Gaetano Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani kept the focus of their opera ANNA BOLENA on the personal rather than the political in this fictionalized Tudor tale: Henry VIII of England wants to get rid of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, so that he can marry her lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. He brings Lord Richard Percy, Anne's first love, back from exile so that he can find an excuse to accuse her of adultery. With the unwitting aid of Smeaton, a court musician, and Lord Rochefort, Anne's brother, the trap is easily sprung. This 2011 live recording from the Wiener Staatsoper showcases Anna Netrebko as she "scored a personal triumph" in her debut as the hapless Tudor Queen, while her stage partners - notably Elīna Garanča as Jane Seymour and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Henry VIII - were likewise showered with critical acclaim.
Lord Rochefort
Smeton
Sir Hervey
Gaetano Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani kept the focus of their opera ANNA BOLENA on the personal rather than the political in this fictionalized Tudor tale: Henry VIII of England wants to get rid of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, so that he can marry her lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. He brings Lord Richard Percy, Anne's first love, back from exile so that he can find an excuse to accuse her of adultery. With the unwitting aid of Smeaton, a court musician, and Lord Rochefort, Anne's brother, the trap is easily sprung. This 2011 live recording from the Wiener Staatsoper showcases Anna Netrebko as she "scored a personal triumph" in her debut as the hapless Tudor Queen, while her stage partners - notably Elīna Garanča as Jane Seymour and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Henry VIII - were likewise showered with critical acclaim.
2011-04-05
8
Anna Bolena (2011) Wiener Staatsoper
Jorge Bueno and Pedro Malo are best friends who consider giving up their womanizing ways when they each fall in love. As fate would have it, Pedro Malo unexpectedly marries Jorge Bueno's girlfriend, and the conflict between the former buddies begins.
All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.
The origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who, after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, learn the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.
When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.
Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne by factions within his own country as well as without. Using powers reserved to Wakandan kings, T'Challa assumes the Black Panther mantle to join with ex-girlfriend Nakia, the queen-mother, his princess-kid sister, members of the Dora Milaje (the Wakandan 'special forces') and an American secret agent, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia and Everett Ross and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda.
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse’s very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most.
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War, the universe is in ruins due to the efforts of the Mad Titan, Thanos. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers must assemble once more in order to undo Thanos' actions and restore order to the universe once and for all, no matter what consequences may be in store.
Peter Parker is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super-hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
A rogue band of resistance fighters unite for a mission to steal the Death Star plans and bring a new hope to the galaxy.
Pagliacci, is a 1948 Italian film based on Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, directed by Mario Costa. The film stars Tito Gobbi and Gina Lollobrigida. It recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. The only actor in the cast who also sang his role was the celebrated Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, but the film is largely very faithful to its source material, presenting the opera nearly complete.
Shortly after WWII, the DEFA Studios produced a series of operas and operettas which belonged to the classical German musical heritage. This enchanting film, the very first opera production of DEFA, stands out because of its lavish decor and costumes, its outstanding actors and their masterful voices of that time.
Concert and documentary celebrating the 1st Anniversary of Moscow’s Zaryadye Hall
Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Live performance from the Opéra National de Paris, 2003.
The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
Massenet’s tale of passion, excess, and their consequences stars rising soprano Lisette Oropesa in the effervescent title role. Tenor Michael Fabiano is her ardent admirer, Chevalier des Grieux, with Maurizio Benini conducting Laurent Pelly’s enchanting production.
As the imperious title empress, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato leads the Met premiere of Handel’s tale of deception and deceit. Harry Bicket conducts Sir David McVicar’s wry new production, which gives this Baroque black comedy a politically charged, modern updating.
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...
Car Men is a collaboration between the renowned choreographer Jíri Kylían and filmmaker Boris Paval Conen. Based on the opera 'CARMEN' by Georges Bizet they shot a hilarious and poetic short film in the destroyed landscape of a Czech brown coal mine. The actors in this film are older dancers from Kylían's troupe (around 50 years old) and the main prop is a 'TATRA 87', a famous car from 1937.
