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)
Helmwige
Ortlinde
Gerhilde
Waltraute
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)
1990-02-23
8.143
It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great comedy fighting to get out that we owe this absolute miracle of an opera. Produced in 1893 as Verdi turned 80 there is much in this masterpiece that can be identified as a modernist neoclassical work. The use of short motifs instead of long arioso melodic lines, the spry and reduced orchestral textures and the lack of a single 'stand and deliver' dramatic declamatory aria all serve to make this more of a 20th century work than an example of 19th century late-Romanticism.
Ruth Butler, a clerk in an emporium, marries Jimmy Rutledge and thereby greatly displeases his mother, the owner of the emporium, because of Ruth's lowly origins. Renaud Graham, one of Mrs. Rutledge's friends, becomes interested in Ruth, forces his way into her apartment, and attempts to make violent love to her. Jimmy walks in on their embrace and, suspecting the worst, leaves Ruth. In the family way, Ruth finds refuge in a boardinghouse where she meets Al Bryant, an aspiring writer. Ruth tells Al her life story, and he makes it into a bestselling novel and then into a play. Jimmy sees the play and comes to his senses, winning Ruth's forgiveness.
Emma Mayer is a psychologist and advises people in crisis situations. She works at a radio station in Mannheim and does her best to provide callers with help and support. When a hostage-taker calls her during a broadcast, her expertise and improvisation are called for, as the caller forces her to move out of the studio and confront him directly. When she arrives at the petrol station, Emma gets involved in a question-and-answer game: For every correct answer, a hostage is allowed to leave; for every wrong answer, a hostage loses their life.
Chronicle of the daily activity of a newspaper called La Jornada. Through the events covered by the gossip columnist that occupy precisely the seventh page, a portrait emerges of different classes of Spain in the 50's and a vision of reality where facts are mixed comedy, police, emotional, dramatic and even tragic.
An old geezer recalls some of the antics of the citizens of his Western town, more wild and woolly than Tombstone or Dodge City. In this town, they shoot like Stormtroopers, the women seek new meat, and practical jokers abound.
When gold is discovered the first man there gets to stake his claim. Joe and another man race each other, which involves a thrilling episode on a train.
Kumar Agnihotri belongs to a wealthy family, consisting of his dad, Madan, and mom, Janki. He is in love with beautiful Mala Bajpai, and they hope to marry soon with the blessings of their respective parents. Kumar's other passion is boxing, which Janki loathes, and hopes that he will give this up soon. When the Agnihotris bring home a woman named Ganga, and introduce her to Kumar as Janki's childhood friend, Kumar finds out that Ganga is his biological mother, and his father, Ajay Kumar, was the National Champion in boxing, who was killed by three men for refusing to lose a fight. While Janki is afraid that she is going her son to Ganga, Kumar has decided to avenge his biological's father's death by any means, little realizing that he may face the same fate his father did years ago.
Chunauti is an action-packed romantic comedy that tells a story of love, struggle, and justice. Ajaya and his wife Prabha move to Kathmandu, where Ajaya starts working as a teacher. Later, his sister Gita joins them and enrolls in the same college. There, she meets a kind and charming student, but trouble arises when Madhav, a troublesome student, also starts liking her. One day, a fight breaks out in the college, and when Gita tries to stop it, an inspector arrives and brings the situation under control. Angered by this, Madhav and his group cause harm to Prabha and Gita. They also try to escape punishment through legal means. With no strong evidence, Ajaya takes a stand and challenges the court. In the end, he decides to take justice into his own hands, leading to a tragic ending where the inspector, fulfilling his duty, stops Ajaya. Chunauti is a story of love, courage, and sacrifice in the face of injustice.
A story of good versus evil revolving around a young woman. When Angela is born to David and Sara they are full of joy but as she grows up, she proves to be more of a curse than a blessing. Angela herself is confused and is only sure of one thing ... she doesn't want the dark powers which she cannot control.
