cain based on Edmond Rostand's drama of the same name. It is a moving tale of romantic misunderstanding, swashbuckling bravado and heartbreaking loyalty, in which the eloquent Cyrano feels unable to express his love for Roxane because of his famously protuberant nose--except on behalf of his handsome but inarticulate friend, Christian. When Domingo and Radvanovsky sang Cyrano and Roxane at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Andante magazine wrote: "Incredibly, Cyrano is his 121st role. And it suits him splendidly...Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was luminous as Roxane, her passionate outbursts showing off her powerful upper register to good effect".
- Medea, the powerful sorceress of Greek myth, betrays her country and her family in order to assist her lover Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. When he abandons her she exacts vengeance.
- Director Cédric Klapisch paints a portrait of Aurélie Dupont, star dancer of the Paris Opera ballet, which was filmed for three years, between 2006 and 2009.
- Stiffelio was based on the play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois and was originally censored due to it involving as it does a Protestant minister of the church with an adulterous wife.
- 20121h 59mUnrated6.9 (7)TV MovieThe opera is based on the play La Bataille de Toulouse by Joseph Méry. The performance is conducted by Boris Brott, who served as Assistant Conductor to the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, and Music Director and Conductor for the Royal Ballet.
- Gypsy Azucena finally tells her adult son Manrico that he is the brother of his political and romantic rival, the Conte di Luna. The Conte strikes a bargain with Leonora (who loves Manrico): her hand in marriage for the life of Manrico.
- TARARE is an opera in five acts composed by Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) to a French libretto by Pierre Beaumarchais. It was performed for first time by the Paris Opera at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin on 8 June 1787.
- In 2008 was celebrated the bicentenary of mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran, the greatest opera singer of her time. Who but Cecilia Bartoli, stunning with virtuosity and expressivity, could best honor the beautiful Spanish diva ? With all her passion and warmth, she deploys the richness of her voice in an intriguing program combining García's, Persiani's and Hummel's atypical talents with masterpieces.
- Filmed live at the Leipzig Opera in November 2005, this recording of Verdi's famous Un Ballo in Maschera, brings a lively musical evening. Riccardo Chailly, who made a critically acclaimed start in his position as General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera with this staging, directs the Gewandhausorchestra and a cast of experienced Verdi singers in a collaboration between the Zurich and Leipzig Operas. Un ballo in maschera - a story of love, power and political murder in 19th century United States of America - is as exciting as a thriller, but with a passion that can only be experienced in a Verdi opera. The Italian film director Ermanno Olmi (The Legend of the Holy Drinker, The Tree of Wooden Clogs) staged it accordingly. The amazing visual effects in this production were created by the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodore who designed the fantastic colourful set and costumes.
- In the prologue Fortune, Virtue and Cupid argue about their respective powers. Love sets out to demonstrate his supremacy, in what follows. In the street outside Poppaea's house, Otho complains at her infidelity. He was her lover, but now she is sleeping within with Nero, the Emperor, while his two soldiers guard the house. The couple emerge, as dawn breaks, and sing of their love. With her nurse Arnalta Poppaea reveals her ambition to become Empress, while elsewhere Octavia, Empress, wife of Nero, and of the imperial family of Augustus, laments her husband's desertion. Seneca tries to comfort her, mocked by her page, and is warned by Pallas Athene of his coming death. Nevertheless he dares to advise his old pupil, Nero, that he should not cast aside Octavia. Nero insists that he will go his own way. Otho overhears Nero and Poppaea, he promising to make her Empress and she urging the discarding of Seneca, whose death Nero now orders. Otho is definitively rejected by Poppaea
- Ailing courtesan Violetta allows herself to fall for Alfredo, but when word of their domestic bliss reaches his father, he convinces her to save the family honor, and leave Alfredo. Complications ensue.
- Philippe Boesmans sign his fourth opera with Julie. Harking back to the model of the chamber opera, the composer focused on the chemistry of human relationships that lead heroine of the drama of Strindberg to end his life. Three voices, a chamber orchestra, a unique place, a night time make us witness the fate of this young woman touching. Composer in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie for nearly 20 years, the Belgian Philippe Boesmans, born in 1936, is undoubtedly a major figure in the musical landscape of our time. Julie is an intimate work, a chamber opera in one act, based on the drama of the Swedish August Strindberg's Miss Julie, written in 1888. Boesmans music is very personal: his writing is dense and precise, rich and colorful, delicate and colorful and his writing for the voice proves that with opera, the composer was in his natural element.
- A selfish hero regrets his apathetic rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.
- In 1792 King Gustaf III of Sweden was shot at a masked ball, and this was the starting point for Verdi's
- Undoubtedly the most famous opera buffa in the history of music and an eternal source of delight, Rossini's remarkable opera was composed in only a few weeks. Although the premiere, performed on February 10, 1816 in Rome was a resounding flop, the opera was quickly revived on February 22, when "The Barber" received rapturous applause.
- (Verdi's first opera.) In 1228, defeated and in exile, Oberto returns to duel with Riccardo, who seduced and shamed Oberto's daughter Leonora, then proposed to Cuniza, the daughter of Oberto's rival.
- Nabucco was Verdi's third work for the stage and proved his first great success when performed in 1842. It deals with the Hebrew's attempts to break free from the yoke of their Babylonian oppressors and is nowadays numbered among Verdi's most popular works, not least on account of its famous Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, which has one of the best-loved melodies in the whole history of opera.
- Based on Schiller's play of the same name, Don Carlos was written for the Paris Opéra in 1865-66 in the tradition of a French grand opera. Repeatedly revised and performed in Italian as Don Carlo, the opera is seen here in the version that Verdi prepared for Modena in 1886. In many respects, this is Verdi's most ambitious and most forward-looking work.