All the throbbing eroticism—and ultimate heartbreak—of Puccini’s youthful score is unleashed by James Levine and his top-flight cast. Plácido Domingo is Des Grieux, the handsome, headstrong young aristocrat who falls head over heels for the enticing, impetuous Manon Lescaut (Renata Scotto). Manon returns his love, but her obsession with luxury ruins them both. Gian Carlo Menotti’s opulent production, with sets and costumes by Desmond Heeley, superbly captures the colorful world of 18th century France.
Who loves whom in Così fan tutte, Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s cruelly comic reflection on desire, fidelity and betrayal? Or have the confusions to which the main characters subject one another ensured that in spite of the heartfelt love duets and superficially fleetfooted comedy nothing will work any longer and that a sense of emotional erosion has replaced true feelings? Così fan tutte is a timeless work full of questions that affect us all. The Academy Award-winning director Michael Haneke once said that he was merely being precise and did not want to distort reality. In only his second opera production after Don Giovanni in 2006, he presents what ARTE described as a “disillusioned vision of love in an ice-cold, realistic interpretation”.
This DVD of a live 2005 performance from the Zürich Opera under the musical direction of Franz Welser-Möst has many things to recommend it -- the young tenor Piotr Beczala as Alfredo, the marvelous Thomas Hampson as Giorgio Germont, the playing of the Zurich Opera orchestra, the simple but effective sets by by Erich Wonder, the uncluttered stage direction by Jürgen Flimm. It also has some flaws: strangely variable volume level of the recorded sound sometimes coming on so loud as to make one reach for the volume control, and the uneven performance of the Violetta, Eva Mei who, for all her merits, gives a dramatically effective performance marred by occasional difficulties with vocal production. Still, overall I felt this was a moving production, one that I would recommend, although perhaps not as an only DVD of one of Verdi's most popular operas.
Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Juan, creating a vivid portrait of a man who is a law unto himself, and all the more dangerous for his eternally seductive allure. Adam Plachetka is his occasionally unruly servant Leporello. It’s when Giovanni tangles with Donna Anna (Hibla Gerzmava) that things start to unravel, aided by the reappearance of Donna Elvira (Malin Byström), who is determined not to let her seducer go. With Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s eternally steadfast fiancé. Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the Met Orchestra and Chorus.
This telecast offers a rare opportunity to see the legendary Joan Sutherland in the role that first catapulted her to international stardom. She drove audiences wild by the way her opulent voice caressed the music’s long phrases and sprinted effortlessly through the fiendish runs, trills, embellishments and stratospheric high notes. One of the glories of the operatic world, her portrayal of Donizetti’s hapless heroine is a multifaceted and moving characterization. The incomparable tenor Alfredo Kraus is Edgardo, the man Lucia loves but cannot have. (Performance taped November 13, 1982. Broadcasted September 28, 1983.)
Two years prior to the opening scene, the nobleman Florestan has exposed or attempted to expose certain crimes of the nobleman Pizarro. In revenge, Pizarro has secretly imprisoned Florestan in the prison over which Pizarro is governor. The jailer of the prison, Rocco, has a daughter, Marzelline, and a servant (or assistant), Jaquino. Florestan’s wife, Leonore, came to Rocco’s door dressed as a boy seeking employment, and Rocco hired her. On orders, Rocco has been giving Florestan diminishing rations until he is nearly starved to death. Place: A Spanish state prison, a few miles from Seville; Time: Late 18th century.
Weber was at the forefront of the rise of German Romantic opera and sought to dethrone Rossini from his position as the leading operatic composer in Europe. In his breakthrough and most popular opera Der Freischütz (The Marksman) composed in 1821, he succeeded in his aim of establishing a truly German form. Turning to the folklore and folk songs of his native land he took a story of a marksman who makes a pact with the Devil, vesting it with powerful intensity not least in the famous Wolfs Glen scene and an astonishing control of orchestral color and atmosphere.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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)