In the depths of the Rhine, the three Rhinemaidens guard the Rhinegold, a treasure of immeasurable value. The Nibelung dwarf Alberich is dazzled by the sight of it. The girls explain that whoever wins the gold and forges it into a ring will gain power over the world, but must first renounce love. Frustrated by his unsuccessful attempts to catch one of the girls, Alberich curses love and steals the gold. Wotan, lord of the gods, is reproached by his wife Fricka: he has promised to give Freia, goddess of youth, to the giants Fasolt and Fafner in return for their building a fortress for the gods. When the giants demand their reward, Loge, the god of fire, suggests an alternative payment: the ring Alberich has forged from the Rhinegold, and his other treasures. The giants agree, and Wotan and Loge leave for the Nibelungs’ underground home.
Erda
Froh
Early morning silence is broken by screeching tires as a helicopter bears down on a speeding vehicle. Taking a quick corner, the team tumbles out into the woods as their car pulls away. Now they must make their way through the thick of nature and thick gunfire to accomplish their mission. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken throughout the entire film. Instead, the music, sounds, images and deeply truthful acting turn a simple plot into an intense experience. Passion and intrigue keep building to the very end.
Melissa is an experienced, exemplary prison guard. But a dangerous spiral is set into motion when she transfers to a Corsican jail, where she accepts help and protection from inmate Saveriu to get her bearings. Upon his release, he contacts Melissa expecting to collect.
Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.
After her husband's death, Madame Clicquot flouts convention by assuming the reins of their wine business, defying her critics and ultimately revolutionizing the champagne industry, establishing her as one of the world's first great businesswomen.
Hana spends twenty years suppressing a maleficent curse that was placed upon her bloodline, only to have a family member knowingly release it forcing her to kill or to be killed.
France, 1870s. Rosalie is a young woman unlike any other. She hides a secret: she was born with a face and body covered in hair. She’s concealed her peculiarity all her life to stay safe, shaving to fit in. Until Abel, an indebted bar owner unaware of her secret, marries Rosalie for her dowry. Will Abel be able to love Rosalie and see her as the woman she is, once he finds out the truth?
A group of wealthy teenagers commit crimes that escalate from petty mischief to dangerous plots, causing chaotic consequences — but not for themselves.
On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?
Juliette goes back in her hometown to spend some time with her family. She finds herself between a loving but moody father, a New Age mother, a sister in the midst of an existential crisis, and a grandmother slowly losing her mind. Buried memories and family secrets rise to the surface in this sweet, tender and sometimes extravagant family portrait.
The Landrys are blindsided by news of their son's behavior, and must rally to find their way amidst comical family dysfunction.
Elyas, a former Special Forces soldier who has become paranoid since a mission in Afghanistan, is recruited to ensure the safety of Amina and her daughter Nour, 13 years old, both of whom came from the Middle East for the holidays. As he takes office, Elyas senses something is up.
François Marsault, a war veteran, makes the most of his retirement alongside his wife Annie. Authoritarian and ruthless, François rules his family with an iron fist — but when he discovers that his esteemed wife cheated on him 40 years ago, he files for divorce and confronts her former lover, who lives in the French Riviera.
After discovering that the Empress is actually Lung Erh, a member of the St Dragon Sect, and that she imprisoned the real empress. Lung Erh, is bent on eliminating the person who disclosed her true identity, Wai Siu Bo. But more complications ensues when Lung Erh is assigned to protect the Prince, whose servant is none other than Wai Siu Bo.
In the year 2898 AD, around 6000 years after Kurukshetra war, Ashwatthama gears up for his final battle of redemption at the sign of hope in a dystopian world and Bhairava, a wisecracking and self-interested bounty hunter, tired of the perilous life becomes the hurdle in the process.
Jessica Fletcher, lecturing at a writers' conference, finds herself called on to solve the killing of a guest speaker, an arrogant Russian author who'd written a nonfiction, tell-all book about his tenure as head of the KGB.
Ollie falls in love with a woman. When he discovers she's already married, he unsuccessfully attempts suicide but he and Stan then decide to join the Foreign Legion to get away from their troubles. When they’re arrested for soon trying to desert the Legion—they escape a firing squad by stealing an aircraft.
Gabrielle has just joined a prestigious news program. With no formal training, she must prove herself and find her place among an experienced team of special correspondents. In the heat of the action, she will learn the language and the code of these reporters, who are always passionate, often funny, and sometimes scarred by life and their profession. And then there’s Vincent, the program’s editor-in-chief, who she can’t help challenging...
Joy, a secretary at a large multinational company, has an online shopping problem, likes to read adventure novels and watch travel and adventure shows. She daydreams about living a life of adventure.
American composer Jake Heggie’s compelling masterpiece, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, arrives in cinemas in a haunting new production by Ivo van Hove. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, Dead Man Walking matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s beautiful and poignant music and a brilliant libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen. The outstanding cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and legendary mezzo-soprano Susan Graham—who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere—as De Rocher’s mother.
The success of Verdi’s third opera, a stirring drama about the fall of ancient Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), catapulted the 28-year-old composer to international fame. The music and Verdi himself were subsumed into a surge of patriotic fervor culminating in the foundation of the modern nation of Italy. Specifically, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves ('Va, pensiero'), in which the Israelites express their longing for their homeland, came to stand for the country’s aspirations for unity and that exciting era in Italian history, the Risorgimento, or 'Resurgence'.
