Beethoven's opera Fidelio.
Leonore
Florestan
Jacquino
Don Pizarro
Don Fernando
View from the Vault, Volume One, sometimes known simply as View from the Vault, is the first release in a series of DVDs and companion soundtracks by the Grateful Dead known as "View from the Vault". The audio is taken from the soundboard and the video from the video screens at the concerts. The first volume was recorded and filmed at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh on July 8, 1990 with bonus material recorded two days earlier at Cardinal Stadium, Louisville. The set was certified Gold by the RIAA on February 2, 2001.
One of the passengers on a ship carrying Poles on a cruise in December 1981 is a dissident high school teacher sent abroad by Solidarity. He is under surveillance of the secret police, anxious to get their hands on the info that he is carrying. When the ship is in the middle of the Baltic sea, martial law is declared and the ship is militarized. The captain announces he will turn and return the home port. Many anguished passengers put the life vests on and jump into the sea, where they are picked up by two German ships. The teacher, however, decides to return to Poland and continue the struggle for freedom.
Born in 1918 in the ideal village of independence activists in the northern part of Manchuria, pastor Moon Ik-hwan lost his childhood friend Yun Dong-ju under Japanese oppression and Chang Chun-ha during the Yusin regime. Moon survived the mass of modern Korean history, giving hope everywhere suffering.
Kelby Unger is a young man from a dysfunctional family that lives with his girlfriend Amelia Gates and has sleeping problems with dreadful nightmares. When he proposes Amelia, he coincidently receives a phone call from the warden of the prison of his hometown telling that his father had just died from heart attack. He decides to return to Bisbee for the funeral and Amelia goes with him. Kelby and Amelia lodge at his mother's house and he meets his slut sister Trish, his former friends James Lilly and the policeman Wally and his unknown uncle Tom. When Wally has a nervous breakdown with the name of Joshua, Kelby is haunted by the evil past in Bisbee.
During the Kosovo War thousands of Albanian women were held hostage by Serbian troops, tortured and forced to witness the execution of their husbands. According to the old law of Kanun war widows in Kosovo are forbidden to remarry, work or lead an independent life outside of their homes. Held back by tradition they are now fighting depression and poverty. In a small village of widows, counsellors are trying to convince the women that the healing journey can start right in their garden. All they need is a wooden box and a queen bee.
A TV special on the 100th anniversary of the birth of film.
Manilal's journey through people after the disturbing demise of his father.
Together with African small farmholders Tony Rinaudo, an Australian agronomist, has been fighting against the spread of the desert for 30 years and challenges ideas of conventional reforestation with his simple yet effective method.
A tale of paranormal romance, Kuasha Jakhon tells the story of a man who comes to sanctify a haunted mansion. But, the house's disturbing history and his exploration into its past, leads him to unexpected situations.
Charismatic Nolan Bentley wakes up in the middle of a remote forest, tied to a tree with no recollection of how he got there. With his time relentlessly running out, a mysterious stranger appears and he must finally reckon with the demons of his past and fight to survive to find a way out of his nightmare.
Witness the awesome power and the unimaginable destruction of explosive volcanoes, ground-buckling earthquakes, and deadly tornadoes as you head into the field with scientists who risk their lives exploring the origins and behaviors of these fearsome natural disasters.
Set during the Kosovo war, an Albanian doctor treats a local Serbian family in a small village and is accused of being a traitor by the local people.
When a classmate is accidentally killed, real-life sisters Misty and Chelsea Mundae have to work together to try and hide the body. At a remote cabin in the hills they encounter Juli, who tests their loyalty.
The short explores the relationship between George, a man trapped inside a small bottle, and Chako, a young girl who is scared of her alcoholic father. She is poor, but resilient, and she lives with her cat.
The NBA collides with WCW as the Chicago Bull's Dennis Rodman teams with Hollywood Hogan to take on the Utah Jazz's Karl Malone and "Diamond" Dallas Page. Goldberg defends the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Curt Hennig. "The Hitman" Bret Hart takes on Booker T for the WCW World Television Championship. Chris Jericho is forced to face an unknown opponent for the WCW Cruiserweight Title and more!
This first filmed concert by Raffi illustrates his immense charm. The soft-spoken singer leads his turquoise-clad, four-member band through 20 songs with a rapt audience of kids and parents singing along. Raffi's easy manner and fluid vocals create an atmosphere that is very welcoming to youngsters, easily going from cute songs ("Apples and Bananas") to popular songs ("Day O") to a Spanish number ("De Colores") without ever losing them. The video also captures another key element of Raffi's success--his gaze is always inviting. The songs (also available on CD) include Raffi favorites "Everything Grows" and "Baby Beluga" and lots of standards. A wonderful time for ages 2-10 and adults
Ring Cycle, pt 4. Siegfried is drugged and tricked into kidnapping his wife, since she has the Ring now. More double-crossings, Siegfried ends up dead. Brunnhilde has had enough of this, tosses the Ring into the river and torches the place.
For those with any interest in Vivaldi's operas Orlando Furioso is essential viewing, being a 1989 San Francisco Opera revival by Pier Luigi Pizzi of his own 1979 production which was largely responsible for beginning modern interest in Vivaldi's stage work. The composer first premiered Orlando finto pazzo in 1714, but the Orlando Furioso finalised in 1727 was so heavily reworked as to be virtually an entirely new opera, and so successful Handel set the same epic poem by Aristo under the title Alcina in 1735.
Scenes from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera with Canio, the clown, introducing actors who are seen in pantomime while the operatic voices are heard off-screen. Canio discovers his wife has been unfaithful but carries on with his performance.
