
Narrated by cinema legend Franco Zeffirelli, this intimate made-for-television documentary traces the life and times of the mercurial Maria Callas, one of the most renowned and respected operatic divas of the mid-20th century. Rare authentic footage, candid interviews and breathtaking performances help paint a portrait of an artist remembered as much for her quick and explosive temper as she is for her immeasurable talent.
Self (archive footage)

Narrated by cinema legend Franco Zeffirelli, this intimate made-for-television documentary traces the life and times of the mercurial Maria Callas, one of the most renowned and respected operatic divas of the mid-20th century. Rare authentic footage, candid interviews and breathtaking performances help paint a portrait of an artist remembered as much for her quick and explosive temper as she is for her immeasurable talent.
1978-09-16
7
8.0Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
7.8Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
7.4King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges settle his dispute with his squire, Jacques Le Gris, by challenging him to a duel.
7.9Peter 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.
7.1Several generations following Caesar's reign, apes – now the dominant species – live harmoniously while humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all he's known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.
5.5Armored truck security guard James Brody is working with his son Casey transporting millions of dollars between banks when a team of thieves led by Rook orchestrate a takeover of their truck to seize the riches. Following a violent car chase, Rook soon has the armored truck surrounded and James and Casey find themselves cornered onto a decrepit bridge.
6.1Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince assemble a team of metahumans consisting of Barry Allen, Arthur Curry and Victor Stone to face the catastrophic threat of Steppenwolf and the Parademons who are on the hunt for three Mother Boxes on Earth.
7.4When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
7.6Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
8.2After 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.
6.2A young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension.
7.0After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana journeys alongside Maui and a new crew to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she's ever faced.
7.3When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
6.4A legendary secret service agent comes out of hiding and returns to France to help the son he's never met get out of trouble.
6.9A second trial begins in November 1975 against French left-wing revolutionary Pierre Goldman, accused of several armed robberies and the death of two chemists.
6.7A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
7.6Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.
8.21930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sookee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
8.0The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
7.7Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.
0.0Takarazuka Revue's Phantom based on the play by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.
9.0The first-ever audio-visual recording of this opera – directed by Christof Loy, conducted by Marc Albrecht and with Sara Jakubiak, Brian Jagde and Josef Wagner in the leading roles
1.0Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed.
5.0This tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.
0.0Sergey Prokofiev's operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel was never performed in the composers lifetime the musics brittle energy, drama and eloquent lyrical tenderness would re-emerge in his Third Symphony. The narrative focuses relentlessly on Renata, who is haunted by an angel who turns out to be the devil. Director Emma Dante describes the opera as an explosive mix of fantastical realism and endless confusion of nightmares, madness, sexual impulses and cultural clashes, and this Teatro dellOpera di Roma production was acclaimed as a presentation of Prokofievs masterpiece which sparkles in all its grotesque glory (operawire.com)
0.0The most popular Czech comic opera, with a libretto by Karel Sabina, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, in the current production of the National Theater in Prague. For more than 150 years, The Bartered Bride has dominated Czech opera. No one else, not even Smetana himself, has managed to surpass its popularity, which over the years has become part of our national DNA, so to speak. At the time of its creation in the 1860s, however, The Bartered Bride was actually quite a bold experiment – Bedřich Smetana and librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who imagined "national opera" as an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, where national virtues reign supreme.
0.0To open its 2019-2020 season, La Scala in Milan has chosen Tosca, in a new production directed by Davide Livermore. The production is part of the rediscovery of Italian opera led by Riccardo Chailly, the conductor of the production and music director of La Scala. He has chosen the original version of Tosca, as created by Puccini in Rome in January 1900, which included eight "additional musical inserts" that were removed from the work after its second performance in Turin in February 1900 and will now be rediscovered for the first time on December 7 at La Scala.
0.0A production of Mozart's opera recorded live at Zurich Opera House in 2000. Cecilia Bartoli leads an all-star cast including Roberto Saccà, Liliana Nikiteanu, and Agnes Baltsa. The conductor is Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in February 2000 on a set which visualises the subtitle "The School for Lovers", the plot revolves around two army officers arguing about the fidelity of their brides, then setting out to test their chastity. Despite the often playful humour, this is not only psychologically telling music-making, but reveals Mozart exploring the structure of opera, discarding convention to mix large ensemble sections with arias for as many different combinations of singers as possible. With Liliana Nikiteanu attractively contrasted with Bartoli, and thoroughly convincing performances by Roberto Sacca (Ferrando) and Oliver Widmer (Guilelmo), this Così has a freshness and flow which, coupled with the timeless romantic themes, feels very contemporary.
0.0From the first steps of an emerging singer to the final bow of a celebrated soprano, 'PRIMADONNA OR NOTHING' follows three relentless women who sacrifice everything to be an opera star.
0.0Lumee, one of the two main characters (of the opera p r i s m), sings this aria while smoking outside a nightclub in the second act, providing a window into her selfish fantasies. Not a recorded section of the opera, but a companion piece meant to depict the character's imagined realities.
0.0Two mystical beings emerge from the scenery, embarking on a journey through Gallup— Na'nízhoozhí in the Navajo language— before melting back into the desert at nightfall.
0.0This short begins with a pair thriving in a lush paradise representing the Garden of Eden. The pair are suddenly uprooted and driven to the unknown: the original sin of slavery. In the end, they dig their roots into the soil and stretch their limbs to the sun, finding new identities, new truths and new power.
0.0A short opera about the assassination of poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca at the hands of Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
“Let us assume that Switzerland is truly a paradise. The music hereto was written long ago. We have merely forgotten it.” (Daniel Schmid) This is the material from which the most Swiss of all operas is made: the legendary Wilhelm Tell – a Swiss hero: straightforward, a primus inter pares of the indomitable freedom fighters, a good shot, surefire. A myth that becomes a poetic playground: nature in turmoil, the struggle for freedom and forbidden love. A legendary overture at a gallop with an iconic post horn motif – all this and much more in the thirty-seventh and last opera by Rossini.
Serge Kakudji is a twenty-year-old Congolese counter tenor who fell in love with opera as a young boy, listening to audiotapes of opera recordings in his room in Lubumbashi. Later he traveled to Europe to achieve his dream of becoming a top opera singer. Although Serge's artistic ambitions are pure and uncomplicated, the reactions among his environment and audiences are often ambiguous and divided. While some people respect and acknowledge his artistic vocation, others see him as an exotic oddity, or complain that that his African timbre jars with classical opera. Serge refuses to be discouraged by any of this. On the contrary, he wants to hold up a mirror to Western culture and confront it with its underlying beliefs. He also wants to use his story and experiences in the west to bring opera to Congo. Together with his countrymen and women, he wants to found a Congolese opera tradition based on African stories that will inspire people to follow their dreams.
0.0Handel's 1724 opera Tamerlano followed the success of his previous year's Giulio Cesare with another colourful historical costume drama. This time the setting is the court of "Timur the Tartar", who has just defeated the Turkish Sultan Bajazet at the battle of Angora. There are, naturally enough, romantic complications when both Tamerlano and his ally, the Greek Prince Andronico, fall in love with Bajazet's daughter Asteria. She, however, has plans to revenge her father's defeat. This production was directed by Jonathan Miller and staged in the intimate surroundings of the Goethe Theatre of Bad Lauchstadt as part of the 2001 Halle Handel Festival.