Set in an oppressive future where the government controls the media, Ben Richards volunteers to participate in a deadly game show, which will see him hunted by professional killers over 30 days. Should he survive, he’ll win a cash prize that will help save his sick child and lift his family out of a horrid living situation.
In the early twentieth century, a mysterious ecological crisis nearly wiped out the fish that most people cared about in the largest freshwater ecosystem on earth—the Great Lakes. The impact reverberated across the region, ruining local industries, damaging small town economies and indigenous communities, and destroying the livelihoods of people in the United States and Canada. With little reason for hope, a dedicated group of scientists, policymakers, and conservationists tackled the mystery.
A regiment of soldiers demonstrate their skills.
Cry of Silence, is about a double kidnapping, and assault that is presented as an Action Packed ,Dramatic, Thriller that will keep you riveted.
"Peep Show" is a strange amalgam of dank noir drama and cheesy journalism, recounting Sam “Momo” Giancana's reign with the Outfit. Styled as a confessional by one of Momo's gunsels, the tabloid tell-all traces the Cosa Nostra's connections first to the fall of Cuba and Kennedy's mob-supported presidency, then to a spreading blight of drug trafficking that swept through Vegas on the way to the White House.
Valerie is a self-confident and modern woman - she commutes between L.A., where she works, and Berlin, where she lives with her partner above the rooftops of the city. When he falls ill and falls into a coma, she wakes up at his bedside. Valerie decides to return to L.A. one last time, burn all her bridges there and move to Berlin for good. She decides to record a video diary for her absence and begins to narrate for her loved one the day before her departure. Intended as simple messages of love, Valerie's memories are suddenly unleashed in the midst of the recordings. Playfully, she loses her shyness in front of the camera, her emotions burst forth and allow her to relive the story of her great love. What began as a game becomes a reckoning with life and love.
Philippa Talbot is a talented London businesswoman who has decided to give up her position and power to become a nun. The man who loves her is in shock over her departure from his life. When Philippa arrives at Brede, a cloistered Benedictine monastery, the abbess who was responsible for convincing her to enter this vocation suddenly dies. Her successor is Catherine, a sensitive leader who's the first to tell the newcomer to the community that all nuns are to love without a preference for one over another. This becomes very difficult when Joanna, a young nun, singles Sister Philippa out and grows very attached to her.
Deep in a forest where druids and warriors seek revenge against the conquering Romans, Norma is scorned by the Roman proconsul Pollione, with whom she has two children. Her kindness turns to fury when she discovers that Pollione has taken Adalgisa, a novice priestess, as his new lover. When Pollione loses his high rank in the army and is offered as a sacrifice, Norma promises him freedom under one condition.
After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.
Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thrilled Met audiences when it rang in the New Year in 2018. Only weeks later, the production was seen by opera lovers worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema presentations. In this performance, Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Željko Lučić is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. On the podium, Emmanuel Villaume conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.
Premiered immediately before the enduring masterpieces Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, Luisa Miller incorporates the youthful vitality that had made Verdi an international sensation while also looking forward to the dramaturgical discipline and sophistication of those later works. In this Live in HD performance, soprano Sonya Yoncheva takes on the riveting title role, capping off a season in which she starred in three cinema transmissions. As her father, Miller, the legendary Plácido Domingo adds another baritone role to his extensive repertoire. Tenor Piotr Beczała as Rodolfo, Alexander Vinogradov as Count Walter, and Dmitry Belosselskiy as Wurm round out the illustrious cast, and Bertrand de Billy conducts.
Benjamin Britten’s opera of the Henry James novel. An inexperienced governess is sent to a country house to care for two children, whom she is gradually convinced have been corrupted by the ghosts of a previous manservant and governess…
Takarazuka Revue's Phantom based on the play by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.
An anthology of four abbreviated operas: "William Tell" by Rossini, "The Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart, "Don Pasquale" by Donizetti, and "Carmen" by Bizet. Filmed in Italy with major opera stars, and accompanied by English narration.
Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit. Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which sets the action in 1940s occupied France, was one of the highlights of the Met’s 2015–16 season. Massimo Cavalletti as Manon’s brother and Brindley Sherratt as her aging admirer co-star, and Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.
"Die tote Stadt" is a psychologically layered drama with Hitchcock-like features, about Paul who, after the loss of his beloved Marie, slowly but surely becomes entangled in a dream world of obsessions and delusions. This impressive opera is a passionate as well as a surrealistic plea for mourning. "He who cannot live with death has no life."
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die tote Stadt" in a Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2019, directed by Simon Stone. Kirill Petrenko is conducting Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen.
Celeste is a renowned opera diva who retired early for the man she loved to live on a crumbling and beautiful estate in the heart of a rainforest in Far North Queensland. Ten years after the tragic death of her husband, Mateos, in a boating accident, Celeste is set to return to the stage for her final performance. Her husband’s son Jack, still haunted by the past, arrives amidst the preparations for the performance and finds Celeste is as he remembered – beautiful, intoxicating and dangerous. Celeste wants Jack to stay at the estate, but needs him to perform one last request.
The great singing actress Nina Stemme gives a heart-wrenching performance in the title role of Strauss’s blazing one-act drama, adapted from the ancient Greek myth. Patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed production—the last staging he worked on before his death in 2013—also stars Waltraud Meier as Klytämnestra, Elektra’s nightmare-haunted mother, Adrianne Pieczonka as Chrysothemis, her sister, and Eric Owens as Orest, their brother, whose return home brings their family story to a terrifying climax. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the monumental and highly influential score.
The Metropolitan Opera's performance of "Hansel and Gretel" features music by Engelbert Humperdinck and is conducted by Thomas Fulton. The Met's storybook production cheerfully evokes a magic world of woodland sprites and candy dreams and yet brings as well the entire apparatus of Wagnerian music and drama to bear on a German fairy tale. This production is sung in English, and features the Metropolitan Opera, Chorus, and Ballet.
This ever-popular opera is given a fresh point of view in Barrie Kosky’s highly physical production, originally created for Frankfurt Opera. The Australian director is one of the world’s most sought-after opera directors, whose Royal Opera debut with Shostakovich’s The Nose in 2016 was greeted with delight. For Carmen he has devised a far-from-traditional version, incorporating music written by Bizet for the score but not usually heard, and giving a new voice to the opera’s endlessly fascinating central character.
Esteemed Italian conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti leads the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in a moving performance of Rossini's one-act opera "L'Occasione Fa Il Ladro." Singers Susan Patterson, Robert Gambill, Natale de Carolis and Monica Bacelli fill the theater with their soaring voices in this 1992 production staged by director Michael Hampe at the elegantly cozy Rococo Theatre, in the quaint town of Schwetzingen, Germany.
For the first time in company history, the Met presents the original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera of doomed love among royalty, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. Patrick Furrer leads a world-beating cast of opera’s leading lights in this March 26 performance, including tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Élisabeth de Valois, and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča as Eboli. Bass Günther Groissböck and bass-baritone John Relyea are Philippe II and the Grand Inquisitor, and baritone Étienne Dupuis rounds out the all-star principal cast as Rodrigue. Verdi’s masterpiece receives a monumental new staging by David McVicar that marks his 11th Met production, placing him among the most prolific and popular directors in recent Met memory. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
On May 21, soprano Nadine Sierra takes on one of the repertory’s most formidable and storied roles, the haunted heroine of Lucia di Lammermoor, in an electrifying new staging by in-demand Australian theater and film director Simon Stone, conducted by Riccardo Frizza. Show-stopping tenor Javier Camarena adds to the bel canto fireworks as Lucia’s beloved, Edgardo, with baritone Artur Ruciński as her overbearing brother, Enrico, and bass Matthew Rose as her tutor, Raimondo. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.