

James Morris leads an all-star cast including Karita Mattila, Ben Heppner, Thomas Allen and René Pape, in this production of Wagner's comic opera, recorded live at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2001. James Levine conducts.

6.6Meet a tiny girl named Thumbelina who lives in harmony with nature in the magical world of the Twillerbees that's hidden among the wildflowers. At the whim of a spoiled young girl named Makena, Thumbelina and her two friends have their patch of wildflowers uprooted and are transported to a lavish apartment in the city.
6.2A man is painting a landscape. A woman is holding two cups. What can go wrong? A nightmare in pink.
7.7With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
6.4Barbie is disheartened when Todd breaks her heart and goes back to his former girlfriend. But things change when she comes across a diary, which makes her wishes come true.
7.5Per her mother's last wish, an 8 year old girl sets out to reunite her father with his college best friend who was in love with him.
6.5A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.
6.4Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.
7.4A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…
7.3A hapless carnival performer masquerades as the court jester as part of a plot against a usurper who has overthrown the rightful king of England.
7.9The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.
6.7Bill Whitney is worried that he is different to his sister and parents. They mix with other upper-class people while Bill is more down to earth. Even his girlfriend seems a bit odd. All is revealed when Bill returns home to find a party in full swing.
7.4Three best friend are going to spend a vacation on a sea shore. But when they arrive to their usual place they suddenly find that the spot is already occupied - by two beautiful girls.
6.7Thirty years after starring in "The Wizard of Oz," beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
6.8Hobbs has Dominic and Brian reassemble their crew to take down a team of mercenaries; Dominic unexpectedly gets sidetracked with facing his presumed deceased girlfriend, Letty.
7.4Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.
5.9The last years of Bettino Craxi, one of the most important and controversial italian leader of the 1980's.
6.1A group of tenants and visitors are trapped in a 10-story high-rise apartment building infested with demons who proceed to hunt the dwindling humans down.
7.4A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
8.1Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.
6.3Just when George Banks has recovered from his daughter's wedding, he receives the news that she's pregnant ... and that George's wife is expecting too. He was planning on selling their home, but that's a plan that—like George—will have to change with the arrival of both a grandchild and a kid of his own.
8.0Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
“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.
0.0Johann Strauss, Jr., a would-be composer of waltzes in mid-19th Century Vienna, attempts to thwart his father's efforts to prevent his success when the older man becomes jealous of his melodic skill.
0.02014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer, Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Arabella (premiered 1933, Dresden) was the last of the half dozen Strauss works to feature a libretto by the great Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production, from the most recent Salzburg Easter Festival is, after Capriccio, the second of three Richard Strauss operas C Major is releasing in honor of the composers birth, life and work. The star-laden cast includes soprano Renèe Fleming, baritone Thomas Hampson, Albert Dohmen (Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, MET) and Gabriela Beaková (Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden). With Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, the music of Richard Strauss is in the best of hands. (ORF) Thielemann gets the best out of the cast...especially Renée Fleming with her luxurious soprano FAZ
0.0John Eliot Gardiner conducts Gluck’s 1776 French version of “Alceste” at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Soprano Anne Sofie von Otter takes the title role of Alceste, Queen of Thessaly, who offers to die at the hands of the gods in place of her husband, Admète (Paul Groves), so that the people will not lose their king. Alceste is then saved from the underworld by Hercule (Dietrich Henschel).
0.0Tosca is a melodrama of love, betrayal and death set in the revolutionary unrest of 1800. The story concerns the opera singer Floria Tosca who tries to save her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, from the brutal chief of police, Scarpia. Through-composed and expertly orchestrated it contains some of Puccini’s best-known lyrical arias and remains one of his most performed operas. In this 2022 production, an eminent cast is directed by the acclaimed Australian director Barrie Kosky – ‘the Amsterdam audience was completely swept off its feet by Kosky’s stunning production’ (Opera News).
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.
Live performance from Cologne Opera. Conlon conducts a skittishly dynamic performance of Don Giovanni. He relies on Thomas Allen’s tough Don to give the work much of its dark menace and on Holle’s terrifying Commendatore to provide the moral outrage – his job is to keep things moving, and he does. The exteriors – blank city spaces reminiscent of the paintings of Giorgio De Chirico – and moodily claustrophobic interiors mirror effectively the anguish of the orphaned Anna and the abandoned Elvira; this is a performance in which the two women victims of the Don function effectively as correctives to his libertine charm. Andrea Rost as Zerlina brings real delicacy to her role, reminding us that “La ci darem la mano” is a duet about her flirtation with Don Giovanni and not just a famous stand-alone moment. This is an admirable presentation of a fine performance.
