Beethoven: Fidelio(2000)

Six A.M.(en)

After drinking all night, Monty and his friend try to get home, but it turns out to be not easy. The next day, Monty tries to win the heart of a theater actress.

The Way to the Heart(en)

Ava, an award-winning chef at a big-city restaurant, has lost her spark. Her boss sends her out to find herself to save her menu and her job. She returns home and finds little to inspire her, but when she reunites with her childhood friend Logan, Ava has to get her head out of the clouds and her foot out of her mouth to rediscover her passion for food.

Spring(ru)

This is a story about a city guy Nikolai, who will have to go instead of his friend on a rural business trip. A series of funny events, meetings and the beauty of the Yakut village encourage Nikolai to make an important decision in his life…

Mad(en)

A matriarch past the point of a nervous breakdown, her two daughters that don't give a damn, and the heat-seeking missiles of resentment they toss at each other.

Mad(fr)

Zugvögel - Ein Jahr vergeht im Flug(de)

Flow(en)

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

Boy(en)

Boy is the unsettling story of a young male prostitute, or Rent Boy, in a small rural town who learns the truth behind a hit and run accident which has killed a local girl. When the news of the girls death spreads through the community, the driver and his family decide that the boy must be silenced. The set out to scare him into silence. The pressure becomes more and more violent, but despite this, the boy battles to expose the truth.

WARDE(en)

As Nour moves to her new studio apartment, something unexpected happens which will make her re-visit traumatizing events.

Heat Spell(fr)

A hot summer day. A half-unpacked house. A mother who needs room to breathe, and a child who needs space to truly exist. As the afternoon heat turns oppressive, time seems to move entirely differently for each person.

Accordion Player(xx)

The last remaining film of Le Prince's LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera is a sequence of frames of his son, Adolphe Le Prince, playing a diatonic button accordion. It was recorded on the steps of the house of Joseph Whitley, Adolphe's grandfather.

Pop in Q(ja)

The story begins the day before the graduation ceremony. Five middle school girls each are preoccupied with their real everyday lives. These girls meet each other in a fantasy world after being sent there through a sudden occurrence. There, they learn about the impending crisis that this world is facing. The way to avert this crisis is for the five to collaborate and bring their five hearts together as one through dance. However, the five cannot come to love the world, and cannot tell their true feelings to one another, so their hearts are unable to unite. The time limit is fast approaching. Can the dance of the five girls save the world? And will they be able to graduate?

Contigo, contigo y sin mí(es)

Amaya has filmed the four love relationships that marked her life. She covers the last 20 years, from her first fall in love when she was 18, to her current age of 38. Faced with the desire to be a mother, she writes an audiovisual letter to her future children. She thus takes us on a journey into her past that reveals the phases of love, the challenge of long-distance relationships and the clash between illusions and frustrations or guilt. The film combines documentary and animation, the real and intimate, with the expressive. An apparently personal and intimate film, where the turn and evolution of the protagonist can also be read from an anthropological or political prism, reflecting the change in the role of women in intimate relationships.

1:11(pl)

Tomek is a young doctor specialised in obstetrics sonography. He lives lost among the women around him. One night he is abruptly woken up by a dead call from his father. This seemingly unimportant event gradually gains significance.

Retando A La Muerte(es)

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived(ar)

In the late 1960s, Dhofar rose up against the British-backed Sultanate of Oman, in a democratic, Leninist guerrilla movement. Director Heiny Srour and her team crossed 500 miles of desert and mountains by foot, under bombardment by the British Royal Air Force, to reach the conflict zone and capture this rare record of a now mostly-forgotten war.

Eastwood... A Star(en)

A look back at Clint Eastwood's career from the release of Unforgiven (1992)

Every Wall is a Door(fr)

Drawing on VHS tapes of a programme hosted by her mother on Bulgaria’s national television, the filmmaker gives a pop-style and in-depth chronicle of the gentle – even “over-gentle” – 1989 revolution.

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger 20th: Fireball Booster(ja)

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger series, the six detectives who fight with cool and burning hearts gather again to face the "Great Plan" that threatens peace on Earth!

W. A. Mozart: Così fan tutte(cs)

A comic opera in two acts about the fickleness of women performed by HAMU students at the Disk... The alleged amorality of the story condemned Cosi fan tutte (They are all like that), Mozart's last opera to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, to numerous contemporary adaptations and even to oblivion during the 19th century. What was the outrage? Following a bet, two bachelors in exotic disguises successfully exchange their fiancées, who have sworn eternal fidelity to them before parting. It's an old-fashioned plot based on a judgment on female constancy and male boastfulness arising from exaggerated vanity...

Maria Callas Sings Tosca, Act II(en)

At the beginning of 1964, the music world experiences something completely unexpected. Maria Callas returns to the opera stage as the prima donna. Her “Tosca” at the Royal Opera House becomes a sensation. Maria Callas wants to show everyone once again that she deserves the title of “prima donna assoluta.” On the condition that star director Franco Zeffirelli take over the direction, the exceptional singer agrees to sing the role of Tosca. The BBC recorded the 2nd act of the opera for television. It is one of the most dramatic acts in opera history: in order to free the painter Cavaradossi from the hands of torturers, Tosca ends up murdering the police chief Scarpia. The film footage is one of the rare opportunities to see Maria Callas in an opera performance and to experience her highly emotional performance art and vocal abilities...

