Is this a film about Scrooge? About a composer’s life? An opera within an opera? The Passion of Scrooge blurs these lines between performance, documentary, and fiction, into a cinematic concert experience that’s seasoned with magical reality. Composer Jon Deak has adapted Charles Dickens’ timeless tale into a contemporary opera that melts the heart, but doesn’t avoid the darkness in Scrooge that’s still resonant with the material concerns of our time. Using neither period costumes, nor set pieces to reconstruct old England, the film invites you to experience A Christmas Carol with the imaginative possibilities of a radio play. And then, to meet those visions in your head, filmmaker H. Paul Moon‘s floating camera intimately captures musicians performing the score as characters themselves, in this ageless haunted redemption story about “us, every one.”
Baritone
This is funny or rather crazy adaptation of classical opera Carmen inspired by famous czech theatre Ypsilon play of the same name shot at various bizarre locations such as airport, botanical garden and winter forest.
The Pucchini opera "Turandot" will be shown completely new at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The new production by the Spanish video artist Franc Aleu refers with a wink to the history of the Catalan institution: 20 years ago, this very opera was resumed there after a fire in 1994 severely damaged the theater.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Six lives change when two strangers wake up in bed together - not knowing who they're with, where they are or how they got there.
Franco Corelli is featured in this 1954 filmed version of Leoncavallo's opera, along with Tito Gobbi. The film also features opera arias from "The Rose of Stambul," "Aida," "Cavalleria Rusticana," "Igemisco" and "Il Trovatore." 104 minuts, black & white.
Rigoletto, hunchbacked jester, plans to take revenge on his master, the Duke of Mantua. Teatro de la Zarzuela 1989
This version of "The Nutcracker" gives the classic ballet a tragic spin, with Masha (instead of Clara) now the unloved, unappreciated daughter of the Town Council President. At a Christmas party, Masha is given a seemingly alive Nutcracker by her Uncle Drosselmeyer, and Masha instantly is enchanted with it. The toys come to life at midnight, and after Masha helps the Nutcracker defeat attacking mice, he takes her to his kingdom, where he is later revealed to be a handsome Prince. The Prince and Masha fall deeply in love, but their "happy ending" has a morbid twist not found in any other "Nutcracker".
“Kaufmann is performing the title role for the first time, and it’s hard to imagine him bettered. His striking looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of Giordano’s vision. His voice, with its dark, liquid tone, soars through the music with refined ease and intensity: all those grand declarations of passion, whether political or erotic, hit home with terrific immediacy.” – The Guardian Presented in its Covent Garden premiere in January 2015, this staging – directed by David McVicar and conducted by the Royal Opera’s Music Director, Sir Antonio Pappano – shows a bloody tricolour daubed with the words “Even Plato banned poets from his Republic” – written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical Chénier, a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for criticising France’s post-revolutionary government.
A toyless boy finds a broken soldier doll and gets a very special Christmas as a result.
The Rake's Progress is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition. Filmed in Aix-en-Provence, 1992.
Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher’s bold new production probes the psychological underpinnings of Verdi’s dynamic setting of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. At the helm of this performance is riveting conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who brings out all the cascading emotions in Verdi’s turbulent score. Aleksandrs Antonenko is the Moor Otello, the triumphant general of the Venetian army who is ultimately brought down by the sly insinuations of his friend Iago (Željko Lučić). Sonya Yoncheva continues to win fans as Desdemona, Otello’s faithful and long-suffering wife. With Günther Groissböck as Lodovico and Dimitri Pittas as Cassio.
A filmed version of Tchaikovsky's opera. Onegin visits a friend, his fiancee and her sister Tatiana, who believes Onegin is her fated love. She writes a note telling him so, but he rejects her. Years later he returns, finding her married, but now he's smitten with her.
Alessandro Corbelli takes the title role in Annabel Arden's whirlwind production of Puccini's compact opera, in which the scheming Gianni Schicchi retrieves for himself the spoils of a disinherited family to pave the way for his daughter to marry her love.
The Queen of the Night has begged Prince Tamino to free her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the High Priest Sarastro, who has abducted her. Together with the bird-catcher Papageno, Tamino enters Sarastro's realm to seek her. When he finds her, the two fall in love, but they have to have to undergo ordeals before they can be together. At the end, Papageno is also rewarded with his Papagena.
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.
Three arias from Antonín Dvořák´s fairytale opera Rusalka turned in to a movie, sung by Gabriela Beňačková (Rusalka), Libuše Márová (Witch), René Tuček (Hunter).
The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
This film is a docufiction on the great Toscanini directed by well-known filmmaker Larry Weinstein; who pushes the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by borrowing tools from fiction films; including dramatic reconstructions and historical cinematic stylings.
A retelling of the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, miser extraordinaire. He is held accountable for his dastardly ways during night-time visitations by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
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)