6.0Last production staged by Patrice Chéreau, this Elektra will remain as the main and most striking lyrical event of these last years in Aix-en-Provence. This production is leaded by three amazing singers: the German soprano Evelyn Herlitzius gave a tremendous, never-to-be-forgotten account of the title role, Waltraud Meier portrays a human and chilling Clytemnestra and Adrianne Pieczonka is a fantastic Chrysothemis. Everyone's loneliness and intimate struggles are Patrice Chéreau's favorites theatrical themes. With Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Orchestre de Paris, this production of Elektra becomes an unforgettable experience.
0.0Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili gives a dynamic performance as Bizet’s iconic gypsy, the woman who lives by her own rules. Aleksandrs Antonenko is Don José, the soldier who falls under her spell, and Ildar Abdrazakov plays Escamillo, the swaggering bullfighter who takes Carmen away from Don José—an action that seals Carmen’s tragic fate. Anita Hartig is Micaëla, and Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Richard Eyre’s hit production, set in 1930s Spain.
8.5In the Summer of 2009, the British director Nigel Lowery and the Iranian choreographer Amir Hosseinpour brought to the stage of the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, with colour and full of humour, the fantastic and imaginative adventures of "Racing Roland". On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the death of Joseph Haydn, the composer's most renowned opera during his lifetime,Orlando Paladino, was performed, a heroic-comical stage piece based on Ariost's famous Versepos. Singers such as Marlis Petersen (Angelica), Tom Randle (Orlando), Alexandrina Pendatchanska (Alcina), Pietro Spagnoli (Rodomonte), Sunhae Im (Eurilla) and Victor Torres (Pasquale) performed under the musical direction of period-music specialist René Jacobs. The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra completed this high-class production giving the music a beautiful sound and lively swing.
8.0The 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.
0.0Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which opened the Met’s 2014–15 season, sets the action of Mozart’s timeless social comedy in a manor house in 1930s Seville. Ildar Abdrazakov leads the cast as the resourceful Figaro set on outwitting his master, the philandering Count Almaviva, played by Peter Mattei. Marlis Petersen sings Susanna, the object of the Count’s affection and Figaro’s bride-to-be, Amanda Majeski is the Countess, and Isabel Leonard gives a standout performance as the pageboy Cherubino. Music Director James Levine on the podium brings out all the humor, drama, and humanity of Mozart’s score.
0.0Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker. The magician Drosselmeyer transforms the drawing room into a battle between mice and toy soldiers. During the battle, Clara saves the Nutcracker’s life – so breaking a magical spell that turned him from a boy to a toy – and the Mouse King is defeated. In celebration, Drosselmeyer sweeps Clara and the Nutcracker off to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and take part in a wonderful display of dances. The next morning, Clara’s adventures seem to have been more than just a dream.
0.0Set in 16th-century France and Spain, Don Carlos tells of the political and amorous rivalry between King Philip II and his son, Don Carlos, over Elisabeth de Valois. Krzysztof Warlikowski strips down a tragedy haunted by ghosts, and places the intimate at the heart of an imaginary fresco truer than history itself. Along with Philippe Jordan, he reveals to the public the very first version of this great five-act opera: the version modified by Verdi himself for the work’s first performance in 1867.
8.0TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG is a grand opera by Richard Wagner in three acts. After experiencing boundless sensuality and freedom with the fun-loving Venus (soprano), the singer Tannhäuser (Tenor) finds it impossible to conform to the cultured setting of his betrothed Elizabeth (soprano), who loves him. During a singing contest, Tannhäuser describes the affair with Venus as the ultimate love experience and because of that, he is cast out from the established society. Thanks to Elizabeth's intervention, he is allowed to undertake a pilgrimage to the Pope to ask for the Holy Father's pardon. If the Pope accepts to forgive him, he would be allowed to take back his place in society. Tannhäuser accepts. But fate will not allow him to meet with his beloved Elizabeth again in this life. This is a recording of the legendary staging by Götz Friedrich for the 1978 Bayreuth Festival conducted by Sir Colin Davis.