Amadeus(en)

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Die Walküre(de)

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(de)

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.

The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings(en)

Alone in the woods, a young man is pursued by a horrifying specter and by visions of his deceased sisters. A meditation on the precarious uncertainty of the American Dream and the role that uncontrollable forces play in our lives, The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings is inspired by a harrowing scene from the opera Proving Up, by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk(ru)

A young woman, married to a wealthy man, but miserably lonely; trapped within a world ruled with an iron fist. Katerina is driven by a lust for life and for love. Her husband, though, is impotent; her father-in-law a tyrant. No wonder, then, that she longs to free herself from this yoke. When Sergei starts work on the family estate, she sees in him a chance for salvation. However, their subsequent affair marks the beginning of a descent into crime.

Cavalleria rusticana(it)

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.

The Phantom of the Opera(en)

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

La Bohème(en)

In the 50's, in Paris, the neighbors Rodolfo and Mimi meet each other when Mimi's candle blows out in a cold and dark night. They immediately fall in love for each other, in times of financial difficulties in the post-war. Rodolfo introduces Mimi to his close friends Marcello and his beloved Musetta; Colline; and Schaunard and together they have a good-time in Café Momus. Some time later, Mimi tells Marcello that she can not support the jealousy of Rodolfo any longer and when Marcello discuss with Rodolfo, Mimi overhears the real reason for the behavior of her beloved Rodolfo.

Berlioz: Les Troyens(fr)

Berlioz’s colossal masterpiece requires stupendous forces—dozens of soloists, enormous chorus, orchestra and ballet, a superb conductor who understands the uniqueness of the score—plus a production that does visual justice to the work. “A stupendous achievement” was one critic’s assessment of Peter Wexler’s inventive production. And with James Levine’s wizardry galvanizing the marvelous all-star cast, this is truly a gem. Plácido Domingo is the legendary hero Aeneas, Jessye Norman the obsessed prophetess Cassandra, and Tatiana Troyanos is Queen Dido, who commits suicide when Aeneas leaves her.

Aida - Arena di Verona(it)

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

Rusalka(cs)

The water fairy Rusalka falls in love with an earthly prince. In vain, Father Aquarius warns her. Her sincere feelings are met with human treachery...

A Night at the Opera(en)

The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.

Carmen(fr)

CARMEN is the classic tale of forbidden passion between a young man and a spoken-for woman, Carmen. From ORF and TDK Music, this release features a live performance of Georges Bizet's 19th century operatic masterwork Carmen. Directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, the production was shot on December 9, 1978, at the Wiener Straatsoper. Starring Elena Obraztsova in the titular role, the orchestra is conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

La Sonnambula(it)

Just as a young woman is about to marry her sweetheart, she is discovered—by the entire village, to say nothing of her fiancé—asleep in the bedroom of a stranger. It takes the young man two acts to figure out that sleepwalking is to blame, and everything ends happily. Natalie Dessay as Amina and Juan Diego Flórez as Elvino deliver bel canto magic and vocal fireworks in Mary Zimmerman’s 2009 production. The Tony award-winning director transfers Bellini’s bucolic tale to a rehearsal room in contemporary New York, where an opera company rehearses La Sonnambula—and where the singers are truly in love with each other.

The Metropolitan Opera – Verdi: Macbeth(it)

Verdi’s admiration for Shakespeare led to such masterpieces as Othello and Falstaff, and if the earlier Macbeth isn’t on their exalted level it’s still a powerfully dramatic opera that hews closely to the original’s story line. The MET’s production retains the dark aura of the opera while updating it to a vaguely post-modern context. So the witches are bag ladies in various stages of decrepitude, with children in tow. The Banquet Scene features lowered chandeliers, a plethora of chairs, and a slew of extras dressed in tuxedos and party gowns. Macbeth sports a leather coat, the soldiers are in drab brown uniforms and seem to have fingers on their triggers even when they’re supposed to be in non-threatening situations. Director Adrian Noble also has Lady Macbeth do an inordinate amount of writhing around and singing from a lying-down position, adding to the feeling that a less interventionist directorial hand might have generated more impact.

The Pearlfishers(fr)

A village hires a priestess to pray for the safety of their pearl fishermen, but long lost love gets in the way.

Otello(it)

José Cura sings and acts here with an inwardness and intensity which make a profound impression. So does Krassimira Stoyanova as Desdemona, not in the first flush of youth, but heartfelt and direct; while Lado Ataneli's Jago is a brilliantly understated study in jovial malevolence. With strong conducting from Antoni Ros-Marbà, the whole cast collaborate to give us the truth of this desperately upsetting work, as no other DVD and few live performances I've seen of it ever have.

John Adams: Nixon in China(en)

John Adams’s groundbreaking work vividly brings to life US President Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China. Peter Sellars’s Metropolitan Opera production, based on his 1987 world-premiere staging, features choreography by Mark Morris and stars James Maddalena as Nixon, Robert Brubaker as Chairman Mao, Janis Kelly as First Lady Pat Nixon, Russell Braun as Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, and Kathleen Kim as Chiang Ch’ing, Mao’s wife. From the pomp of the public displays to the intimacy of the protagonists most private moments, Adams, Sellars and librettist Alice Goodman reveal the real characters behind the headlines in this landmark American opera.