Director Carrie Cracknell makes her Met debut, reinvigorating the classic story with a staging that moves the action to the modern day, in a contemporary American industrial town.
Extraordinary soprano Asmik Grigorian tackles the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the loyal geisha at the heart of Puccini’s devastating tragedy. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman stars as the callous American naval officer Pinkerton, whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong reprises the role of the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Lucas Meachem is the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang takes the podium to conduct Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.
Two singers at the height of their powers—radiant soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor sensation Benjamin Bernheim—come together as the star-crossed lovers in Gounod’s sumptuous Shakespeare adaptation, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct one of the repertoire’s most romantic scores. Bartlett Sher’s elegant staging also features baritone Will Liverman and tenor Frederick Ballentine as the archrivals Mercutio and Tybalt, mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the mischievous pageboy Stéphano, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.
Simultaneously filmed English language version of a period operetta, in which a Polish noblewoman is romantically linked with a revolutionary student activist.
The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this second opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle. Hildegard Behrens brings deep empathy to Brünnhilde, the favorite daughter of the god Wotan (James Morris) who nevertheless defies him. Morris’s portrayal of Wotan is deservedly legendary, as is Christa Ludwig, as Fricka. Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes are Sieglinde and Siegmund, and Kurt Moll is the threatening Hunding. James Levine and the Met orchestra provide astonishing color and drama. (Performed April 8, 1989)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.
This all-star cast is framed by Peter Hall’s gritty, realistic production and conducted by James Levine, who brings out all the surging emotion and gripping drama in Bizet’s score. At the center of the story is Agnes Baltsa, whose smoky mezzo is tailor-made for the gypsy Carmen, an independent woman who glories in obeying only her own rules, but who is haunted by fate. Superstar tenor José Carreras is Don José, the solider from a small town who catches Carmen’s eye and is destroyed by his growing obsession with her. Samuel Ramey is the charismatic matador Escamillo, who lures Carmen away from Don José with tragic result. Leona Mitchell is Micaëla, the simple girl from Don José’s hometown who cannot save him. March 21, 1987 Matinee Broadcast.
Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real.
John Adams’s mesmerizing score, in the powerful production of Penny Woolcock, tells the story of one of the pivotal moments in human history—the creation of the atomic bomb. Conducted by Alan Gilbert in his Met debut, this gripping opera presents the human face of the scientists, military men, and others who were involved in the project, as they wrestled with the implications of their work. Baritone Gerald Finley gives a powerful star turn in the title role as the brilliant J. Robert Oppenheimer.
France, 1792. Chenier is an idealistic poet, in love with the aristocratic Maddalena. While Chenier supports such notions as "liberte, fraternite egalite," his sympathies do not extend to the current Reign of Terror. Likewise, the Revolutionary Tribunal has no need for poets or their girlfriends, especially those judged to be an Enemy of the State. Heads will roll.
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
With their “comedy for music” in the spirit of Mozart, Richard Strauss and his inspired librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created the most popular of all their works and one of the most frequently performed operas of all time. In the guise of a gossamer-light and supremely entertaining high-class comedy, Der Rosenkavalier touches on universal themes such as love, sex, marital fidelity and the changes that human relations undergo over time – and all of it set to music of the most glorious kind imaginable. With its stellar cast under the inspired direction of Harry Kupfer, the 2014 Salzburg Festival’s production of Der Rosenkavalier was one of the most internationally acclaimed interpretations of the work since the start of the new millennium. “A musical feast from beginning to end“ (Wiener Zeitung).
A collaboration between award-winning American filmmaker Sofia Coppola and Italia haute couture king Valentino comes in the form of a revival of Giuseppe Verdi's classic opera, La Traviata. Captured live from the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma.
In February 1972, the American president Richard Nixon went to China to meet Mao Zedong. In the context of the war in Vietnam and the cold war, this encounter marked a turning point in Chinese‑American relations. John Adams, a major musical figure of the last forty years, made this event of contemporary history the subject of his first opera. Nixon in China tackles the political thaw instigated by ping-pong diplomacy, begun by the invitation of the American table tennis players by their Chinese counterparts, one year before the presidential visit. A mesmerising work in which the pulsations and repetitions typical of minimalism are combined with melodic lines of great lyricism. For its entry into the Paris Opera repertoire, this work has been entrusted to the director Valentina Carrasco, who underlines the importance and the mediating power of Chinese national sport in history.
Franco Zeffirelli directs these two legendary La Scala productions telling tragic tales of jealousy. Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana features performances by Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci stars Teresa Stratas, Plácido Domingo, and Juan Pons. Both are conducted by George Pretre. This production of Pagliacci earned director Franco Zeffirelli the coveted Emmy as Best Director in the category of Classical Music Programming.
This beautiful production by renowned opera director Michael Hampe was recorded at the exquisite Rococo Theatre in Schwetzingen Palace in May 1990. La scala di seta is one of the five one-act operas - farsa giocosa - in which the young Rossini first demonstrated his operatic genius. This sparkling production continues the Rossini one-act opera series emerging from the Schwetzingen Festival. The staging is perfectly suited to the screen and the cast of principals, led by David Griffith and Luciana Serra provide musical excellence together with the flexible Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.