Teatro Regio’s 2013 revival of their highly successful 2006 production of Verdi’s Don Carlo celebrates the 40th anniversary of the theatre’s reopening in 1973. With traditional staging and lavish costume design, the production garnered high acclaim in the national and international press, with GB Opera commending the ‘sumptuous’ setting and French online music magazine ResMusica praising director Hugo de Ana’s decision to revive the show ‘in all its splendour’. Shown here in the four-act version, Don Carlo is the fascinating tale of father-son power struggles, adultery and love that borders on incest. The cast – under the powerful baton of Gianandrea Noseda – is headed by renowned Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, and also features Ludovic Tézier, who has been hailed as ‘one of the best Verdian singers of our time’
A meditation on the female body as a source of both power and pain that focuses on the tragic figure of renowned American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas (1923-77), whose stunning soprano voice captivated audiences around the world in the mid-20th century while her life was wracked by scandal and personal suffering.
In his 'new life' as a baritone, Placido Domingo has triumphed in the role of Francesco Foscari in Los Angeles, London and Vienna. Now he takes to the role to La Scala, Milan, the theatre that is the symbol of Italian opera. I due Foscari, premiered in 1844, famously one of Verdi's darkest operas, is staged by Alvis Hermanis, who made such an impact at the Salzburg Festival with "Die Soldaten" and "Il trovatore". Domingo is joined by two of Italy's most exciting singers, the soprano Anna Pirozzi and the tenor Francesco Meli, and the acclaimed Italian conductor Michele Mariotti. The Financial Times was deeply moved by Domingo's performance, calling his interpretation of the role "sublime".
The Graham Vicks production of FALSTAFF opened the new Covent Garden Royal Opera House, and was not to everybody's taste; the garish primary colours of the costumes. The staging is effective--the complicated counterpoint of the ensembles is reflected in unobtrusive blocking that keeps the vocal lines clear and separate, especially in the final fugue. Bryn Terfel's Falstaff is a memorable creation, self-mocking and self-aggrandising at the same time--so much so, in fact, that he almost does not need the vast prosthetic body he has to wear for the part. Desiree Rancatore is an admirably sweet-toned Nanetta; Bernadette Manca di Nissa an appropriately sardonic Mistress Quickly; Roberto Frontali as Ford, in his Act 2 scena, perfectly distils and parodies every jealousy aria ever written, including Verdi's own. Haitink's conducting is exemplary in the lyrical passages, gets almost everything out of the fast and furious comic sections.
German composer Richard Wagner wrote Parsifal, which is a three-act opera that tells the story of the title character's quest to save the Knights of the Holy Grail by returning the Holy Spear, healing King Amfortas, and carrying out the sacred ceremony of uncovering the Holy Grail.
Coming just before the mature final works, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra - along with Un Ballo in Maschera, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, La Forza del Destino and Don Carlos - occupy a strange but fascinating hinterland in the career of the composer. Each of the operas, influenced by Verdi's political involvement in the Risorgimento for the reunification of Italy during the period, are very much concerned with the exercise of power, but they all rely on typically operatic conventions of bel canto and French Grand Opéra in their use of personal tragedies and unlikely twists of fate to highlight the human feelings and weaknesses that lie behind their historical dramas. Written in 1859, but revised by the composer in 1881, Piave's libretto given an uncredited reworking by Arrigo Boito, Simon Boccanegra is consequently one of the more interesting works from this period, certainly from a musical standpoint. Live from Teatro all Scala, Milan 2010.
The season kicks off with Boitos resplendent retelling of Goethes Faust, a monumental work of 'choral grandeur and melodic richness' (The New York Times) in one of the most impressive productions ever seen at the War Memorial Opera House. The cast includes Ramón Vargas, a tenor 'in ravishing voice' (Financial Times), as the philosopher who sells his soul to the Devil; the 'luminous, compelling' Patricia Racette (Washington Post) as the woman he desires; and, in the vividly menacing title role, the 'seductively malevolent' bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov, a 'fullbodied bass-baritone' renowned for his 'wonderfully evil portrayals' (The New York Times).
Rufus Wainwright's original opera finds Emperor Hadrian devastated after his lover Antinous drowns in the Nile River. While matters of state encroach on his grief, and advisors clamour for war against a radical new threat to the Empire, Hadrian slips out of time to re-encounter the vision and reality of Antinous—and learn the truth about what happened on the Nile.
In honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday, Tanglewood—the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra—dedicated its entire 2018 season to the iconic composer, conductor, performer, educator and humanitarian. The festivities culminated on Bernstein’s centennial birthday on August 25, 2018, in a special celebrity-studded gala concert. Directed for the stage by James Darrah, The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood illuminates the breadth of Bernstein’s incredible life and career, which inspired generations of music lovers around the globe – from his talent as a composer to his generosity in mentoring other composers and musicians, his inimitable role as a driving musical force at Tanglewood for over 50 years and more.
Charming, light-hearted and fizzing with subversive wit, Neil Armfield's sparkling production of the marriage of Figaro captures Mozart's most popular Opera. In this classic performance, recorded live at the Sydney Opera House, Patrick Summers conducts a energetic fresh-voiced cast, headed up by baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Taryn Fiebig who make a vivacious, appealing pairing as Figaro and Susanna, while Peter Coleman-Wright triumps as the lascivious Count Almaviva.
Opera based on the story of Edward II and Piers Gaveston. Music by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp. BBC broadcast of the 2018 premiere at the Royal Opera House, the composer conducting, prefaced by commentary and interviews.