Down in the Valley

Ariane et Barbe-Bleue(fr)

This recording of the opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Paul Dukas was staged at the Liceu in Barcelona in 2011, with Claus Guth as director, Stéphane Denève as conductor and José van Dam and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet in the leading roles.

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov(ru)

A one-off production of Boris Godunov was staged by Andrei Konchalovsky at the Teatro Regio in Torino in 2010, with Orlin Anastassov in the leading role and Gianandrea Noseda conducting the Orchestra del Teatro Regio.

Purcell: The Indian Queen(en)

A superb adaptation of Purcell's the Indian Queen, staged and directed by Peter Sellars and performed in 2013 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Peters Sellars combines John Dryden and Robert Howard's libretto with a short-story written by the Nicaraguan writer Rosario Aguilar, La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies.

Hocus Pocus 25th Anniversary Halloween Bash(en)

Join us for a night of celebration, packed with celebrity guests and Hocus Pocus throwbacks, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Around the World with Nellie Bly(en)

Made-for-TV musical inspired by the real-life travels of a celebrated 1800s female newspaper columnist.

Merrily We Roll Along(en)

Franklin Shepard is a talented Broadway composer who abandons his theater career and all his friends in New York in order to produce films in Los Angeles. The story begins at the height of his Hollywood fame and moves backwards in time, showing snapshots of the most important moments in Frank’s life that shaped the man he is today.

Rusalka(cs)

Otello(it)

This was Domingo's last set of performances as Otello in La Scala. In spite of his relatively advanced age, he is still in excellent form, both vocally and in terms of stage presence. Nucci is also his usual self, delivering a performance of very high standard. Barbara Frittoli is an excellent Desdemona, in good voice and gives a very moving performance. Muti conducts with great emotion and tight accuracy, conveying the full orchestral drama of the score.

Precious Daughter(cn)

Precious Daughter follows the couple's story even after their marriage. With the help of her caring mother, rich girl who is mute manages to marry the man of her dreams. However, their marriage soon runs into difficulties because of her inability to please her demanding sister-in-law. While the heroine regaining her voice leads to catastrophe for the hero in the original play, the two films celebrate the return of their heroines' voices with song and dance – thanks to the popularity of musicals at the time.

The Beauty and the Dumb(zh)

Anatole France's The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife has been adapted into three different Hong Kong films in the 1950s alone. These two adaptations stray from the source material considerably in genre, characterisation and plot, turning a farce about married life into localised romantic comedies that emphasise family values. The Beauty and the Dumb follows the couple from their meet-cute to the misunderstandings they encounter before the inevitable happy ending. The heir of a bank (Huang He) falls in love at first sight with one of the employees' daughter (Li Lihua), but their burgeoning relationship is nearly derailed when the girl's father intervenes to help his dumb daughter land a rich husband.

Rusalka(en)

Forsaken(en)

Black and white filming of the song "Das verlassene Mägdlein" by Hugo Wolf to lyrics by Eduard Mörike.

Świat w operze(pl)

Up Jumped a Swagman(en)

A dreamy Australian singer comes to London to seek his fortune and falls for a down-to-earth lass and a high-strung debutante at the same time.

La bailanta(es)

People from rural zone comes to Buenos Aires with the intention to improve it economic situation and end up in a shantytown and find an escape of this situation by goint to dance (Bailanta).

Mississippi(en)

A young pacifist after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.

The Girl Most Likely(fr)

Dodie dreams of marrying a millionaire so that she can live 'the life'. Buzz, her boyfriend, however, is not rich as he is a salesman for a housing development. He proposes and Dodie accepts. Dodie next meets Pete, who she thinks is rich, but she soon finds out that he is just a boat mechanic. They have fun on their date and Pete proposes and Dodie accepts. Then Dodie meets Neil Patterson who is rich. They go to Mexico on his yacht and have fun on their date. Neil proposes and Dodie accepts. Now she has to choose.

Hit the Deck(en)

Sailors on leave in San Francisco get mixed up in love and show business.

La Traviata(it)

Renée Fleming has matured into one of the finest sopranos around at the moment, a true star with a sparkling personality and a velvet-toned voice that is capable of wringing the finest emotions out of works by Strauss and Tchaikovsky that from a lesser singer could sound rather cold and clinical. I wouldn't have thought her voice would be so well suited to Violetta Valéry in La Traviata, and it does take some getting used to, but I think she at least brings a distinct quality to the role with an emotional heart that isn't always necessarily there when a leading diva uses it primarily as a display for her vocal talents. It's served well also by Antonio Pappano's conducting of the Royal Opera House Orchestra in a traditional, but effective production by Richard Eyre.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde(de)

Glyndebourne's celebrated production of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Tristan und Isolde is a supremely intelligent achievement; gravely beautiful, haunting and meditative, it is deeply reflective rather than visceral, fortified by Roland Aeschlimann's stunningly effective set, a womb-like space through which the protagonists move like gods. Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek mirrors Lehnhoff's approach in his sophisticated plumbing of the score's depths, with every shift in texture carefully laid bare by an inspired London Philharmonic Orchestra. Nina Stemme's Isolde and Robert Gambill's Tristan, both gloriously lyrical, are matched by superb performances from René Pape as the betrayed and vulnerable King Marke and Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal, deeply touching in his helpless devotion to Tristan. This High Definition recording of a production of uncommon intimacy reveals the opera's music and drama in a new light.